Red, White, and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life

Acknowledgments

ix I have many people and institutions to thank for their contributions to my work. For financial support, I am indebted to Clemson University’s College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities for grants to conduct research in England at the National Archives, the British Library, the London Metropolitan Archives, and the Guildhall Library, and in the United States at the Library of Congress, Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, the South Carolina Historical Society, the Charleston Archive of the Charleston County Public Library, and the Charleston Library Society. I thank all of the many archivists and librarians who assisted my labor at these institutions as well as those individuals at libraries and museums who helped me secure illustrations for this book. I also received a grant from the South Carolina Humanities Council to create and present with Karen Hall and Kendra Johnson public programs on indigo: these efforts brought me into contact with many people who taught me much about how indigo’s history affects the present. Clemson’s Art Department, where I am fortunate to work with marvelous colleagues and students, funded photographs taken by Anderson Wrangle for this book. I thank Anderson for his beautiful pictures. I am grateful for the knowledge I gained from individuals whose lives emerged for me through archival research and from the wonderful scholars whose texts inform this book. I also thank Ralph Bailey Jr. for information about eighteenth-century South Carolina indigo vats, Lydia M. Pulsipher for helping me research eighteenth-century Montserrat, and Harriet Simons Williams for her thoughts about slave John Williams.I am indebted to the people who read my acknowledgments x Acknowledgments work—especially Peggy Galis, Karen Hall, Erika Stevens, Beth Tobin, and my anonymous reviewers—and to the audiences who listened to papers I delivered at conferences organized by the Society for Economic Botany, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Southeastern American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies,and the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies. I learned much about dyes and pigments from the authors who contributed to a book on early modern color that I coedited with Beth Tobin and Maureen Goggin and that Erika Gaffney and Emily Ruskell saw to fruition. I received hands-on experience with dye from Karen Hall—a consummate dyer—and discovered a great deal about eighteenth-century textiles with the help of costume historian and designer Kendra Johnson. Tim Drake gave me an unprecedented opportunity to learn about a specific such textile—the wrap made by Eliza Lucas Pinckney that he owns—and I am indebted to him for sharing that wonderful garment with me. At the University of Georgia Press, Erika Stevens gave the project its shape and worked with me to develop it even after she left the press. Laura Sutton and especially Regan Huff helped me see the manuscript through to completion, and Rebecca Norton shepherded it through production. Ellen D. Goldlust did wonderful copyediting. Sydney Dupre oversaw many of the book's particulars, and Amanda E. Sharp launched its circulation. Erin Kirk New gave the book its beautiful design, and David Wasserboehr created its handsome map. Nancy Grayson brought my project to the press and I greatly appreciate her support. I am thankful for those who sustained me as I researched, wrote, and revised this book: Karen Hall, Christina Hung, Kim Kelley, Beth Lauritis, Mary Ann Lawson, Christen Mathis, Jacqueline Mouzon, Jennifer Ransom, Beth Tobin, and all of my family members. Among the latter I am especially grateful to Robert Feeser, Elaine Feeser, Hilarey Bhatt, Tim Factor, and Noah Factor. My husband, Tim, and son, Noah, lived this endeavor with me, and their support means the world to me. Red, White, and Black Make Blue This page intentionally left blank ...