Samuel Williams and His World: Before the War and After the Union

Exhibit Splash Image

Interactive Timeline: The Life and Work of Samuel Williams through His Memoir

This timeline of Samuel Williams’s life draws upon quotes from his memoir, Before the War and After the Union (1929), as well as additional archival research, organized by exhibition section and timeframe.

Oak-lined avenue on a lowcountry plantation, photography by Morton Paine, Yeamans Hall Plantation, South Carolina, 1920, courtesy of The Charleston Museum Archives.
Photograph of two African American children on a bench with baskets at the Battery, Charleston, South Carolina, ca. 1860-1870, courtesy of Library of Congress.
African American child serving officers during the Civil War, Sam A. Cooley, South Carolina, ca. 1860s, courtesy of Beaufort County Library.
&ldquo;The first vote,&rdquo; 1867, wood engraving by Alfred R. Waud, <em>Harper&rsquo;s Weekly</em>, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Book for Before the War and After the Union, Sam Aleckson, Boston, Massachusetts, 1929, courtesy of Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.