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Thomas Green Clemson. Edited by Alma Bennett. (Clemson, SC: Clemson University Digital Press, c. 2009. Pp. xviii, 358. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-9796066-8-7.)
When Thomas Green Clemson died in 1888, he left nearly his entire estate, valued at approximately $80,000, to his adopted state for the purpose of founding the Clemson Agriculture College of South Carolina. This was his sole connection to what would become Clemson University. The fifteen contributors to this volume suggest that there is more to his life than this contribution to institution building. They do so with such varied backgrounds as history, horticulture, music, electrical engineering, architecture, literature, and law.
Clemson was born and raised in Philadelphia, later attended Vermont's Norwich Academy, and continued his education at the Sorbonne and Royal School of Mines in Paris. He pursued a scientific career in the late 1820s and early 183Os, but it did not last. In 1838 he married Senator John C. Calhoun's daughter, Anna, and became manager of his father-in-law's South Carolina plantation, Fort Hill. Calhoun later used his influence to win Clemson an appointment as chargé d'affaires in...