The ABCs of

Famous

South Carolina

Women

Created by:

James Bryan

AaSara Lee Harris Ayers was born on the Catawba

Reservation near Rock Hill, daughter of a former

chief of the nation. She learned to make the famous

Catawba pottery selling at the Cherokee

Reservation in North Carolina and later in

Pennsylvania. She later moved to West Columbia,

but continued making the Catawba pottery. Ayers

received many awards and honors for her work,

examples of which are in the Native American

Museum

Sara Lee

Harris Sanders Ayers

Bb

Margaret Catherine (Kate) Moore, a Patriot, was born in 1752 in

Ireland, and later she and her family made a new life for

themselves in the Piedmont region of South Carolina. At the

age of fifteen, she married Andrew and settled in Spartanburg

County, across the Tyger River, about two miles from Walnut

Grove. Kate Barry was an excellent horsewoman, and she was

very familiar with the wilderness and the Indian trails around

her plantation. The Moore family became the leaders of the

patriot cause in that part of the upcountry. Their home, Walnut

Grove Plantation, became the focal point of anti-loyalist forces

during the Revolutionary War. When General Daniel Morgan

assembled his troops at Hanna's Cowpens, thirteen miles from

Walnut Grove, Kate Barry rode out to give the call to arms to

the Patriots in the surrounding countryside.

Catherine

Moore Barry

BbCharlotta Amanda Spears Bass, born in Sumter, was an

American educator, newspaper publisher-editor, and civil

rights activist. Bass was probably the first African

American woman to own and operate her own newspaper

in the United States; she published the California Eagle

from 1912 until 1951. In 1952 Bass became the first

African American woman nominated to run for national

office as the Progressive Party's Vice Presidential

candidate.

Charlotta Bass

Bb

Mary McLeod Bethune was born in Mayesville, SC on July 10,

1875, one of 17 children born to Samuel and Patsy McLeod,

former slaves. She was educated at the Presbyterian Mission

School in Mayesville, Scotia Seminary and the Moody Bible

Institute. Her interest in education led her in 1904 to found the

Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls (now

Bethune-Cookman College ) in Florida, where she served as

president from 1904-1942 and from 1946-47. Her honors include

the Haitian Medal of Honor and Merit, and the Commander of

the Order of the Star of Africa from Liberia. She was the first

African American woman to be involved in the White House,

assisting four different presidents.

Mary McLeod Bethune

BbSince the 1970s this Ridge Spring author has delighted South

Carolina children with her books about life in the Palmetto

State. Her award-winning historical fiction titles include The

Secret Life of Telfair Inn and The Mystery of Edisto Island.

Mrs. Bodie also wrote a series of books about heroes and

heroines of the Revolution featuring notable figures in our

early history such as Francis Marion, William Jasper, Rebecca

Motte, and Thomas Sumter. Written for adults, South Carolina

Women chronicles the lives of 51 important women from

throughout our state's history.

Idela Bodie

Martha Bratton

With her husband was away fighting, Martha Bratton was left in

charge of the gunpowder hidden on their property in South

Carolina. The British were given a tip about the gunpowder and

went to take the powder. Bratton was told but did not have

enough time to move the gunpowder. Not wanting the British to

get  hold of the ammunition, Bratton came up with another plan. 

She poured a trail of powder far away from its location and, when

she heard the British approaching lit the trail.  The British were

furious and demanded to know who had blown up the

ammunition.  Even with the threat of severe punishment Bratton

willfully replied, “It was I who did it…let the consequence be

what it will, I glory in having prevented the mischief

contemplated by the cruel enemies of my country.”

Bb

CcMary Boykin Chesnut was born on 31 March 1823 in

Pleasant Hill, South Carolina. Her father, Stephen

Miller, was the governor of South Carolina, and her

mother was Mary Boykin. Mary was opposed to

slavery and believed in the southern states' right to

secede from the Union. Between February 1861 and

July 1865, Mary kept a 400,000 word diary of the

War for Southern Independence. Mary died on 22

November 1886, but her diary was not published

until 1905. It is titled A Diary from Dixie.

Mary Boykin

Chesnut

Septima Poinsette Clark is considered to be one of the

mothers of the civil rights movement. As an active member

of the NAACP, she helped the organization fight to obtain

equal pay for Black teachers who were paid substantially

less than White teachers. As a teacher and state employee,

Clark was prohibited from being a member of the NAACP

and was fired in 1956 for refusing to relinquish her NAACP

membership. Later, Mrs. Clark moved to Tennessee to work

for Highlander Folk School where one of the participants

was Rosa Parks. Between 1957 and 1970, with the

assistance of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

(SCLC), she had established and trained teachers for 897

citizenship schools in the South.

Septima Pointsette Clark

Cc

Carol Connor was born January 2, 1950 in Kingstree. She

graduated from Converse College in 1972 and received her Juris

Doctor from the University of South Carolina in 1976. Upon

graduation from Law School, Judge Connor worked as an

Assistant South Carolina Attorney General from 1976 to 1977,

and, in 1977 she joined the Richland County Public Defenders

Office until 1981 when she entered private practice in Richard

County. She was elected to the South Carolina Family Court in

1983 and served until 1988. She became the first woman to serve

as a South Carolina Circuit judge, having been elected in 1988,

and was also the first woman to serve as an acting member of

the South Carolina Supreme Court. She was elected to the South

Carolina Court of Appeals in 1993 where she served until her

retirement due to illness.

Carol Connor

Cc

Ann Pamela Cunningham (1816-1875), America’s first historic

preservationist founded the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association,

to save President George Washington’s home. Ann Pamela

Cunningham received a letter from her mother in 1853 informing

her of the deplorable conditions of President George

Washington’s home, Mount Vernon. Cunningham immediately

began a campaign to save the home site by writing to the

Charleston Mercury, asking Southern women to save the home,

and soon she sought support of women in the North resulting in

1854, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union was

created. In 1858 the Association was able to purchase and to

preserve George Washington’s home.

Ann Pamela

Cunningham

Cc

Hattie Duckett is best remembered for the Phyllis

Wheatley Association that she organized in 1919,

Hattie Duckett is one of Greenville's most important

leaders. Not only did she direct efforts to give African

Americans opportunities to further their development,

she opened her heart and home to those who needed

any kind of help. Mrs. Duckett was honored by the

board of trustees of the Greenville County School

System by naming the Fine Arts Center building after

this fine leader. Duckett was born in 1885 and died in

1956.

Hattie Logan

Duckett

Dd

Born in Bennettsville the youngest of five children of a

Baptist preacher, Edelman attended Spellman College in

Atlanta and Yale University, where she received her law

degree in 1963. She began her career as an attorney for the

NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, serving as the

director of the Jackson, Miss., office and becoming the first

African American woman admitted to the Mississippi bar. In

1968 she moved to Washington, D.C., and started the

Washington Research Project, which later (1973) became

the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), a child advocacy lobby.

Marian Wright Edelma

n

Ee

Mary Lillian Ellison, better known by her ring name, The

Fabulous Moolah, was an American female professional

wrestler. Born in Kershaw County, she grew up in

Tookiedoo, twelve miles from Columbia. She won the NWA

World Women's Championship in 1956 and was the most

prominent holder of the title for approximately the next thirty

years. In the 1980s, she joined the World Wrestling

Federation (WWF) as part of the Rock 'n' Wrestling

Connection storyline, feuding with Cyndi Lauper and Wendi

Richter, the latter of whom defeated her for the WWF

Women's Championship in 1984. She was inducted into the

WWF Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the first woman to be

inducted.

Mary Lillian Ellison

Ee

Ff

Mae Flemming Brown (June 28, 1933-June 16, 1993[1]) was an

African American woman who was expelled from a bus in

Columbia, seventeen months before Rosa Parks refused to

surrender her seat on an Alabama bus in 1955. On June 22,

1954, Flemming boarded a bus to go to work. She took the

only empty seat, which she believed began the rows in which

black riders were allowed to sit. The driver challenged her, and

humiliated, she signaled to get off at the next stop. The bus

driver blocked her attempt to exit through the front of the bus

and punched her in the stomach as he ordered her out the rear

door. Flemming's lawsuit against the bus company played an

important role later in the Parks case.

Sarah Mae

Flemming

Ff

In the post-Civil War period, a notable "new woman" was

Charleston's Susan Pringle Frost . A member of an illustrious old

family, Frost constantly challenged convention, as a federal

district court stenographer, as a real estate woman with an office

in the professional district, as a women's rights advocate. She

helped get women admitted to the College of Charleston and

headed city and state National Woman's Party efforts to achieve

women's suffrage. In a rapidly expanding sweep, beginning

about 1909, Miss Frost bought and renovated numerous houses

in the historic East Battery district. Indebtedness mounted, and

to aid her efforts she founded and for many years headed the

Preservation Society of Charleston.

Susan Pringle Frost

As General Nathaniel Greene retreated before the British from

Ninety-Six during the Revolutionary War,, he was anxious to

send an order to General Thomas Sumter, the Fighting

Gamecock, who was then encamped on the Wateree. No one

was willing to run the risk of traveling a section of country that

was controlled by Tories. Finally a young girl, Emily Geiger,

offered her services. Greene wrote a message, which he gave to

the girl, but he also asked her to memorize it. Emily set out, and

was safe until the second day, when she was caught by British

scouts. She was held by them, waiting to be searched. Emily

used the time to eat the written message. Finding nothing on

her, the British released her. By taking another route, she

succeeded in delivering her message. Soon, Sumter soon joined

the main army at Orangeburg.

Emily Geiger

Gg

Althea Gibson was born in the rural community of Silver, and

her family later moved to Harlem where she came to the

attention of Dr. Walter Johnson who became her patron. She

was the first African American to win championships at Grand

Slam tournaments such as Wimbledon , the French Open and

the US Open. Gibson won a total of 11 major titles in the

1950s including singles at the French Open (1958),

Wimbledon (1957, 1958) and US Open (1957, 1958). She was

the Associate Press Female Athlete of the Year (1957, 1958)

and the first black female to receive the award. Following her

retirement from tennis she continued to serve on various

boards and commissions related to athletics.

Althea Gibso

n

Gg

One of the most important women in South Carolina

educational history, Wil Lou Gray dedicated her life and

career to creating opportunities to learn for the

disadvantaged people of South Carolina. She rose above the

race and class barriers in her native state by focusing her

energy on the eradication of illiteracy through progressive

educational programs designed for adults. In a state rife with

bigotry and segregation, she “championed equal education

for both races without being dismissed as an idle dreamer or

revolutionary.

Wil Lou Gray

Gg

The Grimké sisters, Sarah and Angelina, grew up on a

slave owning plantation in South Carolina, but

strongly disapproved of the practice of slavery. They

spoke out against both slavery and the exclusion of

women from public life. Sarah Moore Grimké (1792-

1873) went to Philadelphia in 1821 where she joined

the Quakers. Her sister Angelina (1805-1879) followed

in 1829. Lucretia Mott was an important influence on

their development as reformers with the formation of

the. Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1835.

Grimké Sisters

Gg

Lauren Hutton was born in Charleston, and she is

an former model and actress. She attended Ashley

Hall before graduating from Tulane University. In

the 70s she was a successful model for the Ford

Agency before moving to acting. She is best known

for her starring roles in the movies American

Gigolo , Zorro, the Gay Blade, and Lassiter, and

also for her fashion modeling career.

Lauren

Hutton

Hh

Issaqueena fell in love with David Francis, a silversmith who

lived in what is now the town of Ninety Six, South Carolina.

Learning that her people planned a surprise attack on the

settlement, Issaqueena mounted her horse to warn the settlers.

Issaqueena and David fled to what is now Stumphouse

Mountain north of Walhalla to escape the fury of her betrayed

tribe. The lovers lived in a large, hollowed-out tree or

Stumphouse. Finally tracked down by her tribesmen,

Issaqueena raced to a nearby falls (now Issaqueena Falls) and

plunged out of sight into the cataract. Believing her dead, the

warriors gave up the search.

Issaqueena, a

legend

Ii

Henrietta de Beaulieu Dering Johnston (ca. 1674 – March 9,

1729) was a pastelist of uncertain origin active in the South

Carolina colony in North America. She began to work as a

portrait artist in Charles Town (now Charleston), making her the

first known professional woman artist in America. She is both

the earliest recorded female artist and the first known pastelist

working in the English colonies. About forty portraits by

Johnston are known to survive; these tend to depict members

of her social circle and, later, of her husband's Charleston

congregation. Many of her South Carolina portraits depict

members of Huguenot families that had settled in the New

World, including the Prioleaus, Bacots, and duBoses.

Henrietta

Johnson

Jj

Peanut Johnson, born in Ridgeway, played professional

baseball for three seasons, from 1953 to 1955. Mamie tried out,

and made the Indianapolis Clowns, a Negro League team.  At the

time, the Clowns were the only team in the league to feature

women as players, so Johnson played against all-male teams. 

While she was pitching her first game with the Clowns, Hank

Baylis, a batter on the opposing team, yelled to her, "What

makes you think you can strike a batter out? Why, you aren't

any larger than a peanut!" Mamie struck him out, and from that

day was known as "Peanut." During her tenure, she won thirty-

three games and lost eight. Her batting average ranged

from .262 to .284.  

Mammie

“Peanut”

Johnson

Jj

Eartha Kitt was born on a cotton plantation in South

Carolina, but was given away by her mother and sent to live

with an aunt in Harlem, at the age of eight. With an enduring

career that has spanned theater, cabaret, television, and the

recording industry, Eartha Kitt has become nothing less

than a household name. Many people remember her best as

the original Catwoman in the Batman television series. She

is an international star who has given new meaning to the

word versatility. Also, she is one of only a handful of

performers to be nominated twice for both a Tony Award

and a Grammy Award as well as for an Emmy. 

Eartha Kitt

Kk

Martha Daniell Logan was born in Charles Town, daughter of a

landgrave. She inherited her father’s property. After her husband’s

death, her passion was gardening, and with this she wrote

Gardner's Kalendar, the first American treatise on gardening. She

earned a reputation not only as a woman of letters but also as a

savvy businesswoman and a gifted horticulturist. Logan's writings

are an essential source for information about women's culture in the

colonial South. Her treatise on gardening, for example, not only

describes the sort of work expected of women in the colonial South

but also expresses many shared cultural values. Logan's writing

and gardening allowed her access to some of the most influential

horticulturists of her day.

Martha Daniell Logan

Ll

Moore was born to in Lake City. She graduated from the

University of South Carolina in 1975 with a BA in Political

Science. After school, she worked for a political research

firm in Washington, DC. In 1981, Moore received an MBA

from George Washington University and joined other MBAs

at the Chemical Bank’s training program. During the 1980s,

Moore made a name for herself by taking over companies in

bankruptcy and making them profitable. By the early 1990s,

she was the highest paid woman in banking. In 1991, Moore

married Richard Rainwater. She was named president of

Rainwater, Inc in 1993, aged 39. Fortune Magazine named

Moore one of the 50 Most Powerful Women In Business in

1998 and 1999.

Darla Moore

Mm

Rebecca Motte was the daughter of Robert Brewton, an

English gentleman who settled in Charles Town. In 1758

Rebecca married Jacob Motte, and settled at Buckhead,

situated on the south side of the Congaree became her

summer residence. After the Americans gained Camden, the

British turned Motte’s plantation into a small fort, surrounding

it with a deep trench end inside raised a lofty parapet. Soon

the Americans saw that the home must be burned. Mrs. Motte

had in her possession a bow & several arrows brought from

the East Indies, especially prepared to carry combustible

material. The arrows set fire to the roof in three different

places forcing the British to surrender; soldiers from both

armies climbed to the roof and extinguished the fire.

Rebecca Motte

Mm

Born in Darlington County, Annie Green Nelson was the oldest

of 14 children. Her parents instilled honesty, truth, devotion,

and love into their children. Her education started at a five-

month school on the Parrot's Plantation in her home state;

later she attended Benedict College and Voorhees College.

Annie Green Nelson studied drama at the University of South

Carolina when she was 80 years old. Nelson's first published

work, a poem titled "What Do You Think of Mother?" appeared

in the Palmetto Leader newspaper in 1925. Nelson's books,

After the Storm (1945), The Dawn Appears, Don't Walk on My

Dreams, and others portray the lifestyles of average black

people. She is the first African American South Carolina

woman to have novel published.

Annie Green Nelson

Nn

As the granddaughter of William Gilmore Simms, she was a

natural choice to update his 1840 history of the state. Her work

on this project was begun shortly after her graduation from the

College for Women in Charleston. By the next year, shortly

after her marriage to Albert D. Oliphant, the book was finished.

Mrs. Oliphant made a successful presentation to the Board of

Education which adopted her book as a text for use for the

next five years. This was in 1917 (before women had the right

to vote) and thus began a long career of writing history texts.

After updating her grandfather's book for many years, in 1932

she wrote one of her own. This text book spanned the

generations in its use by SC middle school students from the

1930's until 1985.

Mary Simms Olipha

nt

Oo

Pp

Peggy Parish was born in Manning, South Carolina on July 14,

1927. She developed a love for reading at an early age and, even

as a child, enjoyed writing very much. She attended the

University of South Carolina and received a Bachelor of Arts

degree in English. At the time of her graduation, not many people

were becoming teachers. While visiting her brother in Kentucky,

Peggy was persuaded to enter the teaching profession, and this

is when Peggy began writing. Her most famous creation of

Amelia Bedelia in 1963. Peggy went on to write 11 more Amelia

Bedelia books. Sadly, Peggy died of an aneurysm on November

19, 1988. Her spirit, though, is very much alive, thanks in part to

her loving nephew, Herman Parish.

Peggy Parrish

Pp

Julia Mood Peterkin won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1929 for

her feminist comedy Scarlet Sister Mary. Raised by a Gullah-

speaking nurse in South Carolina, Peterkin was a native speaker of

the language, and wrote with a richness of texture that was not

found in works by white authors. She was praised for avoiding the

racist stereotypes that other white writers commonly employed

when writing of black culture. In the mid-1930s, Peterkin was

employed by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Projects

Administration (WPA) to collect folklore from the African Americans

in her community and white communities on Waccamaw Neck and

Sandy Island in Georgetown County, and the Freewoods and

Holmestown Road in Horry County, just up the Waccamaw River,

from Murrells Inlet.

Julia Mood

Peterkin

Pp

Eliza Lucas Pinckney, probably the first important

agriculturalist of the United States! She was still quite young,

her family moved to a farming area near Charleston, South

Carolina, where her mother died soon after. By age sixteen,

Eliza was left to take care of her siblings and run three

plantations when her father, a British military officer, had to

return to the Caribbean. Starting in 1739, she began cultivating

and creating improved strains of the indigo plant from which a

blue dye can be obtained. Eliza also experimented with other

crops. She planted a large fig orchard, with the intention of

drying figs for export and experimented with flax, hemp and

silk. At age twenty-two she married Charles Pinckney.

Eliza Lucas

Pinckney

PpAs a young widow in the 1870s, Elizabeth Pringle managed

the farm she once shared with her husband as well as the

Georgetown County farm where she grew up. To generate

additional income, she sold a weekly column describing life

to the New York Sun. Readers were particularly interested

in her stories about the daily lives of African-American

workers. In 1914, her collected columns were published as

A Woman Rice Planter. A second volume, Chronicles of

Chicora Wood, was published in 1921 and related her

memories of childhood, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Elizabeth

Allston Pringle

Qq

The Cofitachiqui were considered one

of the most highly civilized tribes of

their time. This reputation prompted de

Soto to locate the tribe. He kidnapped

their leader and demanded that she

take him to places of great wealth.

After several days, the Queen of the

Cofitachiqui escaped, accompanied by

several of de Soto's men.

Queen of the

Cofitachiqui

Rr

Dorcas Nelson was the daughter of Captain John Nelson of

South Carolina, a native of Ireland. At the age of 20, Dorcas

Nelson married Captain Richard Richardson in 1761, and moved

to her husband's home, about twenty miles up the river, near the

junction of the Congaree and the Wateree. Following the fall of

Charleston, the county was overrun with British troops and

Tories who took possession of the Richardson plantation, which

they made British headquarters. When the British officers

discovered that Captain Richardson had gathered patriots

around him and joined forces with Marion, they made offers of

pardon, wealth, and promotion to Dorcas if she would use her

influence to have her husband join forces with them. She

refused to even lay the matter before her husband.

Dorcas Nelson

Richardson

Ss

Marie Cromer Seigler (1882 - 1964), educator and national

pioneer in agricultural instruction. In 1910, as teacher and

principal of Talatha School, she founded a Girls' Tomato Club,

the first of many such clubs nationwide and a forerunner, along

with the Boys' Corn Clubs, of the national 4-H Clubs, supported

by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Marie Cromer said of her

efforts to encourage girls and young women interested in

agriculture, "I made up my mind I was going to do some thing for

country girls." With the support of Aiken Superintendent of

Education Cecil H. Seigler, whom she married in 1912, she

established Home Demonstration clubs and created

Home Economics courses in Aiken schools. She was honored

by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 for her role as a

founder of 4-H Clubs.

Marie Cromer Seigler

SsBorn in Columbia in 1899, Ms. Simkins was a school

teacher who was active in the South Carolina chapter

of the NAACP. Her experience in the classroom

helped attorneys shape a critical lawsuit against

Clarendon County. The case became one of a group

of similar suits from around the South that led to the

US Supreme Court's 1954 decision that separate

schools were not equal and thus violated the 14th

Amendment to the Constitution.

Modjeska

Monteith

Simkins

Ss

Composer, writer, artist. Lily Strickland was born in 1884 in

Anderson. Her father died when she was young, leaving Lily and

her brothers to grow up in the Anderson home of her

grandparents, Judge and Mrs. J. Pinckney Reed. She attended

Anderson schools and began studying piano at the age of six.

Encouraged by her family, she published her first composition

while still in her teens and studied piano and composition at

Converse College . In 1905 she received a scholarship for study

at the Institute of Musical Arts in New York (the forerunner to

Julliard). Strickland spent the rest of her life composing, writing,

and painting all over the world as she followed her husband to

his various jobs. Strickland published 395 musical works for

popular, church, and children’s performances. Her early works

displayed the influences of life in the South.

Lily Strickla

nd

Tt

Inez Moore Tenenbaum is currently serving as the Chairman of the

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Ms. Tenenbaum was

elected South Carolina's State Superintendent of Education in 1998

and completed her second term in 2007. Throughout her career, Ms.

Tenenbaum has been an energetic and determined advocate for

children and families and has extensive experience in administrative

and regulatory matters. During her tenure as South Carolina's State

Superintendent of Education, student achievement in South Carolina

improved at the fastest rate in the nation, with scores increasing on

every state, national, and international tests administered. At the

end of Ms. Tenenbaum's tenure, the prestigious journal Education

Week ranked South Carolina number one in the country for the

quality of its academic standards, assessment, and accountability

systems.

Inez Tenenbau

m

Tt

She could be called South Carolina's first feminist. Defying

expectations of women in the Revolutionary War era, stories of Jane

Thomas reveal her as a fearless foe and first-class friend to the Patriot

cause. While her husband fought elsewhere, Jane was left "tending the

home fires" of their Spartanburg county farm. Tory troops arrived to

capture a supply of ammunition stored on the her property. As soldiers

approached the house, Jane and her children formed a production line

and fed bullets as fast as they could to her brother-in-law, Josiah

Culbertson. Culbertson fired from one window of the cabin then

moved to another so rapidly the Tories thought they were up against a

large Patriot guard. Finally, Jane burst out of the cabin, sword in hand,

and dared the Tories to advance further. Intimidated, they retreated

and the ammunition was saved for America.

Jane Black

Thomas

Tt

As editor and publisher of the South Carolina Gazette, she was

America's first female newspaper owner, editor, and publisher. Her

husband Lewis began the paper with financial backing from Benjamin

Franklin but died in 1738. To continue publication and fulfill their

contact with Franklin, the couple's 13 year-old son Peter was named

publisher on the Gazette's masthead; however it was Elizabeth who

edited and published the paper for the next eight years. At the time,

the printing process was extremely labor intensive and printed

materials were highly prized. When 21-year-old Peter took over the

paper in 1746, Elizabeth opened a bookstore and continued to provide

books and pamphlets to the colonists of Charles Towne.

Elizabeth Timothy

Tt

Born in Columbia, Jean Hoefer Toal is the first woman and

the first Roman Catholic to serve as Chief Justice of the

Supreme Court of South Carolina. Toal graduated from

Agnes Scott College in 1965 and the University of South

Carolina School of Law in 1968, where she was Managing

Editor of the South Carolina Law Review. As a lawyer, she

argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of

the Catawba Nation. She represented Richland County as a

Democrat in the South Carolina House of Representatives

for 13 years before being elected to the South Carolina

Supreme Court in 1988. She was elected Chief Justice in

2000. She served as the President of the Conference of

Chief Justices from July 2007-July 2008.

Jean Toal

Uu

Born in Wedgefield, Angelica Singleton Van Buren, born Sarah

Angelica Singleton was the daughter-in-law of the 8th United

States President Martin Van Buren. She was married to the

President's son, Abraham Van Buren. She assumed the post of

First Lady because the president's wife had died 17 years earlier.

and he remained unwed throughout the rest of his life. She was

related by marriage to Dolley Madison, and as first lady she

brought an air of sophistication. She married Abraham Van Buren

on November 27, 1838, in Wedgefield. After Martin was defeated

for re-election in 1841 , Angelica and her husband lived at the Van

Buren home in Kinderhook, NY, wintering at her family home in

South Carolina. From 1848 until her death, she lived in New York

City.

Angelica Singleto

n Van Buren

Vv

Elizabeth O’Neill Verner was born in Charleston, daughter of

a prosperous rice factor and lived a life of privilege mid-

1890's. In 1900 her parents, recognizing her talent, sent her

to Philadelphia to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art

under Thomas Anchutes. She returned to Charleston in 1903

at the time of her father's death, to that her father’s business

was unstable. Her etchings, drypoints and pastels of

Charleston are her best known works. She also made many

drawings in Charleston and in other places around the world.

The South Carolina Arts Commission awards the Elizabeth

O’Neill Verner Governor’s Awards for the Arts in her honor.

Elizabeth O’Neill Verner

Vv

Juanita Willmon-Goggins is a trailblazer. Four years after the

first black men since Reconstruction were elected to the

South Carolina legislature in 1970, Willmon-Goggins became

the first African-American woman elected to the state's

general assembly. That same year, 1974, she was appointed

as the first African-American woman to serve on the United

States Civil Rights Commission. A native of Pendleton, South

Carolina, Willmon-Goggins graduated from the Anderson

County Training School. At South Carolina State University,

she earned a degree in home economics education,

graduating in 1957.

Juanita Willmon-Goggins

Ww

Xx

Yy

Virginia D. Covington Young was born in Georgetown, but

the family moved to Marion where much of her life was

spent. .During the Civil War, she began to write short stories

and novellas under pseudonyms for magazines. She moved

to Mississippi where her husband died. Returning to South

Carolina, she married again and began the patter followed

by many suffragists. She joined the Woman’s Christian

Temperance Union. Her activism continued with the

founding of the SC Equal Rights Association, which became

affiliated with the National American Woman Suffrage

Association. The rest of her life was dedicated to attaining

the right to vote, which came after her death with the federal

amendment in 1919. She continued writing during her life

and is credited with three novels.

Virginia Durant Covingt

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South Caroli

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South Carolina’s history is

filled with women who

contributed to the

advancement of our state.

This PowerPoint addresses

only a few of the many

women who have left a mark

on each page of our history.