Unsung History12 Dec 2022

The Sea Islands Hurricane of 1893

On August 27, 1893, a massive hurricane struck the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, battering the Sea Islands and Lowcountry through the next morning. Around 2,000 people in the thriving African American community perished that night, and many more died in the coming days and weeks as the impacts of the storm continued to be felt. The Red Cross, led by Clara Barton, organized relief efforts in conjunction with the local communities but with little money, as both the state legislature and the US Congress declined appeals to help.

Joining me to help us understand more about this 1893 hurricane and how it affected the course of South Carolina politics is Dr. Caroline Grego, Assistant Professor of History at Queens University of Charlotte, and author of Hurricane Jim Crow: How the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 Shaped the Lowcountry South.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Black women prepare potatoes for planting, February 1894,” from Clara Barton, The Red Cross, 199; the image is in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

“Remembering the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893: Mermaids, culpability, and the postbellum Lowcountry,” by Caroline Grego, Erstwhile: A History Blog, September 21, 2016.
“1893 Sea Islands Hurricane,” by Michele Nichole Johnson, New Georgia Encyclopedia.
“The Sea Island Hurricane of 1893, 4th deadliest in U.S. history,” Eat Stay Play Beaufort.
“The Great Sea Island Storm of 1893,” By Fran Heyward Bollin, Welcome to Beaufort.
“The Sea Island Hurricane of 1893,” by Betty Joyce Nash, Economic History, Winter 2006.
"Black Autonomy, Red Cross Recovery, and White Backlash after the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893," by Caroline Grego, Journal of Southern History, vol. 85 no. 4, 2019, p. 803-840.
“Sea Islands Hurricane,” Scribner’s Magazine, February 1894.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(230)

Jane Addams, Hull House, and Chicago's Nineteenth Ward

In the fall of 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr opened Hull House on Chicago’s Near West Side, full of good intentions to help the poor people of the neighborhood. They were a force for good, p...

10 Aug 46min

Buddy Bradley

Buddy Bradley, born in the Jim Crow South in 1905, made his way to Harlem at age 16 where he learned to tap dance and became a chorus boy. He was sought out on Broadway as both teacher and choreograph...

27 Juli 50min

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

During World War II, afraid that major league baseball would need to pause while men were overseas fighting, Philip K. Wrigley, chewing gum mogul and owner of the Chicago Cubs, spearheaded a new profe...

13 Juli 54min

The Declaration of Independence

The Continental Congress voted to break from Great Britain on July 2, 1776, and approved the text of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, but it took weeks for the news to spread throughout the ...

29 Juni 48min

The Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building

The Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building loom large in the American imagination, symbolizing the conflicting ideas of liberty and empire; their meanings and characters have shifted over tim...

15 Juni 38min

An American History of Purses

Today the US handbag market is estimated to be nearly $12 billion, with most of the purchasing done by women, but into the early 20th Century purses hadn’t yet become the nearly-exclusive domain of wo...

1 Juni 40min

The Lady Bird Special

On the morning of Tuesday, October 6, 1964, the Lady Bird Special, a 19-car train carrying First Lady Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, her supporters, members of the press, and a security detail, departed...

18 Maj 41min

Policing Slavery & Black Rebellion in the American South

Enslaved Africans were forcibly shipped to Virginia starting in 1619 in response to a severe labor shortage. From the beginning, enslaved laborers resisted by fleeing and through violence, and white e...

4 Maj 50min