Lowcountry Digital Library (LCDL) is a digital library project hosted by the
College of Charleston in the
U.S. state of
South Carolina. Part of the
Digital Library of America
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
** Digital camera, which captures and stores digital ...
network, the Lowcountry Digital Library hosts about 200 collections of
primary sources drawn from organizations including the
South Carolina Historical Society,
Charleston Library Society image:Charleston County Courthouse 2013.jpg, The Library Society's first permanent address, which it occupied from 1792 to 1835, was within what is now the Charleston County Courthouse at 82 Broad St.
image:50 Broad St - 2013.jpg, The Library Socie ...
,
Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture
The Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture is a division of the College of Charleston library system. The center is located on the site of the former Avery Normal Institute in the Harleston village district at 125 Bull Stre ...
,
Huguenot Society of South Carolina
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...
,
the Citadel,
Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, three county library systems, and a number of other historic sites, research centers and archives in the geographical and culturally distinct
South Carolina Lowcountry region.
Background
Established in 2014, LCDL hosts a number of unique materials significant to the
slave trade in the United States, including the Hutson Lee Papers collection of
broadsides from 1858 to 1865 slave auctions held in Charleston, and the account book of slave trader
Alonzo J. White. The site also hosts a number of first-person narrative sources that contrast with the 20th-century marketing of Charleston, which "churned out mostly whitewashed and often blatantly false historical narratives." Recent grant funding has allowed for an increased quantity of oral history materials.
According to professor B. J. Wood, "To an academic historian, putting three hundred years of disparate materials together in this way might seem to risk assuming ahistorical continuities. But attachments to place often make history more engaging to popular audiences, and few places in the United States have a more interesting or distinctive history than the Carolina low-country."
In addition to the primary sources the site hosts a number of curated online exhibits.
References
{{reflist
Digital library projects
History of South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina