Events

The Horry County Museum and South Carolina Humanities present a program by “The Gullah Lady”, Sharon Cooper-Murray, on Friday, March 6th, on the history of rag quilting in the Gullah community.

This entertaining and educational program explores the history of rag quilting, a tradition dating to the antebellum period, when feed and grain sacks were combined with rag strips to make unique quilts. Traditionally passed from generation to generation, Cooper-Murray was taught the process by Gullah women from Wadmalaw and Johns Island. She has since set out on a mission to preserve this disappearing art form.

Sharon Cooper-Murray is a native of South Carolina raised in Florence County. After attending college in Tennessee, she returned to South Carolina and has resided Charleston County, South Carolina. When she arrived on Wadmalaw Island, SC, it was the first time she heard the Gullah language, and she was fascinated by the tone and rhythm of this Creole language. That was the beginning of what has become her life-long passion: the Gullah culture, their stories, folk music, crafts, food ways, religious folkways … their way of life. She has traveled throughout the east coast of the United States as an advocate of the preservation, conservation and development of the culture through workshops, lectures, storytelling, special events and artist in residency programs.

Experience life on the family farm in Horry County from 1900-1955 at the L.W. Paul Living History Farm. Join us on March 7th from 9:30 AM until 10:30 AM for Farm Harvest Day to participate in the picking, gathering, and preparing of crops on the farm.
Green onions are one of the first vegetables that can be harvested in Horry County. Visitors are invited to join staff in the farm garden to see the onions growing and learn about how the growth at the top of the plant would be used as soon as it was available.
The L. W. Paul Living History Farm is open Tuesday-Saturday 9 AM-4 PM and teaches the history of the Horry County farm family. The farm is free and open to the public and is located at the corner of Hwy 701 North and Harris Short Cut Road in Conway, SC. For more information, call the L. W. Paul Living History Farm at 843-915-5321 or email hcgmuseum@horrycounty.org. For a full list of programs and events at the Horry County Museum and L.W. Paul Living History Farm, visit www.horrycountymuseum.org.

The L.W. Paul Living History Farm will host a free hands-on workshop on indigo dyeing on Tuesday, March 10th at 10 AM. Join Kimberly Washburn, Curator of Education at the Florence County Museum, to explore Indigofera Suffruticosa, the variety of indigo grown in colonial South Carolina. 

Art, Science and History meet in this hands-on exploration of natural indigo. Participants will explore the importance of the indigo plant to South Carolina’s early agricultural economy, learn the science behind this unique dye plant, and learn pattern-making techniques to create an original work of textile art using indigo dye. Each participant will design and dye one cotton flour sack towel.

The 2020 Horry County Museum Documentary Film Series continues with The Baruchs of Hobcaw, part of the Carolina Stories Series by SCETV. In 1718, 17,500 acres of pristine land in Georgetown County became a colonial land grant, or barony, from the King of England to one of the Lords Proprietors. The Native Americans called it “hobcaw,” meaning between the waters. Purchased by Bernard Baruch in 1905, Hobcaw Barony eventually passed into the hands of Baruch’s daughter, Belle, who created a foundation to protect it from development. This film tells the story of the Baruchs and Hobcaw Barony, which is today home to USC’s Baruch Marine Field Laboratory and Clemson’s Belle W. Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science.
The film is free to the public and will be shown at 1:00 PM, Wednesday, March 11th, at the Horry County Museum, located at 805 Main Street in Conway.
The Horry County Museum Documentary Film Matinees will continue throughout 2020. For a full list of films, visit our website at www.horrycountymuseum.org. For more information, call the Horry County Museum at 843-915-5320 or e-mail hcgmuseum@horrycounty.org.

The Horry County Museum will host a free program by local quilter Sandy Jacobs on Wednesday, March 11th on redwork in quilting. Redwork is a form of American embroidery, also called art needlework that developed in the 19th century and was particularly popular between 1855 and 1925. Redwork designs are composed of simple stitches and were mainly used to decorate household objects in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially quilts.
Sandy Jacobs’ first quilt was a huge t-shirt quilt made from her daughter’s sorority shirts. She made a few more on her own before she decided to begin taking classes. Jacobs began with traditional piecing and enjoys the challenge of making everything fit properly. She has been teaching beginning quilting and other classes for the last few years at local quilt shops and also for guilds.