The Times and Democrat from Orangeburg, South Carolina • 26

-B SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 2007 6C www.TheTandD.com SUNDAY Women in History the early 1900s; in 1900, only 54 percent of girls in the state were attending school. Before the Civil War, female education focused on domestic skills. Abolitionist Sarah Grimke of Charleston taught a class of women on sexual equality and described her pupils as "miserably deficient," but "butterflies of the fashionable world." But before Grimke had ever taken her first breath of salty air, Hannah English Williams, also of Charleston, was not flitting around in the latest Continued from 1C added to marriage licenses in 2001 to be used for women's shelters, and domestic violence became a felony in 2003. In 2002, South Carolina ranked third in the number of men killing their wives and female partners. Although South Carolina women may have been treated like the property of their husbands, their talent, brains and tenacity sometimes found them serving as the family's chief 1 -t'VihiX vt fashionable clothes.

From 1701 to source of income. An early ex 1713, she was instead discover il lift' -i- ing unique butterfly species in ample would be portrait painter Henrietta de lieaulieu Dering Johnston (ca. 1674-1729), the natural world of South Carolina and sending them to the Royal Society in London. The first female -i mm $-r the first professional woman artist in America. Probably born in northern France, she immigrated to London, where she married Robert Dering in 1694.

The couple moved to Ireland, where he died, and Henrietta began painting pastels of her husband's extended family. After she remarried, the Rev. Gideon Johnston of Dublin in 1706, he was sent to South Carolina and became rector of St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Charleston. When Johnston wrote to request his salary, which was often de Charleston Renaissance artist Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (1876-1958) used watercolors to capture the haunting beauty of the Lowcountry.

Above is her "Fields Prepared for Planting," from the series "Carolina Rice Plantation of the Fifties," watercolor, circa 1935. COURTESY OF THE GIBBES MUSEUM OF ART in 1764. Martha learned to cultivate plants, and other gardeners gave her seeds and roots, but when she asked Dr. Alexander Garden, known for his gardening ability, for specimens, she was refused. in the American British colonies to gather plants and animals for scientific collections, she helped catalog our state's natural resources and advanced botanical and zoological awareness here and in England.

Williams also sent the society snakes, scorpions, lizards, shells, a bee nest and insects. She promised mockingbirds and "Red birds" in the spring because she didn't want the trip to kill them. James Petiver of the Royal Society named some species for her: Williams' orange girdled Carolina butterfly (also known as the Williams' yellow tipt Carolina butterfly Louisa Susanna Cheves McCord (1810-1879) of Orangeburg District, writer. COURTESY OF GEORGIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Martha Logan began to publish The Gardener's Kalendar," which became a standard for state gardeners, and contributed a gardening guide for John To-bler's "South Carolina Almanack" (1752). She exchanged seeds with other botanists, including the famed naturalist John Bartram, who visited her in 1760.

She advertised her roots, cuttings and seeds at her nursery in the and Williams' selvedge-eyed Carolina butterfly pearly When her first husband died, she received 500 acres located near Stony Point in 1692 and then married William Williams. Three years later, their land holdings north of the Ashley doubled, and she continued her collections on this land. Although it is not known when she was born, in 1722 she was buried, like Johnston, in St. Philip's Churchyard. Gazette.

Logan died in 1779 and also is buried in St. Philip's Churchyard. A Tomen's Histo- 1960s, South Carolina colleges were segregated. African-American women did not have access to private colleges, but when founded in 1869, Claflin College of Orangeburg offered coeducational studies to African-Americans. In the mid-1890s, the University of South Carolina admitted white women, but it was 1963 before Henrie Monteith became the first African-American woman to attend the University of South Carolina.

Even at the end of the 20th century, the percentage of African-Americans attending college was relatively low considering their percentage of the state population. The private and church colleges for women did not emphasize careers but only liberal arts for the "genteel" Southern woman. Even in the late 20th century, South Carolina women were less likely than women in the United States as a whole to finish high school, much less have a four-year college degree. Elizabeth Timothy, like many South Carolina women, found herself having to pursue a career whether she had been prepared or expected to do so or not. Timothy, whom Benjamin Franklin said was born in Holland, came to Philadelphia in 1731 with her husband and four young children.

When Franklin set her husband up as the printer of the South-Carolina Gazette in Charleston, Elizabeth stayed in Philadelphia to settle the family business before moving to Charleston in 1734. When Timothy, who had become the official colonial printer, died in an accident in 1738, Elizabeth was left with six small children and "another hourly expected." She had already lost two children by 1737. Although her son, Peter, was expected by Franklin and her husband to carry on the business, he was too young, so she published the next issue in January 1739, pledging to make it as "entertaining and correct as may be reasonably expected." By the end of that year, Elizabeth had bought out Franklin's interest and became the first woman in the colonies to own and publish a newspaper. Franklin praised her accounting and commended her ability to both raise a family and buy the business from him. Besides publishing the newspaper and the colonial laws, she sold legal blanks, broadsides and stationery and established a bookstore next door.

She gave up control to Peter when he came of age in 1746. She wrote a will in 1757, died two days later and, like Johnston and Williams, was buried in St. Philip's Churchyard. In early South Carolina, some women, such as Timothy, did run businesses or shops, but by the early 1800s, American culture dictated that women stay in the private sphere. Middle- and upper-class women were expected to act as hostesses for their husbands and run the home.

The Southern lady became a cultural icon, but this was not an option for poor white or for black women. By the late 1840s, around 13 percent of the white labor force was female. Because slavery existed until the mid-1860s, recovery for black women was much slower.By 1900, about 38 percent of white women worked, as did 66 percent of African-American women, mostly in the fields. White women also worked in the mills, and blacks as maids and laundresses. Martha Daniell Logan (1704-1779) of Charleston, though her father owned 48,000 acres and was a two-term lieutenant governor, received the traditional "girl's education." Thankfully, she learned to cultivate plants from his nursery business.

When he died, she was 13 and inherited his vast Wando River property. She married at age 14 in 1719 and had eight children. She boarded and tutored students in the home, advertising her services in the Timothys' South Carolina Gazette. She began to teach at a boarding school when the family moved to town and her husband died Wry Month cannot compensate for the omissions -from history of i A. layed, he admitted that without "the Assistance my wife gives me by drawing of Pictures I shou'd not have been able to live." Her subjects were from her Huguenot associates (the Prioleaus, the Bacots, the Duboses) and members of St.

Philips. Johnston had to import all her art materials, making them very precious, and her paintings grew smaller and lighter in South Carolina. About 40 portraits are extant in Irish private collections and in American museums, including the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Greenville County Museum of Art. She died in 1729 and is buried in St. Philip's Churchyard.

Although how Johnston received her art training in England is unknown, girls received little education in South Carolina until the 1840s, when wealthy girls had a chance through private schools. Poorer females had little education through those wealthy women who were Ti educated in private schools had access to religious colleges by the trie contributions of so many women, The women named above, however, are ex International star Eartha Kitt, a 1850s, but not until the 1868 constitution provided for public schools did the need for teachers translate to interest in women's colleges. The one-year course available at Winthrop Training School in 1886 evolved to state-supported vocational training for women in 1891 and eventually expanded to four years. Winthrop was exclusively for white women, however. Before the civil rights era of the native of North, has made her mark as a Broadway singer, actor and 1 amples of some of the earlier names not lost from the records, but whose faces have not been seen or whose dancer, lending her vocal talents to Disney films and making the "Batman" television series character Cat-woman a household name.

In 1960, Kitt was honored with a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is among only a handful of artists to be nominated for Tony, Grammy, Oscar and Emmy awards and taught herself to sing in names rarely are printed in state history books of our days. They offer examples of the intellect, I 10 languages. Her career -A true gnt, dignity, bravery and talent that flows through the veins as Carolina women. If you know of women who represent any of these character sutrered briefly following a highly publicized incident in which she spoke out against the Vietnam War in 1968.

Kitt celebrat ed her 80th birth day on Jan. 1 7 and still performs world wide. qualities and have assumed the role of hero or mentor to you, send us their photo, a description of who they are and how they have influenced you for the better, so that we might tell their story on our pages during the month of March, Women's History Month. Send to or by mail to Nancy Wooten, Features Editor, The Times and Democrat, P.O. Drawer 1766, Orangeburg, SC 29116.

4 Poet, novelist, playwright and historian Katherine Drayton Mayrant Simons, born in Charleston in 1890, published three books of poetry and was a charter member of the Poetry Society of South Carolina. Simons also wrote short stories, plays and a sketch for the 1964 ballet 'The Lost Atlantis," performed by the Charleston Civic Ballet Co. COURTESY OF SOUTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL SOCIETY Her story- -f Staff report When she was 17, Angela Michelle Cheeks saw Rickey Padgett at a gas station, and though she knew who he was, she had never talked to him. "But I pulled in and started flirting with him anyway," she remembers. Then two or three weeks later, he was by himself at the Wal-mart gas pumps on a Friday night.

Back then, she said, that was a place where you might run into other teenagers on a Friday night. He was by himself, and I had my best friend in the car," she said. "When I saw him, my girlfriend dared me to go back and flirt with him, and I did." All this flirting accomplished its purpose, and the two dated for two years. They broke up, Angela says, because they were too young to be together; the time wasn't right. For five-and-a-half years, they didn't run into each other at all.

"We've talked about it, and both of us have said that there was not a day that went by during that time that we didn't think about each other, but the time wasn't right. About a year after we broke up, I told myself that if I ever had another up the ladder to the deer stand, he said her name. "When I turned and looked down at him, he was holding the ring. It was very sweet and original, no doubt about it." Her advice to other young women; "If you have any doubt at all or any hesitation about marriage, don't do it In the end, I had the right feeling. When I got married to Rickey, I was perfectly calm and happy.

I knew I wouldn't have problems with him. And, we definitely keep it in church. I think being faithful believers helps a lot too. and I would advise that anyone getting married go to counseling with their minister or church; that is a must." chance, I would never break up with him again. He's so good to me, and I wanted the type of relationship our parents had.

Both of them will have been married 29 years this year," she says. "We went down pretty rough roads during that time. We'd both just broken up with someone else, and out of the blue he called me one night We've been together ever since." Both Angela and Rickey are "big-time deer hunters," she says, and compete with each other every deer season Last Oct 19, he begged her to go hunting, and as she was climbing Mrs. Ricky Wingard Padgett Jr..