Digital Resources Beyond WSHW | Whole South Heritage

More Digital Resources

In addition to the archival collections you can explore at Whole South Heritage Works, the following institutions have important regional cultural collections and resources freely available online.

Chapin Memorial Library

History Archives

Coastal Carolina Digital Commons

Gullah Geechee Digital Project

Plantersville Oral Histories, 2019-2021, 26 video interviews with African American residents and natives of Plantersville.

Sandy Island “At Low Tide” Collection, 17 oral history interviews with African American residents of Sandy Island in Horry County, as well as scores of photos and video clips of life in Sandy Island.

Horry County Archives Center

Hearing Horry History, oral history videos from in and around Myrtle Beach

Horry County Archives Center Research, articles by John B. Burroughs on Horry and Georgetown County History.

Horry County Historical Society Photograph Collection, more than 225 scanned images of early photos from Horry County.

Hurricane Hazel Photograph Collection, 30 photographs from North Myrtle Beach documenting the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel in 1954.

Independent Republic Quarterly, Journal of the Horry County Historical Society.

James L. Michie Archaeology Reports, 17 research manuscripts having to do with archaeology in Georgetown and Horry Counties.

Lonnie W. Fleming, Sr. Photograph Collection, more than 850 digitized images of life in the Conway area, particularly focusing on school activities, healthcare, and other civic subjects.

Additional Collections at Coastal

Horry County Oral History Project. Coastal Carolina University.

HTC Honors College, includes citations for several theses related to Horry and Georgetown County history, some downloadable

Georgetown County Digital Library

More than 50 individual collections of documents, photographs, videos, and other media related to the history of Georgetown County. The following are a selection of examples. There is some overlap with GCL’s YouTube channel. The following are some examples among many that can be found at GCDL.

Andrews Museum Collection, More than 180 images of people and places in Andrews, Georgetown County.

Caines Family Photograph Collection, 35 images of and related to the Caines family of Clambank, Georgetown County, renowned as hunting guides, fishermen, and decoy carvers.

Dreamkeepers Collection, 37 photographs of influential African American people from Georgetown County.

Georgetown County Library Photograph Collection, more than 450 early photographs of various people and places around Georgetown County.

Georgetown Postcard Collection, scans of 72 early postcards depicting Georgetown scenes.

Georgetown and Williamsburg County Historical Survey, 1,050 photographs from the 1970s and ‘80s documenting historic buildings.

Lebanese Legacy of Georgetown County, seven oral history interviews with Georgetown residents of Lebanese descent.

Southern Foodways: Georgetown County Cookbook Collection, full scans of 14 locally published recipe collections from the mid-twentieth century.

World War II memories, 62 interviews with World War II veterans from Georgetown county.

Georgetown Historic District Survey

Georgetown County Museum

Museum Around the Corner articles, a collection of article texts from Georgetown Times features on local history.

Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Horry County

Horry County Historical Society

Library of Congress

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. More than 2,000 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 photographs of former slaves gathered during the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration. Includes materials related to the Gullah community in and around Murrells Inlet, collected by Genevieve Chandler.

The four volumes of South Carolina narratives printed by the Library of Congress are also downloadable.

(Volumes are organized by interviewees’ last names.)

Part 1, Abrams-Durant

Part 2, Eddington-Hunter

Part 3, Jackson-Quattlebaum

Part 4, Raines-Young

Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic Engineering Record / Historic Amiercan Landscapes Survey, includes 244 images of building exteriors and interiors in Georgetown County.

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives, includes 44 images of people and places at the Air Service Command Base in Myrtle Beach, taken in 1943 by Jack Delano.

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 - 1940. Life histories compiled in the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers’ Project during the New Deal. Includes a small number of accounts from Horry and Georgetown Counties.

Sanborn Fire Maps Collection, early fire maps of American cities including Myrtle Beach and Georgetown.

Southern Mosaic: The John A. and Ruby T. Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip. Audio recordings of traditional music, including folk and sacred songs sung by African American residents of the Murrells Inlet area. Note: these and other recordings made by John, Ruby, and Alan Lomax in Georgetown and Horry Counties can also be found by searching “South Carolina” on Lomax Digital Archive of the Association for Cultural Equity.

Lowcountry Digital Library

Quoted descriptions are from the LDL's website

Alexander Glennie Journal, 1831 - 1859. Journal of rector of All Saints (Waccamaw). “The bulk of Glennie’s journal contains the names of churches and plantations visited and the names of people (both free and enslaved) for whom he performed marriage, baptism, funeral, and other religious ceremonies/sacrament.”

Allston Family Papers, 1730 - 1901. The Allston Family Papers, 1730-1901 collection contains numerous bound volumes and hundreds of loose papers kept by members of the Allston family between 1744-1865.
Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle Family Papers, 1861-1926. “The Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle Family Papers, 1861-1926, collection includes two bound volumes kept by members of the Allston family. The Allston-Pringle Plantation Account book created in 1867 documents the laborers who worked at Allston properties such as White House, Chicora Wood and Greenfield Plantation in Georgetown County,”

Flagg Family Papers, 1832-1926. “This collection consists of plantation account books, medical journals, medical account books, a time book and letters for Dr. Arthur Belin Flagg and Dr. Joshua John Ward Flagg for plantations in Georgetown County, South Carolina between the years 1792-1926. The medical journals and medical account books had been used to record the medical treatment and fees of numerous plantation families, enslaved men, women and children and a brief record of the medical treatment of soldiers in 1862.”

Hasell Family Papers, 1803 - 1884. Record books of “Dr. George Paddon Bond Hasell (1781-1818) and his son, Dr. Andrew Hasell’s (1803-1866) [recording] medical treatments for their patients, consisting of many Georgetown County plantation families and their enslaved men, women, and children. Information includes prescriptions, records of patient deaths, births, lists of illnesses, injuries, and medical fees.”

Jewish Heritage Panel Discussion: Temple Beth Elohim’s 100th Anniversary. Panel discussion about Jewish history in South Carolina, including a presentation in which “L. C. Sloan reviews the history of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Jews of Georgetown, in particular, Marcus Moses (1830-1884) and his children.”

John R. Beaty Letters. Civil War-era letters written by John R. Beaty of Conwayborough, describing travels in the region as well as his Civil War experience at locations including Winyah Bay.

Newton Plantation Slave Lists and Blanket Distribution Book, 1854-1861. “The Newton Plantation Slave Lists and Blanket Distribution Book, 1854-1861, is a bound book recording the names of enslaved persons at Newton Plantation (thought to be in Georgetown County, South Carolina). The lists include information concerning births, deaths, marriages, and purchasers of slaves. The blanket list includes names of the slaves, and the years blankets were distributed.”

Rev. Alexander Glennie Meteorological Observations, 1834-1880. “Bound volumes containing charts (graphs and tables) pertaining to weather and the meteorological observations of Alexander Glennie taken in All Saints Parish and at Georgetown, South Carolina.”

Samuel Pope, Seaman’s Protection Certificate, 1820. “This SPC was issued to Samuel Pope on September 1, 1820 by Joseph Storer, Collector for the District of Kennebunk, Maine. Capt. Samuel Pope, who was born in Wells, Maine in 1800/01 is believed to have moved to Horry District, South Carolina in the 1830s, where in 1837 he and a partner, Henry Buck, purchased 432 acres on the Waccamaw River at Murdock Landing where they established “Pope’s Mill”, a steam powered saw mill. He eventually sold his interest in “Pope’s Mill” to Buck, and Murdock Landing later became known as Bucksport.”

Sandy Island Plantation Journals, 1792-1798. “These three almanacs, from 1792, 1797, and 1798, contain interleaved pages with handwritten plantation journal entries kept by Allard Belin for his plantation on Sandy Island near Georgetown, South Carolina. The journal entries pertain to rice planting and harvesting, maintaining the property, problems with an overseer as well as a list of the names of enslaved persons who lived on Sandy Island.”

Scenes in Charleston, Georgetown, and Flat Rock, Late 19th Century. “Thirty-five late-19th century photographs of scenes in Charleston, South Carolina; Georgetown, South Carolina; and (likely) Flat Rock, North Carolina, affixed to pages removed from a photograph album, five to six photos on each side. Many depict leisure activities and rice cultivation at what is likely a Georgetown County plantation. The collection also includes river and beach scenes.”

Springfield Plantation Journal, 1831 - 1864. “The Springfield Plantation journal collection contains a bound plantation journal and loose papers pertaining to Springfield Plantation . . . in Georgetown County, South Carolina. The journal (1831-1864) contains the names of enslaved men, women and children on Springfield Plantation as well as births, information on farming, plantation events and pregnancies of enslaved women.” Also included are…”a directive (1864) issued by the State of South Carolina Horry District … to hold an election for sheriff of Horry District. Another paper contains lists of livestock and several torn pages from the volume contain lists of the names of slaves and the slaves receiving tools. Also included on these pages are the names of female slaves and the dates when their children were born.”

US Engineer Maps of the Waccamaw River, 1903. Collection includes “five maps of the Waccamaw River in Horry County, S.C. from Conway to Bull Creek dated November 1903….These five maps show the soundings and some of the place names along the river. Also shown are proposed “cuts” that would straighten out parts of the river where extreme twists and turns made navigation by larger vessels difficult”

Weston Family Papers, 1764-1855. “Plowden Weston (1739-1854) was a South Carolina rice plantation owner in Georgetown County originally from England. This collection, Weston’s business ledger, contains individual and financial estate accounts for the years 1764-1769. An unidentified person later used the ledger as a plantation journal. Later entries from the years 1830-1847, 1851, and 1855 pertain to Weston family plantations. The nineteenth century entries catalogue rations distributed to slaves and accounts of supplies held at and shipped from Laurel Hill Plantation and Holly Hill Plantation.”

Vincent P. Lannie Collection, 1733-1974. ‘The Vincent P. Lannie Collection consists of five separate manuscripts by plantation owner Elizabeth Allston Pringle. Elizabeth Waties Allston Pringle (1845-1921) was the daughter of South Carolina Governor Robert F.W. Allston (1801-1864). She married John Julius Pringle (1842-1876) in 1870 and lived at White House Plantation in Georgetown County, SC. Widowed at thirty-one, she moved to the Allston family plantation, Chicora Wood, to help her mother, Adele P. Allston, care for her widowed brother’s children. She was the author of “A Woman Rice Planter” and “Chronicles of Chicora Wood.”’

Voices of the Santee Delta Oral History Project. "The Voices of the Santee Delta project’s primary purpose will be to record an oral history of this significant biological and historic area. The Santee Delta was once the location of an important branch of the Rice Kingdom, and a slave labor force whose descendants have provided a lasting Gullah culture. The voices are diverse, in ethnicity and occupations, and include biologists, plantation owners, guides, plantation managers, cooks, long time residents, and others.”

New York Public Library Digital Collections

“Aunt Phebe, Uncle Tom, and Others: Character Studies Among the Old Slaves of the South, Fifty Years After.” Photographs of African American residents of Georgetown County, which appeared in the book of the same title by Essie Collins Matthews.

South Carolina Maritime Museum

Across TIme and Many Waters: South Carolina’s Afro-Carolinian Maritime World

Winthrop University Digital Commons

Springs Bulletin: Digitized editions of the bimonthly newspaper that was distributed to employees at textile miles run by the Springs company. The newspapers contain many articles and mentions of Springmaid Beach in Horry County, which the company operated as a resort for its employees.