The Apothecary and The Mermaid

The Apothecary and The Mermaid

The Story There is an old legend and folktale that involves an Apothecary and Mermaid.  In June of 1867, Dr. Trott rented out the historic building named after John Lining, a settler who was very valued in the early settlement of Charles Town. Dr. Trott decided to set up an Apothecary in the historic building. […]

Analysis: The Real Rainbow Row: Charleston's Queer History

Analysis: The Real Rainbow Row: Charleston’s Queer History

The Real Rainbow Row: Charleston’s Queer History begins its collection in the 1850’s and attempts to represent the queer history (and erasure) in Charleston’s history. It does so by tying each story to the homes, businesses, and other alleged ‘hot spots’ of queer activity throughout the city. While each ‘house’ is only one to two […]

The Battery in Lemon Swamp

The Battery in Lemon Swamp

In her memoir, Lemon Swamp, one location that Mamie Garvin Fields remembers distinctly in Charleston is the Battery. She describes it in a chapter entitled “Forbidden Places” (51), because as a black child at the turn of the century, “the Battery was not ‘fo’ we’” (53). Born in 1888, Fields reminisces on her childhood in […]

Location: Colonial Lake

Location: Colonial Lake

The location that I chose to write about in Charleston is Colonial Lake. In the Memoir Lemon Swamp and Other Places by Mamie Fields, Mamie tells the story of her mother walking to Colonial Lake each day, pushing her son Rob in the beautiful carriage that Mamie had bought for him. It’s a short scene […]

Location: The Battery Then and Now

Location: The Battery Then and Now

Within the texts of Porgy and Lemon Swamp, the setting of Charleston’s Battery makes a significant appearance. What is now a symbol of history as well as a beautiful tourist attraction was far more to the characters in these novels. Now, we simply go to the Battery to observe a beautiful view along with others. […]

Turning Charleston History into a Historic Destination Site

A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston by Stephanie E. Yuhl is a chronology of how Charleston came to possess the preserved historic quarters of the city while modernity gradually impacted its other portions. Beginning rightly when Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, A Golden Haze—introduction through chapter 1—primarily focusses […]

Resource: “Love and Theft in the Carolina Lowcountry (Scott Peeples, Arizona Quarterly, Summer 2004)

Lately involved in some of my own soul-searching (and writing) about the suddenly hot topics of identity, race, and cultural appropriation, imagine my surprise to discover Scott Peeples treated said hot topics in his 2004 essay. He focuses on Sullivan’s Island (near Charleston, SC) in the period 1830-1850. Peeples recalls Sullivan’s role in a decisive […]

Repeating history/Dramatic Irony of Alice Childress

A great pleasure in reading The Wedding Band by Alice Childress is it’s use of dramatic irony, the foreshadowing and conscious effort placed in scenes to reference what would have already been experienced by the audience and will be by the characters. My journey through this irony began with Childress’s reference to the flu pandemic […]

Interpretations of Charleston, Spring 2022

Interpretations of Charleston, Spring 2022

Welcome to this blog! Authors are students in the College of Charleston course “Charleston Writers” taught in Spring 2022 as ENGL 360/AAST 300. Like the authors on our syllabus, we’re all writing about Charleston and responding to other writers’ interpretations of our city and region. On the top menu bar you can see the three […]

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