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"B" is for Bragg, Laura [1881-1978]

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"B" is for Bragg, Laura [1881-1978]. Museum administrator, educator. A native of Massachusetts, Bragg earned a degree in library science. Her first professional positions were in Maine and at the New York City Library. In 1909 she was hired to be the librarian at the Charleston Museum where she soon was promoted to curator of books and public instruction. She used her position to cross both racial and class lines with her education program—the first in a southern museum. In 1920 Bragg was named director of the Charleston Museum --the first woman in the country to hold such a position at a publicly supported museum. Fascinated by the state’s rich cultural heritage, she promoted the preservation of Edgefield pottery and the Heyward--Washington House. Laura Bragg was among the six founders of the Poetry Society of South Carolina.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.