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Of all the images University archivist Elizabeth West selected to go into The University of South Carolina, a new pictorial history of USC, an 1850 color lithograph of the Horseshoe is her favorite.
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| Elizabeth West |
The 156-year-old painting depicts USC's historic campus much as it looks today, including the South Caroliniana Library, Leiber College, and the brick wall erected in 1836.
It provides a sense of the University that makes it a place where memories beckon for alumni who gravitate to the Horseshoe because it's the spiritual and historic center of the campus.
West is hoping the image will evoke the same memories for alumni as the 200 other pictures in the book that she compiled this past summer. The 128-page volume is set for publication Oct. 16 by Arcadia Publishing in Mt. Pleasant.
"I went back as far as I could to come up with the images," said West, noting that the book's earliest photos of the University date from 1875 and show campus buildings. Before that time (photography wasn't developed until the 1860s), she included some of the documents that were instrumental in the University's development and drew on paintings like the lithograph to provide a thorough historical overview.
In addition to a copy of the legislation that created the South Carolina College in 1801, the book, which is part of Arcadia Publishing's Campus History Series, includes documents from some of the early student literary societies and images of student activities over the school's history.
When she selected the images, West tried to do justice to the University's entire history, knowing "there were certain things I wanted to highlight, like interesting and important people, student activities, major historical events, campus traditions, and even some of the more controversial times of the University's history."
The goal was to touch on all of these things. "People enjoy looking at old photographs that evoke fond memories, but we also wanted to give as honest a pictorial timeline of the University's history as we could," said West, who also wrote the book's text.
The book's most recent photos are of the demolition of the Carolina Plaza building this past summer, and of new construction in the University's new Innovista research campus.
One of the most striking images is an aerial photo of the campus that matches up with the angle of a 1940 aerial photo that provides an interesting comparison of how the University has grown and changed over the past 66 years.
For the inside cover of the book, West chose an image that would be recognizable to anyone who is familiar with the campus, one which she thought would sum up what the University is all about.
It's a picture from the 1980s of a faculty member with a dry erase chalkboard talking to a group of students in front of the Maxcy Monument. "I thought it was a very nice symbol of the University and a representation of the campus, the teaching, and the history that's here," said West.
She thinks of alumni as the major audience for the book, but also hopes new students will pick it up and enjoy it, too, "to get a sense of where their school has come through the years."
The book is $19.99 and will be available at Columbia area book retailers and throughout the state.
9/06
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USC archivist Elizabeth West pored through the University's photograph collections to unearth the many photos that appear in The University of South Carolina, including the sepia-toned shot that graces the book's cover, above, and numerous black-and-white images, below.
