14 Spartanburg Women Who Changed & Wrote History
March may be Women's History Month, but Spartanburg's expansive history of influential women goes far beyond one month and even the county's earliest days.
Travel through time with these 14 Spartanburg women who changed and wrote both local AND national history over 250 years- from the Revolutionary War to present day.
Revolutionary War Era
Kate Moore Barry
Shortly after their 1760s arrival in SC, the Moore Family established Walnut Grove- a family farm and former plantation, owned and protected as an educational site by Spartanburg County Historical Association. Spartanburg County was home to both Loyalists and Patriots during the Revolutionary War, of which “Courageous Kate” is remembered as a spy and courier for the Patriot cause. She is credited with warning local troops in 1781 of both “Bloody” Bill Cunningham’s approach and Col. Barnastre Tarleton’s advances towards Cowpens.
Jane Black Thomas
Jane and John Thomas settled along Fairforest Creek in 1762, some of the first members of the area’s Presbyterian congregation. John Thomas was chosen as Colonel of the Spartan Regiment, serving until his capture by British forces. On visiting her prisoner husband at Ninety-Six, Thomas overheard Loyalist plans to attack at Cedar Springs, riding nearly 60-miles to warn family, friends, and troops in time to ward off the attack.
1800s
Grimké Sisters
Sarah and Angelina Grimké were leading 19th century abolitionists and suffragists, born in Charleston and spending summers on a family farm near Cross Anchor in Spartanburg County. It was during their early 1800s time in the upcountry that the sisters began to reject the root of their privileged lifestyle, challenging slaveholding society in speeches and letters. The sisters moved north to Philadelphia and joined the American Antislavery Society in 1835, its first women abolitionist members.
In centennial celebration of the 19th amendment granting women's right to vote, the League of Women Voters commissioned a mural honoring the Grimké sisters’ later fight for women’s equality. The colorful 2020 mural, designed by artist Nancy Corbin, can be found at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, (210 Henry Pl.)
“Determined to Soar,” designed by Nancy Corbin, painted by Jeremy Kemp and Stephen Long
Priscilla Young
Joseph and Priscilla Young were known leaders in Spartanburg’s Southside community and some of the first Black landowners in the city. Shortly after Emancipation in 1865, Young sewed a patriotic flag from a red petticoat and fabric scraps, which was then presented to U.S. Army Captain Crossman as part of a Juneteenth jubilee parade by federal soldiers and freedmen and women.
The “Freedom Flag” would then disappear from local memory until its 2015 rediscovery across the country and preservation by the Spartanburg County Public Libraries, where it is now displayed.
Freedom Flag by Priscilla Young; courtesy SCPL
Helen Fayssoux Kennedy
In 1882, Helen Fayssoux Kennedy donated her late husband's medical texts and office plot on Morgan Square to six trustees, creating the Kennedy Library. Spartanburg’s first “public” library housed 600 medical texts and 300 books collected from the community, with $3 annual subscriptions.
A new building was constructed on Magnolia Street for a free library, opening in 1905 thanks to a $15,000 Carnegie donation and $1,500 in annual funds from the city. When the library moved to South Pine Street in 1961, this building was demolished, and Library Street and the courthouse stand in its place today. In 1997, SCPL moved to its current home at 151 South Church Street, where the Kennedy Room of Local History is named in her honor.
Kennedy Free Library, Magnolia St. 1920s; courtesy SCPL
Mary H. Wright
Born into slavery in 1862, Mary Honor Farrow Wright was one of Spartanburg’s first Black students to attend school post-emancipation, enrolling in the Free Colored School in 1869. She would then continue on to become one of the Spartanburg’s public school system’s first and longest-serving educators, beginning in Inman in 1879.
Soon after, Wright founded a school in her Southside home in the City of Spartanburg, which expanded into the newly-constructed Carrier Street School. In recognition of her 65-years in public education and humanitarian devotions, the city school system posthumously named Mary H. Wright Elementary in her honor.
Early 1900s
Dr. Rosa Gantt
Dr. Rosa Hirschmann Gantt was the Upcountry’s most prominent, educated, and progressive Jewish activist in the early 1900s, one of the first two women to obtain an MD from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1901. Following additional training and residency in New York and Rock Hill, Gantt opened her own specialty ear, nose, and throat practice in Spartanburg in 1905. She later innovated “health mobiles” for rural immunizations, examinations, and dental and prenatal care.
In 1916, Gantt founded and served as president for the Temple B’nai Israel’s Women’s Auxiliary (later “Temple Sisterhood,”) fundraising for temple improvements and negotiating a Jewish burial section in Oakwood Cemetery. She organized Red Cross volunteers and was active on numerous boards and societies, including the South Carolina Equal Suffrage League, Spartanburg County Medical Society, Southern Medical Association, American Medical Women’s Association, and was commissioned by the Department of Commerce as an Air Force medical Examiner.
Nina Littlejohn
In 1913, Nina Littlejohn established and administrated Spartanburg’s first licensed Black hospital, adjacent to her family’s home on North Dean Street. It offered two wards with space for 16 patients, an operating room, and full kitchen supplemented by husband Worth Littlejohn’s backyard garden. The John-Nina Hospital operated until 1932, when it consolidated with Spartanburg General Hospital’s newly-opened Black annex.
Carrie Bomar Perry
Carrie Bomar Perry was one of the first college-educated Black women in the City of Spartanburg, operating the Provident Hospital in her family home from 1920-1930. The private Black hospital on Howard Street staffed both White and Black doctors and several nurses, offering fully modern equipment for the time.
1950s and Beyond
Ellen Watson
Ellen Watson’s career as a home economics teacher and guidance counselor for Carver High School impacted hundreds of students across 42 years in School District 7, but her commitment to community excellence did not end at the school’s doors. Watson served on several civic committees integral to guiding integration, including as first vice president of the local NAACP, the Spartanburg Salvation Army, and the Mayor’s Committee of Human Relations.
Cheryl Harleston
Cheryl Harleston’s (then Hamilton) pioneer career began in 1968, as one of the South’s first Black reporters on television with WCIV in Charleston, promoted to news anchor and Public Affairs Director. In the mid-1970s, Cheryl and new husband Ronald Harleston moved upcountry, where she served as City of Spartanburg’s Director of Community Relations until 2004, the city’s first Black employee in upper-level management.
Ellen Hines Smith
Ellen Hines Smith broke numerous glass ceilings in her life, from graduating cum laude as the only woman and 2nd in her USC law class, to her appointment as Spartanburg County’s first woman judge in 1970 and later service as Chief Judge of Spartanburg County Civil and Criminal Court.
Beyond her career in law, Smith was a known champion for the community, helping to establish and Chair the Spartanburg Girls’ Home in 1974 (renamed the Ellen Hines Smith Girls’ Home in 1985,) founding Piedmont Legal Services in 1976, and aiding in the public-private partnership creation of the Spartanburg Residential Development Corporation for home ownership in the mid 1980s. In 1982, she was elected City of Spartanburg’s first Councilwoman, serving 15 years.
Kitty Black Perkins
Louvenia “Kitty” Black Perkins grew up in Spartanburg’s Highland neighborhood and graduated from Carver High School, before moving cross-country to become Mattel’s first Black designer. She served as the Chief Designer of Fashion and Doll Concepts for over 25 years, creating over 100 designs annually.
In 1980, Perkins was instrumental to the debut of the first Black Barbie and Shani doll line, alongside Beulah Mae Mitchell and Stacey McBride Irby. A 2023 Shondaland documentary directed by Lagueria Davis explores the three women’s impact at Mattel, now available on Netflix.
Courtesy Shondaland’s documentary Black Barbie, 2023