Charleston Time Machine

You’ve probably heard by now that on June 19th, 2018, Charleston’s City Council adopted a resolution “recognizing, denouncing, and apologizing on behalf of the City of Charleston for the city’s role in regulating, supporting, and fostering” the institution of slavery. In the course of the debate in Council Chambers on that date, Mayor John Tecklenberg made reference to the enslaved laborers who bu...

In the late 1860s and throughout the 1870s, when celebrating the Fourth of July was almost exclusively a black phenomenon, the city’s annual celebrations commenced with a parade down Meeting Street, featuring brightly dressed citizens, politicians, brass bands, and uniformed members of the South Carolina National Guard, which, in the post-war era, was composed almost exclusively of formerly-enslav...

If you’ve ever wondered why there’s a palmetto tree on the South Carolina state flag, or why we’re known as the Palmetto State, then you need to hear this story.

This nocturnal force, composed of unpaid citizens who guarded the streets from sunset to sunrise, played an extremely important role in the everyday life of early Charleston, but you won’t find much written about it in the thousands of books and articles written about the history of this city.

It’s summertime in the Lowcountry, and the fish are jumping. Seafood season is definitely here, even if the shrimp are running a bit late this year. Fishing has been a big part of our community’s history since, well, long before Europeans and Africans arrived first here more than three centuries ago.

After a century of human- and horse-powered ferry boats carrying passengers across the Cooper River, the arrival of steam power signaled a sea-change in our sense of mobility. The convenience provided by fast and powerful steam ferries fueled the first suburban development boom in the rural areas east of the Cooper River.

In the past, Charleston-area commuters once had a variety of transportation options, including trains, trolleys, omnibuses, and bicycles. Today we’re going to talk about the predecessor to the modern water taxi—the ferries that once plied across the Cooper River, shuttling people, animals, and vehicles between Charleston, Daniel Island, and Mount Pleasant.

You might be surprised to learn that the roots of the Charleston police department, and of all law enforcement services in South Carolina, stretch back more than seven hundred years to thirteenth-century England.

The first bicycles appeared on the streets of Charleston in the spring of 1869, at which time the machine was general called a “velocipede,” after the Latin roots “veloci” (fast) + “pede” (feet). For about six months after the first velocipedestrian rolled through the streets of Charleston, the city experienced a case of bicycle fever.

On the afternoon of Thursday, April 20th, 1775, the members of the General Committee of the South Carolina Provincial Congress convened in Charleston. After discussing the latest news received from England, and the intelligence contained in the private mail stolen from the post office the preceding night, the president of the Provincial Congress, Colonel Charles Pinckney (1732–1782) appointed Will...

In last week’s cliffhanger, we were listening in on a committee meeting of the colony’s rebellious shadow government, when they were interrupted by the unexpected arrival of breaking news from Britain. Let’s return to that scene on Broad Street now, rewind our Time Machine, and pull up a chair at the beginning of that important meeting.

At the same time Paul Revere was making his famous midnight ride, and British soldiers were battling Massachusetts militiamen at Lexington and Concord, events were taking place right here that represent South Carolina’s first acts of rebellion.

Long before the invention of email, and long before the advent of the U.S. Postal Service, how did the people of early Charleston exchange letters and news with other towns, other colonies, and across the Atlantic Ocean?

In 1897, Charleston's leading cyclists prevailed in their fight for a bicycle path connecting the city to St. Andrew's over the Ashley River bridge.

A century ago, this community was just beginning to emerge from a social, economic, and cultural rut created by backward-looking politics. To move Charleston forward, we needed to embrace new, progressive ideas and policies, especially those recognizing the equal rights of women and of the African-American population.

During its brief tenure, this organization embarked on a promotional campaign to lure Europeans to settle in the Palmetto State. Who was the Emigrant Society, and what were their motivations?

James Hoban, Irish architect of the White House, was introduced to George Washington in Charleston in 1791. Their fortuitous meeting here in Hoban's adopted home propelled the Irishman to international fame in the new city of Washington, D.C.

Between 1670 and 1783, urban Charles Town evolved by degrees from a lawless market town to a corporate city with a robust municipal government.

Drafted here in Charleston 150 years ago, the South Carolina Constitution of 1868 was a "radical" document created in the midst of an important, but largely forgotten struggle for civil rights equality.

What do Denmark Vesey, Charleston lotteries, and the iconic "High Battery" have in common? Plenty. You can't tell the story of one without mentioning the others.

Rhettsbury or "Rhett's Point" was a colonial-era, suburban plantation that in the nineteenth century became homogenized into Ansonborough, but it has separate history and identity that deserve to be remembered.

President George Washington came to Charleston in 1791 with three objectives in mind: to increase support for the new Federal government, to view the area's Revolutionary battle sites, and to indulge the thousands of admirers who wished see the hero of the War of Independence in the flesh.

Let's explore the evidence behind the story of how, why, and when Gadsden's Wharf played a significant role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade to North America.

A brief survey of the timeline of importing Africans into the port of Charleston, from 1670 to the Constitutional end of the trade in January 1808.

Long before the advent of modern air conditioning, tenacious investors at the turn of the nineteenth century surmounted great challenges to create a viable business of selling Northern ice to customers in Southern cities. By 1817, Charleston was receiving a continuous annual supply of natural ice that transformed the city’s culture of food and beverages.