South Carolina State Library celebrates National Women’s History Month with all the women who make our state extraordinary. From pioneers in the arts and sports to civil rights leaders and politicians, learn about the SC women who create history in their own images.
Celebrate Women's History Month
Women's History Month Books
A Black Women's History of the United States
This book is a critical survey of US history told through the multifaceted yet often-ignored perspectives of Black women who lived it. Historians Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross examine Black women’s unique contributions and celebrate their abilities to create their own communities while combatting oppression.
Taking Off the White Gloves: Southern Women and Women Historians
This collection of essays brings together the complexities of all Southern women and the historians who tell their stories. Everything from race to indigenous culture to politics is explored in details that shed new light on women’s history in the South.
Striking Beauties: Women Apparel Workers in the U.S. South, 1930-2000
Women were crucial in making apparel manufacturing a major industry in the South. This book shows how this female workforce contributed to the history of Southern labor and cultural history, from its technological expansion right after the Great Depression up into the new millennium.
Making Democracy Work - As American as Apple Pie: The League of Women Voters of the Columbia Area, 1947-2012
The League of Women Voters’ Columbia chapter helps the SC public become informed and active participants in our government. Read about what they’ve accomplished through their activism since WWII.
Becoming Catawba: Catawba Indian Women and Nation-Building, 1540-1840
Originally residing in the Piedmont region of SC, Catawba Nation tribes have a strong history of matrilineal kinship systems and authority in coalition with their male relations. The author is a member of the Catawba Nation and uses her knowledge of their native language family and archaeological data to explore their complex history from within.
South Carolina Women
Discover fifty-one South Carolina women who have shaped the history of our state. From Judith Giton Manigault to Emily Geiger to Modjeska Simkins and beyond, these biographies are great starting points to these great ladies’ lives.
The 35 Most Influential Women in South Carolina History
This book highlights the accomplishments of thirty-five women who have made South Carolina their home. SC women have influenced everything from entertainment to politics, and this selective biographical list shows just how wide their influences spread.
The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Women's Rights and Abolition
This updated biography of SC’s famous female abolitionists explores their lives as political forces leading up to and during the Civil War. Read the new primary sources the author adds in the 2004 edition and learn all about the Grimké’s crusade.
Freedom's Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark
Former public educator Clark created a comprehensive civics program aimed at registering Black voters and getting them involved in community improvement during the heart of Civil Rights upheaval. Her education-led approach to civic engagement became a cornerstone of the movement.
Maria Martin's World: Art & Science, Faith & Family in Audubon's America
Learn about how this Charleston artist became a crucial part of John James Audubon’s famous naturalist illustrations. Martin’s obscurity hides a complex struggle between her art, her science, and her religion, all driving forces in her life and work that the author uncovers from newly discovered family archives.
Against the Tide: One Woman's Political Struggle
Harriet Keyserling married into South Carolina citizenship, landing in Beaufort after she married her husband in 1944. Once there, she used her outsider status to campaign for changing her community, and the state, for the better. This memoir talks about her eight terms in the state legislature and how she made her voice heard.
Preserving Charleston's Past, Shaping Its Future: The Life and Times of Susan Pringle Frost
During Reconstruction, Frost was also an outspoken advocate for women’s and African-Americans’ rights, as well as a more transparent local government and many other causes. Learn how this Charlestonian led a historical preservation movement that became a model for preservationists throughout the country.
Upcoming Event
Author Michael G. Williams and Arcane Carolinas Volume 2
March 13, 2025, 6:00 PM
Michael will discuss Arcane Carolinas Volume 2 while also exploring some South Carolina holiday-themed ghost tales, an international tradition the State Library is excited to participate in. Michael uses library resources to explore folklore and all things eerie in the Carolinas.
