Mann Simons Site | Let's Go!

The Mann-Simons Site, home to the same entrepreneurial African American family for nearly 130 years, traces the journey of Columbia’s African American community from enslavement through urban renewal. 

While only one house stands today, the Mann-Simons Site historically was a collection of commercial and domestic spaces owned and operated by the same African American family from at least 1843 until 1970. Midwife Celia Mann and boatman Ben Delane made this site their home by the early 1840s. Members of Columbia's small population of free people of color, the couple challenged social norms at a time in which most Africans and African Americans were enslaved. Successive generations of their family negotiated the eras in which the capital city evolved from Jim Crow into the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Threat of demolition in 1970 galvanized a grassroots movement that saved the remaining structure, which opened as a house museum in 1978.

Historic Columbia is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Columbia and Richland County's historic and cultural heritage. 

Standards

• 2-1 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the local community as well as the fact that geography influences not only the development of communities but also the interactions between people and the environment.
  • Geography influences the development of communities. To understand the connections between communities and the environment, the student will utilize the knowledge and skills set forth in the following indicators:
    • 2-1.4 Summarize changes that have occurred in the local community over time, including changes in the use of land and in the way people earn their living.
• 2-3 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the role of goods and services and supply and demand in a community.
  • People’s choices affect the types of goods and services that are produced as well as the price of those goods and services. To understand the role that choice plays in the American economy, the student will utilize the knowledge and skills set f...
    • 2-3.2 Explain how people’s choices about what to buy will determine what goods and services are produced.
    • 2-3.5 Explain the effects of supply and demand on the price of goods and services.
• 3-4 The student will demonstrate an understanding of life in the antebellum period, the causes and effects of the Civil War, and the impact of Reconstruction in South Carolina.
  • South Carolina played a key role in events that occurred before, during, and after the Civil War; and those events, in turn, greatly affected the state. To understand South Carolina’s experiences during this tumultuous time, the student will uti...
    • 3-4.1 Compare the economic conditions for various classes of people in South Carolina, including the elite, the middle class, the lower class, the independent farmers, and the enslaved and free African Americans.
• 3-5 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the major developments in South Carolina in the late nineteenth and the twentieth century.
  • South Carolina experienced major economic, political, and social changes during the late nineteenth and the twentieth century. To understand the effects of these changes, the student will utilize the knowledge and skills set forth in the following ind...
    • 3-5.1 Summarize the social and economic impact of developments in agriculture, industry and technology, including the creation of Jim Crow laws, the rise and fall of textile markets, and the expansion of the railroad.
• 5-3 The student will demonstrate an understanding of major domestic and foreign developments that contributed to the United States becoming a world power.
  • The Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and access to resources contributed to the United States becoming a world power in the early twentieth century. At the same time, discriminatory practices abounded. To understand the rise of the United States a...
    • 5-3.1 Explain how the Industrial Revolution was furthered by new inventions and technologies, including new methods of mass production and transportation and the invention of the light bulb, the telegraph, and the telephone.
    • 5-3.2 Explain the practice of discrimination and the passage of discriminatory laws in the United States and their impact on the rights of African Americans, including the Jim Crow laws and the ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson.
• 8-1 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the settlement of South Carolina and the United States by Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans.
  • The human mosaic of the South Carolina colony was composed of indigenous, immigrant, and enslaved populations. To understand how these differing backgrounds melded into an entirely new and different culture, the student will utilize the knowledge and ...
    • 8-1.4 Explain the significance of enslaved and free Africans in the developing culture and economy of the South and South Carolina, including the growth of the slave trade and resulting population imbalance between African and European settlers; Africa...
• K-4 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the way families live and work together today as well as in the past.
  • We can better understand ourselves and others by examining American families in the present and in the past. To make connections between the past and the present, the student will utilize the knowledge and skills set forth in the following indicators:
    • K-4.1 Compare the daily lives of children and their families in the past and in the present.
• USHC-4 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the industrial development and the consequences of that development on society and politics during the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.
  • Political democracy depends upon the active participation of individuals working through political and economic-interest groups to protect their welfare. To understand how groups in the past have protected their rights, the student will utilize the kn...
    • USHC-4.3 Evaluate the role of capitalism and its impact on democracy, including the ascent of new industries, the increasing availability of consumer goods and the rising standard of living, the role of entrepreneurs, the rise of business through monop...
• USHC-6 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the conflict between traditionalism and progressivism in the 1920s and the economic collapse and the political response to the economic crisis in the 1930s.
  • The role of government in a democracy is to protect the rights and well-being of the people. Government’s role in regulating the economy and promoting economic growth, however, is controversial. To understand the consequences of economic cycles ...
    • USHC-6.1 Explain the impact of the changes in the 1920s on the economy, society, and culture, including the expansion of mass production techniques, the invention of new home appliances, the introduction of the installment plan, the role of transportat...