Brandt chronicles the events that occurred in and around its buildings, the stories of the people memorialized in the grounds' monuments, and the histories of the monuments themselves.

This work offers a look at the construction and renovation of South Carolina's most important government structure, the State House. Prompted to research the building by its restoration between 1995 and 1998, the author witnessed every stage of excavation, demolition and rebuilding.

The first comprehensive narrative of the South Carolina state capitol and the history enshrined in its monuments from 1787 to the present The South Carolina State House grounds are a work in progress—a cultural landscape of human-built and natural components connected physically, conceptually, and aesthetically. As public property, the grounds should represent and welcome everyone in the state. While it is a beautiful space, it is not neutral. Over the past two centuries, various groups have jostled for political and cultural power, and the winners have used the grounds to assert their authority and broadcast political positions on the state's most visible stage. These struggles have resulted in a perpetually evolving space. In The South Carolina State House Grounds, the first comprehensive narrative of this important site at the heart of the Palmetto State, Lydia Mattice Brandt details the history of the state capitol and its setting—including the national, state, and local histories enshrined in its monuments—from 1787 to the present. Brandt argues that generations of private citizens and elected officials, who recognized the power of erecting public monuments and buildings that recall certain versions of history, have consciously shaped this highly charged, visible, and public place to assert authority over both the past and present. By recounting the intentions behind each element in the landscape, this guidebook considers how South Carolinians have used this place as a site of storytelling and mythmaking. The South Carolina State House Grounds, a chronological history of the state's grandest public space, includes more than sixty illustrations that track the site's transformation over more than two centuries. Brandt chronicles the events that occurred in and around its buildings, the stories of the people memorialized in the grounds' monuments, and the histories of the monuments themselves.

Out of the hundreds of published slave narratives,only a handful exist specific to South Carolina, and most of these are not readily available to modern readers. Edited by Susanna Ashton, this collection restores to print seven slave narratives documenting the lived realities of slavery as it existed across the Palmetto State's upcountry, midlands, and lowcountry, from plantation culture to urban servitude. First published between the late eighteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth, these richly detailed firsthand accounts present a representative cross section of slave experiences, from religious awakenings and artisan apprenticeships to sexual exploitations and harrowing escapes. In their distinctive individual voices, narrators celebrate and mourn the lives of fellow slaves, contemplate the meaning of freedom, and share insights into the social patterns and cultural controls exercised during a turbulent period in American history. Each narrative is preceded by an introduction to place its content and publication history in historical context. The volume also features an afterword surveying other significant slave narratives and related historical documents on South Carolina. I Belong to South Carolina reinserts a chorus of powerful voices of the dispossessed into South Carolina's public history, reminding us of the cruelties of the past and the need for vigilant guardianship of liberty in the present and future.