“Charleston County and the city of Charleston, its county seat, are the most historic locations in the state.” Situated in the Lowcountry, the county serves as a popular vacation destination but also relies on the business that results from its port. The area in general serves as a large cultural and economic hub for the state.
Charleston County was founded as Charleston District in 1769, and the district became smaller after some of its lands were used to create Colleton and Berkeley counties. The county and its seat were named after King Charles II.
The city and county are saturated with Revolutionary War and Civil War history. Three signers of the United States Constitution and two famous abolitionists resided in Charleston County, and the Civil War began when soldiers fired shots from the county’s Fort Sumter.
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Alfred Hutty (1877-1954) first came to Charleston in 1919, and the city and the people in it became an important subject for his art. This portrait of "Maum Anne" has caught the dignity of this...
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Katherine Osman Wilson traveled to Charleston to see her husband, and was photographed there in a companion portrait to his in 1861 (see Original Daguerreotype Of George Wilson). From Horace Harmon...
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This is a copy of an original daguerreotype made in Charleston when George Wilson (born in 1838) was stationed there in 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War. (See Portrait Of Katherine Osman Wilson)...
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The painter Thomas Sully (1783-1872) portrayed his own daughters, Blanche and Rosalie, in a painting often titled "The Rose and the Lilly." As a child, Sully lived in Charleston and appeared there...
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In the early 19th century, childhood began to be perceived as a time of innocence, and children as something different from miniature adults. Robert and Elizabeth Gilcrest were painted by the...
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William and Eliza Charlotte Moultrie, painted in 1792 by an unknown artist, were the grandchildren of General William Moultrie, the Revolutionary War defender of Sullivan's Island (see William...
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Mrs. John Champneys (Mary Harvey) and her stepdaughter Sarah were painted by Edward Savage in 1789. Mary was a widow when she married John Champneys and took on the task of raising his young daughter...
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Women are not the only ones who cook in South Carolina! This cook on a fishing boat in Charleston is peeling potatoes for Christmas dinner in December 1938. Photograph for the Farm Security...
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The Jenkins Orphanage Brass Band in Charleston. The orphanage was begun in 1891 by an African-American minister, Reverend Daniel Jenkins, to remove young African-American children from the street and...
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Classical or serious music has a long history in South Carolina. The St. Cecilia Society (still in existence today) was founded in Charleston in 1762 to bring the best concert music available to that...
