USCA’s archival lab helps middle schoolers connect with local history

State and local history and its role in shaping the nation’s development is central to eighth-grade social studies classes and a collaborative effort between USCA and the Aiken County Public School District. 

“When exploring history, students develop critical thinking skills and learn how to interpret evidence. At the same time, they build curiosity about local history,” said Associate Professor Deborah Tritt Harmon, archivist for the Gregg-Graniteville Library and Archives.

Recently, area social studies teachers went back to the basics, taking part in a seminar at the university. The event allowed them to see for themselves how one of South Carolina’s most influential citizens, industries and way of life in Aiken County transformed the state from an agricultural economy to a hub of manufacturing and textile production. This evolution, and the movers and shakers behind it, created jobs, impacted the economy and made education available to generations of citizens in the Palmetto State and beyond.

The hub of that progress was – and still is – located in the heart of Aiken County. Much of this history, despite being almost 200 years old, remains accessible to Aiken County teachers, students at USCA and the broader community. 

The Gregg-Graniteville Archives, housed in the USCA library, preserves a rich collection of Graniteville Manufacturing Company materials, including textile mills’ records, documents, photographs, artifacts and the personal papers of William Gregg and Samuel Swint. These collections offer a unique opportunity to understand the past and form the focus of the professional development seminar USCA created for Aiken County educators.

“While the Graniteville mills are no longer around, their legacy is still woven into the community,” Harmon said. “Many people still talk about their experiences or about relatives who worked in the mills or grew up in Graniteville. Those local connections make the history real.”

The South Carolina Department of Education emphasizes the importance of primary and secondary sources to help students understand political landscapes, industrial development, economic growth and change over time.  

“Primary sources allow students to engage directly with history rather than simply reading about it in a textbook. We have a unique opportunity to connect teachers with photographs, documents, and artifacts from the Graniteville Manufacturing Company and the surrounding community, helping to make history more tangible, local, and relevant.

“When students work with authentic materials from their own community, learning becomes personal. They begin to see themselves and their surroundings as part of history rather than as distant observers. By connecting educators with local primary sources, we are building a bridge between the archives and classrooms and helping ensure that the stories of this region continue to be explored and shared by the next generation.”  

To share more about the resources available, Harmon conducted a day-long seminar for Aiken County public school social studies teachers. Together, they were transported to the mid-to-late 1800s, when William Gregg established the Graniteville Manufacturing Company. The educators explored materials spanning from this period into the 20th century.

Harmon designed the workshop to be practical and collaborative. Through dynamic activities and engaging discussions, the group interacted with local history by studying the archival materials, including photographs, documents, letters, artifacts from the Gregg family, the mills and the mill-town community the visionary established.

Gregg not only created jobs for locals, but he also built homes and a community for his employees, establishing one of the first mill towns in the South. As a condition of employment, he required children under the age of 12 to attend school, or families would be fined. These initiatives are chronicled in the Gregg-Graniteville Archives.  

“It is meaningful to me that we’re collaborating with Aiken County Public Schools in this way as we celebrate 50 years of the Gregg-Graniteville Library and the gift of the archives. Graniteville and the Graniteville Company have a strong educational legacy, including one of the earliest compulsory education systems in the country,” Harmon said. 

“Education has always been central to this community’s story. This workshop feels like a natural continuation of that tradition.”

Harmon explored with the Aiken County educators how the Graniteville Company history and preserved items might complement their classroom instruction and equipped them with activities they can use as soon as they get back to their schools.

“I hope they leave with energy and ideas, confident about bringing primary sources into their classrooms and knowing that we want to be partners in their teaching and the Gregg-Graniteville Archives is a resource for them,” Harmon said.

“We have ready-to-use activities, both in-person and digital, that incorporate local primary sources. These teachers now have strategies for helping students analyze historical photographs and documents, ask meaningful questions, and connect the past to the present.”

Gregg-Graniteville Archives   

The Gregg-Graniteville Archives houses a significant historical collection consisting of documents and artifacts from the Graniteville Company, a major Southern textile manufacturing firm founded in 1845 by William Gregg.

Gregg was a visionary who advocated to produce textiles in southern mills, earning him the title "Father of the Southern Textile Industry."

The archives include correspondence, diaries, and other papers of Gregg. Also significant are late 19th and early 20th-century hand-entered time books, printed annual reports, handmade company scrapbooks, historical photographs, framed pictures of mills and various officials, and the “Graniteville Bulletin,” a publication of the Graniteville Company for its employees that ran from 1942-1986.

The archives are housed at the USCA library thanks to the generosity of the Gregg-Graniteville and Swint Foundations. 

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