This digital exhibit is based on work done in the fall of 2023 by students at USC Upstate in Professor Tammy Pike's course HIST 325 - Women in the United States Since 1865.  The work was done in collaboration with the Piedmont Historical Preservation Society as a service learning project, transcribing letters found in the Margaret Payne Collection. The time periods covered in the course include the Gilded Age (1877 - 1900) and the Progressive Era (1900 -1940).  The letters selected for inclusion in this Digital Exhibit represent communications between Blanche Peden Payne and various friends and relatives from 1905 - 1937, but do not constitute the entirety of Blanche's correspondence found in the Margaret Payne Collection.  The Margaret Payne Collection is housed at the Piedmont Historical Preservation Society, located in Piedmont, South Carolina.