People

Detail from Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin Patent Drawing, March 14, 1794. Image from Records of the Patent and Trademark Office, NARA.

• John C. Calhoun
  John C. Calhoun was a national politician from South Carolina who became vice president, serving with President John Quincy Adams.
• James Gadsden
  Learn more about James Gadsden, the minister to Mexico who was the namesake of the Gadsden Purchase.
• Andrew Jackson
  North and South Carolina have a friendly fight over who can claim to be the birth state of the 7th president.
  • Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil, & the Presidency

Agriculture

• Whitney Cotton Gin
  Patented in 1794, the cotton gin made it possible for separating seeds from cotton bolls much easier.
  • Eli Whitney Cotton Gin
• Plantation Day Book, 1857
  This journal page records how much cotton each slaved picked in a given day on a plantation in the Pee Dee region.
• Cotton Culture
  After the Revolutionary War, the Southern states became dependent on growing cotton.

Culture

See also the section on Slavery for more information about slavery and the plantation system.

• Lexington County Museum
  Explore the John Fox Farm in Lexington to learn more about Antebellum farm life.
• Lexington County Courthouse
  Watch the videos to discover the history of the Lexington County Courthouses; the first was built in 1820.
• Edgefield Pottery
  The Edgefield region of South Carolina was known for making stoneware pottery.
• The Cultural Landscape of the Plantation
  Read the words of former slaves as they tell about slave life on plantations.

Maps & Transportation

• "A New Map of South Carolina..." 1849
  This map of South Carolina shows canals, steamboat routes, and railroads that people used to travel and transport cotton and goods.
• Antebellum Maps
  Look at lots of maps from around the state to see where people lived and gathered.
• The Saluda Canal
  The Saluda Canal was built in 1818 to help boat travel upstream using the Saluda River.
• Landsford Canal
  Landsford Canal was a canal built in 1823 so boats could travel inland from Charleston.
  • Lock Keeper’s House
    See the remains of the house the lock keeper would have stayed in downstream of the Landsford Canal.

Robert Mills

The Robert Mills House in Columbia, SC, designed in 1823. Image courtesy of the Historic Columbia Foundation.

Robert Mills was one of the first Americans to become a professional architect. He designed many buildings in South Carolina including private homes, court houses, and the University of South Carolina campus. Mills also designed the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

• Mills, Robert
• First Baptist Church
• Robert Mills House & Gardens

Explore with DISCUS*

* Requires access to the DISCUS databases. Learn more here.

• Andrew Jackson
  Find out more about Andrew Jackson, our seventh president.
• Cotton Gin: A Comb for Cotton
  Did you know that Eli Whitney had help designing the cotton gin?
• War with Mexico
  Many South Carolinians fought in the Mexican-American War that gave the United States California and other western states.