Sea Islands Women of the Past Speak Through Dr. Mollie Barnes
It was standing room only for two deep-dive discussions with Dr. Mollie Barnes at the USCB Library.
Dr. Barnes, Associate Professor of English, led faculty, staff, students and community members to explore her research about women’s historical narratives from the Sea Islands of Beaufort County. These sessions drew on content from her forthcoming book "Paper Heroines: How Women Reformers Wrote One Another’s Lives in the Sea Islands, 1838-1902" set to be released in February of 2026.
On March 19, “Sea Island Sheroes” highlighted ten influential Beaufort County women whose stories have shaped regional history. The Q&A featured an expansive look into the lives of the women who worked to provide for the Penn School and Beaufort County residents. Included a sneak peek excerpt from her book which outlined the women that serve as the focal point of her research but also honored the unnamed women and those with only a first name attached, who made an impact on the time but were lost to lack of archival efforts due to their gender, skin color, or perceived important status. For these women Dr. Barnes acknowledged them by providing the title “sheroes” to give a name to those who had lost theirs.
On March 26, “How to Read Archival Silences” provided an interactive guide to uncovering marginalized voices in historical records. Dr. Barnes provided a collection of images of unnamed persons to illustrate the lives of those at the Penn School and the time. None of the individuals were credited with their names or their stories. leading a discussion into what participants thought of these individuals and what their stories could be attendees saw aunts, grandmothers, cousins, and unknown or undiscovered ancestors in these photos. Emphasizing how much archival work is piecing together relics of the time, Dr. Barnes told of a piece that was archived as a poem, but in fact when looking into the document she had discovered that it was an account of a student who had attended the Penn School as a young child and chronicled about her time there when she was older and the teachers who provided influence for her long after she had grown up and they passed.
“Coming from the north, talk of what happened during the reconstruction era was non-existent" said Liz Monahan, a USCB student who attended both days of discussions. “The opportunity to take the time and learn about these individuals, their lives, their stories, their names is an experience I will never forget and forever cherish. It may have only been two days of discussion but it has inspired me to dig into archival research looking for the voices of the unheard, and taking the time to listen”.
"Paper Heroines" is forthcoming from USC Press. Barnes is hard at work on a new book about Laura Matilda Towne’s Penn School diaries. Transcribing the handwritten journals, she hopes to provide a foundation for additional diary transcriptions of other women at the time to paint a picture of Beaufort County and the Penn School through the eyes of those who experienced it.
Dr. Barnes is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and received her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. She has taught for the USCB English Department for more than 10 years. She is the First Vice President of the Margaret Fuller Society and has written extensively about women activists and writers throughout her career, specializing in the anti- and post-bellum Beaufort District. She is working on a second book -- a critical edition of Laura Matilda Towne’s 1862–1864 diaries documenting her first years as founding teacher of the Penn School. .
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