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An aerial view of Fort Sumter in 1985.
Charleston
“Charleston County and the city of Charleston, its county seat, are the most historic locations in the state.”
“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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This aerial view of Fort Moultrie was taken in 1980 after the fort had become a National Park and was restored to show the evolution of Atlantic coast defense fortifications from the Revolutionary War...
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Aerial view of the Folly Beach Atlantic Pavilion in the 1950s. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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Aerial view of the City of Charleston around 1940. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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The fall months are traditionally the season of heavy storms along the Carolina Coast. This photograph shows the damage to the Charleston Ferry wharf after a hurricane in 1911. Courtesy of the South...
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St. Andrew's Parish on James Island was one of the early suburban development sites for an expanding 20th century Charleston. The new Ashley River Bridge, completed in 1926, led investors to lay out...
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The Custom House of Charleston, viewed from the harbor in 1899. Begun in 1850 with Federal funds, intended as the crowning glory of Charleston's antebellum civic architecture, the classical revival...
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King Street in Charleston, looking north around 1925. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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The promenade on the East Battery, Charleston, in 1910. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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The ruins of the Circular Congregational Church, photographed in 1865, show the devastation that fire and war brought on the city of Charleston. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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This birds-eye view of Charleston, drawn and engraved in 1853, was widely reproduced in "Harper's Illustrated Weekly" for the next decade; it became the visual image most outsiders had of what the...
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The artist James Audubon (see John James Audubon) first came to Charleston in late October of 1831, and was so welcomed by its citizens, particularly the Reverend John Bachman (see John Bachman) that...
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"An Exact Prospect of Charles Town, the Metropolis of the Province of South Carolina," was engraved for the London Magazine in 1762, based on a painting of the bustling colonial commercial city in...
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A plan of Charles Town in 1704, drawn by Edward Crisp, and used as an insert map to a larger map of the province of Carolina, published in London in 1711. This copy is a reproduction of the original...
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The town of Camden was one of the first official settlements to be laid out in the interior of South Carolina in the 1730s. Settlers flooded into the backcountry during the quarter century of peace...
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Pelicans nest in the Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge on Bulls Island in 1944. Photo by William Baldwin for the U.S. Biological Survey. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.
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Plantation owners demanded more than just obedience from their slaves. They also demanded things like loyalty, respect, love, and duty. Whippings, and solitary confinement, were common punishments for...
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The "Slave Task System" was a widely adopted system in which each worker would have a set of tasks to complete on a daily basis.
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Several dangers to rice crops included hurricanes, floods from the mountains, and swollen rivers. Damage ranged from minor, to total devastation. Animals, such as rice weevils, crows, and ducks, also...
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From May until November, white plantation owners moved further in-land, in order to escape the "country fever" diseases, such as Malaria and Cholera. Those two diseases took a heavy toll on the human...
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"Carolina Gold" was considered the favored variety of rice. This clip describes how the colonial economy boomed as a result of rice.
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Before the American Revolution, the 300 mile coast line of South Carolina was known as the "Kingdom of Rice." Charleston was considered the richest city in Colonial America.
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The Civil War marked the beginning of the decline of rice in South Carolina. Although planters continued growing rice during the Civil War, Georgetown experienced an economic down-turn as a result of...
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The Middleton Plantation, just south of Charleston, is presently a museum. The Middleton Plantation is an example of rice wealth during the early 1800s, and many other planters sought to style their...
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