‌Alberta Lachicotte Quattlebaum

Alberta Lachicotte Quattlebaum was a writer and historian best known as the author of Georgetown Rice Plantations, a definitive history of the plantations of Georgetown County. The book, first published in 1955, is widely regarded as an indispensible and influential work of area history. Her book Rebel Senator, a biography of the South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond, was published in 1967.

Born in 1928 in Sumter, S.C. Quattlebaum grew up on Waverly Plantation in Georgetown County and spent summers at the family cottage on Pawleys Island. Her family ran the rice mill at Waverly Plantation, operated a small diary, and sold oysters and crabs to visitors to Pawleys Island. Her father established the original Pawleys Island Hammock Shop in the 1930s.

She graduated from Winyah High School in Georgetown and earned a bachelor’s degree from Winthrop College and a master’s degree in teaching from The Citadel. She worked as a reporter for Charleston’s News and Courier and The Lancaster News in the upstate.

She was a member of the South Carolina Historical Society, the Georgetown County Historical Society, All Saints Waccamaw Episcopal Church in Pawleys Island, and the Senior Scholars of Georgetown County Library. For 20 years she served on the editorial board of South Carolina Historical Magazine, the quarterly publication of the South Carolina Historical Society. She was a member of the board of directors for the Georgetown Rice Museum and was a member of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in the State of South Carolina.

Quattlebaum was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Public Service from Coastal Carolina University during the May 1998 commencement ceremony.

Her brother, Arthur Herbert "Doc” Lachicotte Jr., received the honorary degree Doctor of Public Service from Coastal Carolina University in 2009.