University of South Carolina Invites Public to Celebrate History and Lives of South Carolina Women June 4

May 6, 2009

COLUMBIA, SC – May 6, 2009 – A public symposium celebrating the lives of South Carolina women is set for Thursday, June 4, at the University of South Carolina and is expected to draw scholars from around the world who have written about Palmetto State women.

Hosted by the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, will take place in the Daniel-Mickel Center on the eighth floor of the Moore School of Business. The daylong event begins at 8:30 a.m. and will feature concurrent sessions with dozens of mini-presentations on the lives of notable South Carolina women, from the Native American Lady of Cofitachequi, who reigned in the 1500s, to S.C. Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal.

The event is co-sponsored by the Southeastern Institute for Women and Politics and the Alliance for Women. The symposium is open and intended for the public; lunch is optional. Fees are $20 for registration and parking or $40, which includes lunch. Reservations can be made on line at http://saeu.sc.edu/reg/symposium/.

The symposium coincides with the release of the first installment in the three-volume anthology, South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, co-edited by Dr. Marjorie Spruill and Dr. Valinda Littlefield at the university and Dr. Joan Marie Johnson of Northeastern Illinois University. The anthology is being published by University of Georgia Press. Throughout the symposium, authors will bring their biographical entries to life through lively accounts of South Carolina women who were patriots, slaves, plantation mistresses, abolitionists, suffragists, preservationists, mill workers, World War II shipyard welders, civil-rights leaders, artists, scientists, politicians and even a stock-car driver. A number of the women whose stories will be told are expected to attend and be recognized for their role in the history of the state.

The symposium on South Carolina women will take place just before a major conference, the Eighth Southern Conference on Women’s History, the triennial conference of the Southern Association for Women Historians. The conference begins the evening of June 4 and runs through Saturday, June 6. The gathering will feature women’s history scholars from the United States and Europe. 

Individuals who attend the South Carolina Women’s History symposium on June 4 are invited to attend a dinner and lecture that evening, the opening events for the two-day conference. Featured speakers at the 7 p.m. lecture are Dr. Glenda Gilmore of Yale University, and Dr. Patricia Sullivan of the University of South Carolina. Both are leading historians of African-American history who will discuss women in the civil-rights movement. The dinner, which will take place in the Russell House University Union, is $25 per person, with online registration at the same Web site: www.saeu.sc.edu/reg/sawh .

The public also is invited to register for and attend other sessions of the three – day Southern Conference on Women’s History. Sessions will cover a wide range of topics, including Gone with the Wind and southern identity, the teaching of Southern history outside the South, black women educators and activism, female religious leaders, Southern women’s diaries, women in the business in the early American South, women in post-Civil War Appalachia, early Virginian women and feminism, community organizing and gaining recognition for women’s history sites. Archivists from across South Carolina will conduct workshops on teaching and research using their collections, and the university’s South Caroliniana Library will host an open house for conference attendees. There also will be a women’s history tour of Columbia.

For more information on the South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times symposium on June 4 or the Southern Conference on Women’s History June 4 – 6, go to the Web site: www.saeu.sc.edu/reg/sawh, or contact the university’s conferences and event services staff at 803-777-2927 or via e-mail at [email protected].