What We Do
The South Carolina Picture Project is a federally-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that preserves the images and history of South Carolina’s historic, natural, and cultural landmarks before they are lost to time. Our website serves as a permanent digital archive of over 2,300 South Carolina landmarks – and counting!
The South Carolina Picture Project allows users to find landmarks by city, county, and type (depots, stores, schools, churches, etc.). This, in turn, offers people the ability to plan trips and also explore their own hometowns.
We research each landmark and incorporate community knowledge to create a constantly growing repository of irreplaceable South Carolina history. The South Carolina Picture Project is “living history” at its best. Because the landmarks are not printed, our information about them can be constantly expanded and updated as landmarks change or become extinct.
The South Carolina Picture Project serves as an important resource for more than 1,000,000 people a year. Every single day, over 3,000 unique individuals visit the site for learning and enjoyment.
Why We Do It
Here at the South Carolina Picture Project, our mission is five-fold:
- First and foremost, to act as a permanent repository where images and records of South Carolina’s changing and vanishing landmarks can be saved forever.
In a digital world where impermanence is the rule and not the exception, the South Carolina Picture Project serves as a protected and lasting place to preserve photographs, paintings, knowledge, and stories.
- To celebrate the beauty and culture of the Palmetto State and thus create pride among South Carolinians.
In an atmosphere where contention seems omnipresent, the South Carolina Picture Project represents joy, meaning, and unity. It serves as a present reminder of what makes South Carolina special, the ways in which we have grown as a state, and the reasons we all have to be proud.
- To give our school children the ability to intimately study our state’s history in a format that is inviting, accessible, and free of charge.
Our website allows teachers and other educators a simple way to share South Carolina history with students. It is an especially tremendous asset to those who teach and study South Carolina History in grades 3 and 8, as well as those who study it as adults. Our information is written to be detailed but accessible to all.
- To boost South Carolina’s economy by inspiring travel by both those who live within South Carolina and those who live far away.
With maps, addresses, reviews, and more, the South Carolina Picture Project is the ultimate travel guide! We receive countless comments from those who have used our guide to plan their weekend road-trip or entire vacation.
- To provide the citizens of South Carolina a place to contribute their own connections and recollections of a place.
The South Carolina Picture Project is comprised of Citizen History. There are an army of photographers out there capturing incredible South Carolina scenes that would otherwise disappear in the feeds of social media. There are also an army of individuals who live in South Carolina landmarks, have friends and family who own South Carolina landmarks, or remember South Carolina landmarks intimately from their youth. These everyday historians may not have a degree in historic preservation, but their stories matter. They are precious and should not be lost.
As a native South Carolinian whose roots extend to the early 1700s, I am very interested in your work.