Since its founding in 1886, Winthrop University has stood as one of
South Carolina's premiere state institutions, providing education and
opportunity to generations of women and men throughout the state and
across the country. Education pioneer David Bancroft Johnson had the
unique vision of establishing a school for training female teachers in
response to a teacher shortage in Columbia and worked earnestly to
acquire the necessary funds from Peabody Education Board chairman Robert
C. Winthrop, for whom the school is named. Under Johnson's guidance and
care, Winthrop University moved from Columbia to Rock Hill and developed
into a university with a national reputation for excellence.
Containing over 200 black-and-white photographs chosen from the Dacus
Library's extensive archives, Winthrop University explores the school's
impressive history, from its founding in the late nineteenth
century to the present. This volume allows readers to meet prominent
faculty members throughout the college's history, stroll along the
picturesque campus with its inspiring architecture and historic
structures, such as Main Building, Carnegie Library, and Phelps Hall, to
name but a few, view the fashionable uniforms and diverse activities of
some of the college's early female students, and relive some of
Winthrop's special traditions of yesteryear, like Classes Night, Rat
Week, Greek Day, and Halloween Happening.
