Rainbow Row is a series of historical homes on East Bay Street that have a distinct paint pattern of colorful pastels. These houses are one of Charleston’s most visited tourist attractions and one of the first things that come to mind when picturing the city. There are 13 separate houses that include colors like salmon, turquoise, purple, and yellow. Not only are they a number of beautiful pastel colors but being historic houses, have incredibly detailed wooden shutters, colonial doors, and large windows.
This location interested me for my research as it truly is one of the most visually stunning parts of Charleston while also having a story I was determined to learn more about. Being in one of the most historically rich cities in the country, Rainbow Row is bound to have a rich history itself. The first of these houses were built in 1740 as a location for British and other colonial merchants to live and work out of close to the water. The mid and late 18th century served as an important time in South Carolina’s history and even more for Charleston. It was one of the largest ports in the colonies and home of the some of the most wealthy and influential colonists at the time. The South was prospering from trade and profit of the slave trade and Charleston was at the forefront of this economic boom. As the decades passed, Rainbow Row seemed to reflect the state of the South at whatever moment in time. Like the ruin the South was in after the Civil War, the houses on East Bay were neglected and were allowed to devolve into a state of ruin. They began to start to look the way they do today in 1931 when a Charleston couple purchased some of the homes and decided to give them a pastel paint job in an effort to revitalize the neighborhood (Magnus 2017). Their neighbors began to follow suit which resulted in what we know as Rainbow Row today.
The focus on the site today remains its pleasing aesthetics and beautiful colors and the depiction of the homes and the way they are marketed match this. Being the homes of wealthy merchants during the colonial period does open up the possibility of them being home to colonists profiting off the trade of human lives. Also the likelihood that these homes were constructed using slave labor is very high. The slave trade to this day still presents itself in many ways in Charleston with another popular tourist site being “the Old Slave Market”. I do not believe that the people who run the website of Rainbow Row or any other form of advertisement of the attraction attempt to hide this part of Charleston’s history and the Row’s possible tie to it but also do not seem to make an effort to make it aware or acknowledge it.
The city of Charleston is a good representation of the history of the South and Rainbow Row is an extension of the representation. While the color choice of some of the homes perhaps does not match with its colonial history, much of the homes still look very similar to how they would have looked centuries ago. I believe this a reinforcement of the Southern stereotype of being stuck in the past which can either be a positive or negative thing. While a large portion of this nostalgia is tainted by the South’s racist and violent past, Rainbow Row is an example, in my opinion, of a good return to the past and celebrating Southern architectural beauty.
When conducting research and taking notes on the site, I was brought back to many facts and details we had discussed in class previously. An example of this was when I considered that these homes were certainly either home to slaves or the place many had worked during ante-bellum Charleston. I thought back to the “Public History in the South” unit where one NPR article, “Looking ‘Beyond the Big House’ And Into The Lives Of Slaves”, discusses this very topic of remembering the role of enslaved people in these historic colonial homes. Earlier when I discussed the absence of any mention of slave labor or credit, the main topic of this article, an effort to recognize the hidden sacrifices slaves made to much of colonial Charleston through tours, would have been a perfect solution to this issue (McCammon 2017).
Works Cited
Magnus, Traci. “The Captivating History of Rainbow Row.” The Captivating History of Rainbow Row | Charleston.com, 28 Sept. 2017, https://charleston.com/charleston-insider/lowcountry-lifestyles/the-captivating-history-of-rainbow-row.
McCammon, Sarah. “Looking ‘beyond the Big House’ and into the Lives of Slaves.” NPR, NPR, 13 Sept. 2017, https://www.npr.org/2017/09/13/550736172/looking-beyond-the-big-house-and-into-the-lives-of-slaves.