"P" is for Pringle, Elizabeth Waties Allston (1845-1921)

"P" is for Pringle, Elizabeth Waties Allston (1845-1921). Rice planter, author. Allston was born to wealth and privilege, but the Civil War destroyed the family’s wealth. Widowed, she successfully managed two plantations—Chicora Wood and White House--producing rice crops that paid taxes and mortgages. With the decline of rice prices in the 1890s, Pringle was desperate for funds. She convinced the editor of the New York Sun to buy weekly articles she wrote about being a female rice-plantation owner. In 1913, her articles were collected into a single volume, A Woman Rice Planter. A best seller, the books eased her financial worries. By 1920 she began writing another book about her childhood and how women fared during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Elizabeth Waties Allston Pringle’s Chronicles of Chicora Wood was published after her death.