Lunchbox Learning is a monthly lecture series featuring local, state, and national history. Each program takes place on the third Wednesday of each month at noon.
Wednesday, October 28th at Noon
A Carnival of Crime: Murder, Mischief, and Malice in 1890s Spartanburg
Presented by Betsy Teter
Through ten interconnected true-crime stories, this historical account captures a South Carolina county’s most violent decade—a time when bullets felled a mayor, a police chief, and a beloved bookseller, each in separate shocking incidents. Illustrated with dozens of photographs, the book explores all the chaotic events that unfold amid Spartanburg’s first economic boom, as cotton mills multiply across the county, the community becomes one of the South’s rising industrial powers, generating many great fortunes.
Betsy Teter is a founder of Spartanburg’s Hub City Writers Project and served as its executive director for 22 years. In 2017, she received the Governor’s Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award for contribution to the arts in South Carolina. Her written work has appeared in Outside, Utne Reader, Blue Ridge Quarterly, and several Hub City books. Prior to her time at Hub City, she was a reporter and editor at five newspapers in the Carolinas.
Lunchbox Learning is free for UHM Members and included with general admission for all other guests.
Lunchbox Learning is generously sponsored by:
Upcoming Lunchbox Learning Programs
What to Wear to a Revolution
Presented by Jean Hutchinson
November 18, 2026
