This is a bibliography of South Carolina history. It contains English language (including translations) books and mainstream academic journal articles published after World War II.
Inclusion criteria
This list is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all works about South Carolina history. It is limited to works primarily or substantially about South Carolina history, published by state level or higher academic universities, mainstream national level publishers, or authored by recognized subject matter experts.[a]
Works about the colonial Carolinias[b] are included. Works regarding historical geography and South Carolina's natural history are included, but works about municipal and local history are excluded unless they have material applicable to the entire state. Notes are provided for annotations and citations for reviews in academic journals when helpful.
Citation style
This bibliography uses APA style citations. Entries do not use templates. References to reviews and notes for entries do use citation templates. Where books which are only partially related to South Carolina history are listed, the titles for chapters or sections should be indicated if possible, meaningful, and not excessive.
If a work has been translated into English, the translator should be included and a footnote with appropriate bibliographic information for the original language version should be included if possible.
When listing works with titles or names published with alternative English spellings, the form used in the latest published version should be used and the version and relevant bibliographic information noted if it previously was published or reviewed under a different title.
General works
Edgar, W. (1998). South Carolina: A History. University of South Carolina Press.
Tullos, A. (1989). Habits of industry: White culture and the transformation of the Carolina Piedmont. University of North Carolina Press.[1][2][3]
Wallace, D. D. (1951). South Carolina: A Short History, 1520–1948. University of North Carolina Press.[4][5][6]
Wright, L. B. (1976). South Carolina: A Bicentennial History. W. W. Norton & Company.
Johnson Jr., G. L. (1997). The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry, 1736–1800. Praeger/University of South Carolina Press.[9][10][11]
Sirmans, M. E. (2012). Colonial South Carolina: A Political History, 1663-1763. Omohundro Institute and UNC Press.
Smith, W. B. (1961). White Servitude in Colonial South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press.
Vecchio, D. C. (2024). Peddlers, Merchants, and Manufacturers: How Jewish Entrepreneurs Built Economy and Community in Upcountry South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press.
Weir, R. M. (1997). Colonial South Carolina: A History. University of South Carolina Press.
Wilson, T. D. (2016). The Ashley Cooper Plan: The Founding of Carolina and the Origins of Southern Political Culture. University of North Carolina Press.
Wood, P. H. (1996). Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion. W. W. Norton & Company.
Revolutionary era
Andrew Jr., R. (2012). Andrew Pickens: South Carolina Patriot in the Revolutionary War. McFarland & Company.
Andrew, R. (2017). The Life and Times of General Andrew Pickens: Revolutionary War Hero, American Founder (Illustrated edition). The University of North Carolina Press.
Brannon, R. (2016). From Revolution to Reunion: The Reintegration of the South Carolina Loyalists. University of South Carolina Press.[12][13][14]
Chaplin, J. E. (1991). Creating a Cotton South in Georgia and South Carolina, 1760–1815. Journal of Southern History, 57(2), 171–200.
Chaplin, J. E. (1991). Creating a Cotton South in Georgia and South Carolina, 1760–1815. Journal of Southern History, 57(2), 171–200.
Ford Jr., L. K. (1988). Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800–1860. Oxford University Press.[19][20][21]
Kinard Latimer, M. (1956). South Carolina—A Protagonist of the War of 1812. The American Historical Review, 61(4), 914–929. https://doi.org/10.2307/1848824
Megginson, W. J., & Burton, O. V. (2022). African American Life in South Carolina’s Upper Piedmont, 1780-1900 (2nd edition). University of South Carolina Press.
Channing, S. (1974). Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina. W. W. Norton & Company
Ford, L. K. (1984). Rednecks and Merchants: Economic Development and Social Tensions in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1865–1900. Journal of American History, 71(1), 294–318.
Holt, T. (1977). Black over White: Negro political leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction. University of Illinois Press.
Holt, T. C. (1982). Negro State Legislators in South Carolina during Reconstruction. University of Illinois Press.
Koivusalo, A. (2022). The Man Who Started the Civil War: James Chesnut, Honor, and Emotion in the American South. University of South Carolina Press.
Powers, B. E. Jr. (2011). "'The Worst of All Barbarism': Racial Anxiety and the Approach of Secession in the Palmetto State." South Carolina Historical Magazine, 112, 139–156.
Lucas, M. B. (1976). Sherman and the Burning of Columbia (1st edition). Texas A&M University.
Post Reconstruction
Bedingfield, S. (2011). John H. McCray, Accommodationism, and the Framing of the Civil Rights Struggle in South Carolina, 1940–48. Journalism History, 37(2), 91–101.
Carlton, D. L. (1982). Mill and Town in South Carolina, 1880–1920. Louisiana State University Press.
Cooper Jr., W. J. (1968). The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, 1877–1890. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Edgar, W. B. (2012). South Carolina in the Modern Age (Illustrated edition). University of South Carolina Press.
Ford, L. K. (1984). Rednecks and Merchants: Economic Development and Social Tensions in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1865–1900. Journal of American History, 71(1), 294–318.
Griffith, N. S., & Raynal, C. E. (2016). Presbyterians in South Carolina, 1925-1985. Wipf and Stock.
Hartness, C. L. T. (2023). “Our Country First, Then Greenville”: A New South City during the Progressive Era and World War I. University of South Carolina Press.
Hine, W. C. (2018). South Carolina State University: A Black Land-Grant College in Jim Crow America. University of South Carolina Press.
Simon, B. (1998). A Fabric of Defeat: The Politics of South Carolina Millhands, 1910–1948. University of North Carolina Press.
Bartels, Virginia B. "The History of South Carolina Schools" (Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement, 2005) online
Easterby, J. H. "The South Carolina Education Bill of 1770." South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 48.2 (1947): 95-111. online
Lesesne, Henry H. A history of the University of South Carolina, 1940-2000 ( U of South Carolina Press, 2001) online.
Meriwether, Colyer. History of Higher Education in South Carolina: With a Sketch of the Free School System. 1888 (US Government Printing Office, 1889) online.
Carney, J. A. (2002). Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Harvard University Press.
Chaplin, J. E. (1991). Creating a Cotton South in Georgia and South Carolina, 1760–1815. Journal of Southern History, 57(2), 171–200.
Coggeshall, J. M. (2018). Liberia, South Carolina: An African American Appalachian Community (Illustrated edition). The University of North Carolina Press.
Faber, E. (2021). The Child in the Electric Chair: The Execution of George Junius Stinney Jr. and the Making of a Tragedy in the American South. University of South Carolina Press.
Sinha, M. (2000). The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina. University of North Carolina Press.
Wood, P. H. (1996). Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion. W. W. Norton & Company.
Civil Rights
Bedingfield, S. (2011). John H. McCray, Accommodationism, and the Framing of the Civil Rights Struggle in South Carolina, 1940–48. Journalism History, 37(2), 91–101.
Grose, P. G. (2006). South Carolina at the Brink: Robert McNair and the Politics of Civil Rights. University of South Carolina Press.
Thomas, J. M. (2022). Struggling to learn: An intimate history of school desegregation in South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press.
Women and family
Burton, O. V. (1985). In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina. University of North Carolina Press.
Gatewood, W. B. (1991). “The Remarkable Misses Rollin”: Black Women in Reconstruction South Carolina. The South Carolina Historical Magazine, 92(3), 172–188. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27568239
Spruill, M. J. et al. (Eds.). (2009–2012). South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times (3 vols.). University of Georgia Press.
Clarke, E. (1996). Our Southern Zion: A History of Calvinism in the South Carolina Low Country, 1690–1990. University of Alabama Press.
Urban history
Butler, C. R. (2020). Lowcountry at High Tide: A History of Flooding, Drainage, and Reclamation in Charleston, South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press.
Carlton, D. L. (1982). Mill and Town in South Carolina, 1880–1920. Louisiana State University Press.
Hart, E. (2015). Building Charleston: Town and Society in the Eighteenth Century British Atlantic World. University of South Carolina Press.
Marks, J. G. (2020). Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery: Race, Status, and Identity in the Urban Americas. University of South Carolina Press.
Rosen, R. N. (2021). A Short History of Charleston (Revised and expanded edition). University of South Carolina Press.
Miscellaneous
Coclanis, P. A. (2005). Global Perspectives on the Early Economic History of South Carolina. South Carolina Historical Magazine, 106, 130–146.
Nagl, D. (2013). No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions - Law, State Formation and Governance in England, Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1630–1769. Verlag.
Tuten, J. H. (2010). Lowcountry Time and Tide: The Fall of the South Carolina Rice Kingdom. University of South Carolina Press.
Andrew Jr., R. (2012). Andrew Pickens: South Carolina Patriot in the Revolutionary War. McFarland & Company.
Andrew, R. (2017). The Life and Times of General Andrew Pickens: Revolutionary War Hero, American Founder (Illustrated edition). The University of North Carolina Press.
Bass, J., & Thompson, M. W. (2003). Ol' Strom: An unauthorized biography of Strom Thurmond. Little, Brown and Company.
Brock, E. W. (1981). Thomas W. Cardozo: Fallible Black Reconstruction Leader. Journal of Southern History, 47(2), 183–206.
Boyce, T. D. (2023). Steady and Measured: Benner C. Turner, A Black College President in the Jim Crow South. University of South Carolina Press.
Cheek Jr., H. L. (2004). Calhoun and Popular Rule: The Political Theory of the Disquisition and Discourse. University of Missouri Press.
Curran, R. E. (Ed.). (2019). For Church and Confederacy: The Lynches of South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press.
Faber, E. (2021). The Child in the Electric Chair: The Execution of George Junius Stinney Jr. and the Making of a Tragedy in the American South. University of South Carolina Press.
Grose, P. G. (2006). South Carolina at the Brink: Robert McNair and the Politics of Civil Rights. University of South Carolina Press.
Kantrowitz, S. (2000). Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. University of North Carolina Press.
Keyserling, H. (1998). Against the tide: One woman's political struggle. University of South Carolina Press.
Koivusalo, A. (2022). The Man Who Started the Civil War: James Chesnut, Honor, and Emotion in the American South. University of South Carolina Press.
Lamson, P. (1973). The Glorious Failure: Black Congressman Robert Brown Elliott and the Reconstruction in South Carolina. W.W. Norton & Company.
Moulton, D. (2000). Christopher Gadsden and Henry Laurens: The Parallel Lives of Two American Patriots. Susquehanna University Press.
Niven, J. (1988). John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography. Louisiana State University Press.
Oller, J. (2010). The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution. Da Capo Press.
Rogers, G. C. (1962). Evolution of a Federalist: William Loughton Smith of Charleston (1758–1812). University of South Carolina Press.
Scarborough, W. K. (2011). Propagandists for Secession: Edmund Ruffin of Virginia and Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina. South Carolina Historical Magazine, 112, 126–138.
Regional works
This section includes regional studies of what is now the southeastern United States which include substantial content about South Carolina.
Brown, D. C. (2011). King Cotton: A cultural, political, and economic history since 1945. University Press of Mississippi.
Crane, V. W. (1956). The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732. University of Michigan Press.
Edwards, L. F., & Sensbach, J. F. (2023). A New History of the American South (W. F. Brundage, Ed.). The University of North Carolina Press.
Foner, E. (2014). Reconstruction Updated Edition: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Peirce, N. R. (1974). The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States, 1960–72. W. W. Norton & Company.[22][23]
Sublette, N., & Sublette, C. (2015). The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry. Lawrence Hill Books.[24]
^Works included by subject matter experts should have reviews in academic journals.
^North Carolina and South Carolina were split in 1729. Georgia was governed loosely as part of the Carolinas until it was spilt from South Carolinia into a separate colony in 1732.
Citations
^Newby, I. A. (1991). "Reviewed work: Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont, Allen Tullos". The American Historical Review. 96 (2): 612. doi:10.2307/2163416. JSTOR2163416.
^Pocius, Gerald L. (1995). "Reviewed work: Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont, Allen Tullos". The Journal of American Folklore. 108 (427): 107–109. doi:10.2307/541744. JSTOR541744.
^Simkins, Francis B. (1952). "Reviewed work: South Carolina: A Short History, 1520-1948, David Duncan Wallace". The Journal of Southern History. 18 (4): 526–528. doi:10.2307/2955234. JSTOR2955234.
^Shepperson, George (1953). "Reviewed work: South Carolina--A Short History, 1520-1948, David Duncan Wallace". The English Historical Review. 68 (267): 310–311. doi:10.1093/ehr/LXVIII.CCLXVII.310. JSTOR555008.
^A. K. G. (1952). "Reviewed work: South Carolina: A Short History 1520-1948, David Duncan Wallace". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 53 (3): 177–178. JSTOR27565864.
^Goloboy, Jennifer (2011). "Reviewed work: Building Charleston: Town and Society in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World, Emma Hart". The Journal of Southern History. 77 (4): 908–909. JSTOR41305661.
^Krawczynski, Keith (2012). "Reviewed work: Building Charleston: Town and Society in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World, Emma Hart". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 113 (1): 68–70. JSTOR41698087.
^Benser, Caroline Cepin; Johnson, George Lloyd (1998). "Reviewed work: The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry, 1736-1800, George Lloyd Johnson, Jr". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 99 (3): 295–297. JSTOR27570322.
^Friend, Craig Thompson; Johnson, George Lloyd (1998). "Reviewed work: The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry, 1736-1800, George Lloyd Johnson Jr". The North Carolina Historical Review. 75 (2): 221–222. JSTOR23522630.
^Zeigler, Benjamin Turner; Johnson, George Lloyd (1999). "Reviewed work: The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry, 1736-1800, George Lloyd Johnson Jr". The Journal of Southern History. 65 (2): 384–385. doi:10.2307/2587376. JSTOR2587376.
^Krawczynski, Keith (2016). "Reviewed work: From Revolution to Reunion: The Reintegration of the South Carolina Loyalists, Rebecca Brannon". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 117 (4): 336–339. JSTOR45048437.
^Piecuch, Jim; Brannon, Rebecca (2017). "Reviewed work: From Revolution to Reunion: The Reintegration of the South Carolina Loyalists, BrannonRebecca". The American Historical Review. 122 (4): 1209–1210. doi:10.1093/ahr/122.4.1209. JSTOR26577061.
^Stucker, John J. (2003). "Reviewed work: South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History, John W. Gordon". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 104 (2): 130–132. JSTOR27570627.
^Maass, John R. (2004). "Reviewed work: South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History, John W. Gordon". The North Carolina Historical Review. 81 (2): 233–234. JSTOR23523005.
^McDonough, Daniel (2017). "Reviewed work: The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution, John Oller". The South Carolina Historical Magazine. 118 (4): 321–323. JSTOR45283247.
^Faust, Drew Gilpin; Ford, Lacy K. (1990). "Reviewed work: Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860, Lacy K. Ford, Jr". The American Historical Review. 95 (4): 1291–1292. doi:10.2307/2163686. JSTOR2163686.
^Kruman, Marc W.; Ford, Lacy K. (1991). "Reviewed work: Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860, Lacy K. Ford, Jr". The Georgia Historical Quarterly. 75 (1): 155–157. JSTOR40582286.
^Huff, A. V.; Ford, Lacy K. (1990). "Reviewed work: Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860, Lacy K. Ford, Jr". The Journal of American History. 76 (4): 1260–1261. doi:10.2307/2936629. JSTOR2936629.
^Gatewood, Willard B. (1974). "Reviewed work: The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States, Neal R. Peirce". The Journal of Southern History. 40 (4): 639–641. doi:10.2307/2206360. JSTOR2206360.
^Bartley, Numan V. (1975). "Reviewed work: The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States, Neal R. Peirce". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 54 (2): 234–235. JSTOR30147353.