Welcome to the Salons

Step inside an atmosphere bathed in warm library lamp light, surrounded by aged parchment, rare primary source replicas, and historical nonfiction text.

Founded by Public Scholar & Historian Gracia Collins Rich, our Historical Curated Salons offer an immersive, multi-night intellectual journey into the 17th–19th century American narrative. Rather than viewing history through a distant lens, each session invites you into a collaborative space where we examine original statutory codes, localized legal archives, and forgotten personal accounts. Together, we unpack the profound human truths, legal architectures, and enduring legacies that shape our world today.

Seasonal Salon Offerings

The Grand Premiere Launch Showcase (Fall Feature) September 17, 2026

Title: The Written and the Unwritten: Law, Liberty, and Life of Marion County
Overview: Serving as the grand annual preview, this high-end showcase introduces attendees to the HistoryWithHer experience. Guests receive an exclusive mini-folio featuring localized primary source replicas from the historical Marion District archive.

The Scholar’s Shelf Feature: To honor National Literacy Month, each showcase features a curated display of foundational nonfiction texts pulled directly from the Curator’s research library, illuminating the deliberate legal strategies and human investigative journeys behind regional history.

Books featured for this Salon:

Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy
by Derek W. Black

An essential, eye-opening examination on how teaching reading to enslaved and marginalized communities was historically perceived as a profound threat to entrenched political power, tracing the courageous resistance of those who sought knowledge.

Slaves in the Family
by Edward Ball

A monumental, intimate historical search uncovering the deeply entangled ancestral, social and physical legacies of Lowcountry plantations, showing how unwritten histories persist in modern families and shared legacies.

South Carolina: A History
by Walter Edgar

The definitive chronicle of the Palmetto State’s rich, complex, and dramatic past. Edgar traces over three centuries of South Carolina’s social, political, and cultural landscape, laying a structural foundation for our local study.