Horry County Museum Lecture Series: "The South Carolina Dispensary System and Prohibition”

Join Horry County Museum Curator Abigail Geedy on Sept. 20 at 1p.m. as she discusses the South Carolina Dispensary System and Prohibition in the state. By the early 1890s, many assumed South Carolina was on the verge of declaring prohibition, but in 1892 the dispensary system passed as an alternative. It wouldn’t be until multiple versions of the dispensary system fell out of favor that state prohibition was passed in 1915, followed not far after by Federal Prohibition. This talk discusses an overview of the history and controversies of the dispensary system and state and federal prohibition with a focus on Horry County’s thoughts and reactions.

Geedy was born and raised in south-central Pennsylvania and moved to South Carolina for college in 2012. She has a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Anthropology and a Graduate Certificate of Museum Management from the University of South Carolina. She began volunteering in museums in 2011 and worked in curation at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology for five years before joining the Horry County Museum as a Technical Assistant in 2020. She then moved into the role of Curator in 2022. She has previously worked as an intern or volunteer at the York County Heritage Trust in York, Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania State Museum in Harrisburg, and McKissick Museum in Columbia.

The program will begin at 1 p.m. on Sept. 20 in the McCown Auditorium located at 805 Main Street in Conway. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call (843) 915-5320 or email hcg.museum@horrycountysc.gov.

To view a full list of programs, visit our website.