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"J" is for John D. Hollingsworth on Wheels

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  "J" is for John D. Hollingsworth on Wheels. John D. Hollingsworth on Wheels was a Greenville-based manufacturer of steel and flexible wire clothing for cards and other machines for spinning preparation. It was founded in 1894 by Pinckney C. Hollingsworth who started a company to repair textile machinery. He carried a lathe and grinder—by mule—to cotton mills in the two Carolinas. He later purchased a used truck and built a large garage-workshop behind his house. He was followed in the business by his son John D. Hollingsworth and grandson. J.D. Hollingsworth, Jr., the grandson, expanded the company into a major machinery manufacturer with clients around the world. The John D. Hollingsworth on Wheels corporation was the multi-million dollar corpus for the Hollingsworth Foundation with profits to go to various non-profit institutions such as the Greenville YMCA and Furman University.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.