The interest in Southern women’s history has never been higher nor more exciting. And one of the most important nineteenth-century South Carolinians is Anna Maria Calhoun, daughter and frequent confidante of John Caldwell Calhoun, a significant political and intellectual figure of nineteenth-century American history. During one of his periods in Washington, D.C., Anna met and later married a Pennsylvania scientist, Thomas Green Clemson. Subsequently, Anna and Thomas traveled through much of the American east, and became co-founders of Clemson University. Due to Anna’s copious correspondence, her papers have offered Anna Ratliff Russell much material to create this fascinating study in nineteenth-century history.
–Jerome V. Reel, Jr., Ph.D., Clemson University Historian