This work examines the birth and maturation of Averett College, and institution of higher learning in Southside Virginia. The school's official seal--and elliptical medallion with the words Averett College, Danville, Virginia surrounding a lamp and cross--was emblematic of the institution's history and mission. The lamp represented learning, while the cross stood for the Southern Baptist environment in which learning took place. Yet these two symbols were never static representations. Learning in 1859, when the college was founded, was designed to produce a finished you lady who could model...

Jack Irby Hayes, Jr., revisits the South Carolina of the 1930s to determine the impact of federal programs on the state's economy, politics, culture, and citizenry. He traces the waxing and waning of support for programs such as Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and concludes that the modernization of South Carolina would have been delayed without their intervention. Suggesting that the New Deal hastened the end of one-party political domination, Hayes proposes that it also initiated a new era of...