South Carolina Two - Text
Age: 57
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Occupation: Professor
Educational Level: PhD
Where born and raised: Columbia, SC
Where else lived: Kingston, Jamaica; Annotto Bay, Jamaica; San Diego, CA
Interview recording date: 7-30-01
Interviewed by: Erica Tobolski
Running time: 00:02:48
Brief description of what subject talks about: The history of the University of South Carolina and a somewhat humorous description of the differences between the U. of SC and its state rival, Clemson University.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
You know, the University of South Carolina has a, uh, a very long and interesting relationship with the people of South Carolina. When it was created, it was one of the first public universities in the United States. And in its charter the legislature said that it was in—the business of legislature was to educate the young people of the state, which was fairly unusual in, uh, in 1801—in 1800—in 1801 when this university was founded. Over the years, uh, since it had been begun as a liberal arts college for the sort of elite children of planters, uh, uh, the university began to run into difficulty because such a large proportion of the state, uh, were small farmers and people who had little use for the wealthy planters. And so with the, after the civil war, uh, an effort was made to change the direction of the university, and finally, um, a separate university that was founded to—to, um, educate the children of, uh, of ordinary people—Clemson University—was begun. And the idea was that at this—at this elite, uh, liberal arts college, people learned things that weren’t very useful to them, whereas at the agricultural college they could learn things they really needed, like agriculture. Since then, there’s, uh—since that time in 1890, there’s been, uh, a split in the state, ongoing rivalry between the two universities and some people have very strong beliefs about those universities. My aunt sent all of her children to Clemson because she believed that at the university people were very immoral—that men and women slept together, and, and men and women even consumed spiritus liquors, to which she was very opposed. Um, all of her children went to Clemson—I don’t know that it—(he laughs)—it had any, uh, moral value for them at all, but for a great many people across the state, those two views—one a belief in , in sort of the value and virtue of the land and practical life, and the other, uh, a, a belief in, um, in, in the liberal arts and that kind of learning—uh, those two attitudes very much, uh, explained the divide in feeling about universities in South Carolina . . .
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY SANDRA LINDBERG 24 APRIL, 2008.