SOUTH CAROLINA HALL OF FAME

Teacher Guide

William Gilmore Simms

South Carolina Social Studies Standards William Gilmore Simms The New Nation - A New Nation and State The Civil War - Forces of Unity and Division

Topics include - Antebellum South, Southern literature, genres (Southern Gothic, Epic Poetry, 30 Fictional Novels-the Colonial, Revolutionary, & Border Series, Sectional Southern literature), sectionalism, "Woodcraft"-Simms' answer to Uncle Tom's Cabin Standard 4-6: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the causes, the course, and the effects of the American Civil War.

4-6.1 - Explain the significant economic and geographic differences between the North and South.

4-6.2 - Explain the contributions of abolitionists to the mounting tensions between the North and South over slavery, including William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Brown. Standard 8-4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the multiple events that led to the Civil War.

8-4.2 - Analyze how sectionalism arose from racial tension, including the Denmark Vesey plot, slave codes and the growth of the abolitionist movement. Reading Standards for Literature - grade 8

1. Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot, provide an objective summary of the text.

3. Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

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4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings, analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.

5. Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.

6. Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g. created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.

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S.C. Hall of Fame Biography William Gilmore Simms

William Gilmore Simms was a poet, novelist, and historian whose work was a major force in antebellum Southern literature, with one of his historical texts serving as the standard textbook on South Carolina’s history for many generations. He was greatly in support of slavery and secession and was called one of America’s best novelists by Edgar Allen Poe.

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Outline William Gilmore Simms

Intro

 Born April 17, 1806  Died June 11, 1970  Writer & editor, cultural journalist, “literary son of the South, ”poet and “romancer” (novelist)  James Fennimore Cooper (1789-1851) was a few years older; Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849), and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) were contemporaries; Melville, Mark Twain a little later  Contemporary esteem and attention  Prolific

Background

 Scots-Irish, English ancestry  Lived in antebellum Charleston—wealthy port city, cotton, rice, many nationalities, sailors, slaves  Interested in history—American frontier (Alabama and Mississippi), the “West” (how far west?), Indians, Revolutionary War, ghost stories, backcountry of SC  Read Bunyan, Goldsmith, Sir Walter Scott, Cooper

Personal Life

 Studied law, married Anna Malcolm Giles (she died in 1832), one daughter  Married Chevillette Eliza Roach in 1836, 14 children, moved to Woodlands Plantation near Bamberg—Simms’ study is separate building did not burn  Woodlands burned by Sherman, 1865  How did he influence his granddaughter Mary C. Simms Oliphant?  Mary Simms Furman, Felicia Furman, “Shared History” 2005

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Career

 Spent time on “frontier” in Alabama and Mississippi  1825 Album periodical devoted to Southern literature  Lived in Summerville, bought The City Gazette in Charleston, unpopular Unionist stance during nullification (1832)  Made a living writing  Wrote fiction, literary criticism, “culture journals,” newspapers, periodicals, poetry, historical romance, serials, orations, biographies, histories, geographies, collections, dramas, reviews, op-ed pieces, columns, Southern and American humor, fables  Colonial, Revolutionary, and border romances  “Father” of American short story  “Grayling” ghost story admired by Poe  The Yemassee 1835 defines romance genre, more realistic portrayal of Indians than Cooper  Copyright issues, panic of 1837, switch to biography and history, Life of Francis Marion  1838 Southern Passages and Pictures poetry  Atlantis, Martin Faber, Guy Rivers—What are the best representative works?  State legislature 1840s  Supported secession, career began to wane 1859

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Transcript William Gilmore Simms

William Gilmore Simms was born April 17, 1806 in Charleston, South Carolina. Born to a Scots- Irish family, his mother died when he was still an infant, and his father, facing economic difficulty, joined Coffee’s Indian Fighters, leaving Simms to be raised by his grandmother. Simms began to study law at the age of 18, however he quickly dropped this pursuit in order to become a writer. Simms had always had a love for poetry and literature; he wrote his first poems at the age of eight. In 1828, he began his career as a journalist and as the editor of the City Gazette. It was after the failure of this venture, that Simms began actively writing poems, short stories, and novels.

Many of Simms’s early works focused on the pre-colonial and colonial history of the South. The sentiments of the American Revolution were very important to Simms. For example, he greatly admired the founders’ desire to build a new nation distinctly different England and the rest of Europe. Many of Simms’s works focus on South Carolina’s role in the American Revolution, including The Partisan in 1835, and Katherine Walton in 1851.

Borrowing from those themes from the American Revolution, Simms sought to create a Southern identity and culture that was markedly different from the rest of America. Having spent time on the western frontier with his father, Simms embraced the idea of Manifest Destiny and admired the many developments occurring along the nation’s border. On the frontier, Simms spent much time among the Native Americans. From these experiences, Simms wrote some of the most accurate portrayals of the Native Americans during his time. Although Simms had great respect for the Native Americans, he supported Indian Removal because he felt it benefitted the greater good of the American people.

In an effort to build a vibrant image of the South in his works, Simms often wrote in dialect. He was one of the first authors to do so, but this style was picked up by other authors and made famous, most notably by Mark Twain.

Simms was also a member of the Young America movement. This patriotic movement was led by many famous authors, artists, and politicians and advocated the rise of a great American

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state and its expansion westward. Another prominent member of Young America was Walt Whitman.

Later as the Nullification Crisis raged and the Civil War drew near, Simms wrote adamantly in favor of slavery and Southern rights. Simms was enraged by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin and in response wrote his own pro-slavery novel The Sword and the Distaff a few months later.

It was these controversial views that lost Simms his readers and supporters in the North. When Sherman’s troops marched through South Carolina, Simms fled his home and took refuge in Columbia, however his beloved family estate The Woodlands in Bamberg, was burned to the ground. The details of the fire are unclear: many historians blame the Union troops for burning Woodlands, however at the time one of Simms’s slaves was accused of starting the fire. Simms, however, defended his slave and refused to believe he started the fire.

After the Civil War, Simms saw his popularity decline sharply. This was partly due to his loss of Northern supporters but also because the style of literature had changed. Simms wrote of an ever-evolving, dynamic South, whereas post-Civil War authors portrayed the South as a land frozen in time, whose glory had been destroyed during the war, much like the South of Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Consequently Simms fell out of readership and study, and only recently have scholars revisited his work.

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Credits

South Carolina Social Studies Standard Correlations were provided by Lisa Ray

The purpose of the South Carolina Hall of Fame is to recognize and honor both contemporary and past citizens who have made outstanding contributions to South Carolina's heritage and progress.

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