OUR MUSEUM—ANOTHER HANDSOME CONTRIBUTION

cOllectionsA JournAl for MuseuM And Archives ProfessionAls

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Volume 11, Number 2 • spriNg 2015Cover: A glass plate negative from the Beach studio collection of the Buffalo History Museum is prepared for long-term storage inside a four-flap folder. photo courtesy Cynthia A. Conides.

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81 From the Editor Juilee Decker

Articles 83 Preserving and Accessing the Howard D. Beach Photography Studio Glass Plate Negative Collection

cynthia A. conides 103 “Our Museum—Another Handsome Contribution”

Barry l. stiefel 115 Sovereignty, Repatriation, and the Archival Imagination

Kimberly christen Withey

Reviews 139 Museums in a Global Context: National Identity, International Understanding

Edited by Jennifer Dickey, Samir El Azhar, and Catherine M. Lewisreviewed by Margot note

141 Displaying the Ideals of Antiquity: The Petrified Gaze Johannes Siapkas and Lena Sjögren reviewed by emma Hughes

144 A Place That Matters Yet: John Gubbins’s MuseumAfrica in the Postcolonial WorldSara Byala reviewed by savanna r. teague

146 Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories: Essays in Honour of Professor Susan M. PearceEdited by Sandra H. Dudley, Amy Jane Barnes, Jennifer Binnie, Julie Petrov, and Jennifer Walklate reviewed by carrie Wieners Meyer

148 Archives for the Lay Person: a Guide to Managing Cultural CollectionsLois Hamill reviewed by Maurine sweeney

150 Academic Archives: Managing the Next Generation of College and University Archives, Records, and Special CollectionsAaron D. Purcell reviewed by mira greene

152 Review Essay A Creative Turn in Museums Teaching in the Art Museum: Interpretation as Experience

Rika Burnham and Elliott Kai-Kee Creativity in Museum Practice

Linda Norris and Rainey Tisdale reviewed by Abram Fox

volume 11 O number 2 O spring 2015

c O l l e c t i o n sA Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals

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104 “OUR MUSEUM—ANOTHER HANDSOME CONTRIBUTION” O

(Heyward-Washington and Joseph Manigault) and The Dill Sanctuary, a wildlife preserve that also contains archaeological resources dating from the Civil War and earlier. The mission of the Charleston Museum is to “document and explain the natural and cultural history of Charleston and the South Carolina coastal region through the maintenance, improvement and expansion of collections documenting the natural forms and material culture of this region.” This mission establishes two programmatic objectives: one that is natural history and the other that is cultural. This case study allows for a unique opportunity to learn how a museum can concep-tualize long-term longevity.

At its founding in 1773, the Charleston Museum’s express purpose was to collect “materials for the promotion of the Natural History of this Province.”2 Ad-vertisements were soon posted in local newspapers for the purposes of developing the collection, which were to be outstanding examples of South Carolina’s flora, fau-na, and minerals. This idea was inspired by the Library Company of Philadelphia, which, at the time, possessed a small collection of natural curiosities, but had not gone about establishing a museum. The institution in Philadelphia was the first suc-

Figure 1. The Charleston Museum in Charleston, South Carolina—the country’s oldest muse-um, founded in 1773. Sitting in front of the Charleston Museum entrance is a life-size model of the CSS Hunley, originally built in 1863 by the Confederate States Navy and the first submarine to sink an enemy warship in combat. Photograph by the author.

O BARRY L. STIEFEL 105

cessful subscription library to be established in British North America, at the initia-tive of Benjamin Franklin in 1731. When the Federal government resided in Phila-delphia after the American Revolution, the Library Company served as the Library of Congress until 1800, thus explaining why the Library Company served as an influential model for the Charleston Library Society during the eighteenth century. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the Charleston Museum’s initial collection in 1778, so the entirety of the original contents has been lost. The fire also burned many of the Charleston Library Society’s books, since the two collections were housed together in the upper-story of Gabriel Manigault’s (1758–1809) liquor warehouse. Because South Carolina was in the midst of the American Revolution, the populace was not in a position to revisit the idea of a museum for some time. Not until the 1790s, with the subsiding of domestic turmoil after the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the reorganization of the United States under the Constitution and Bill of Rights (1787–91), did interest return to reinvigorate the Museum when the parent Library Society re-established itself in the former South Carolina Statehouse in 1792, then an underutilized court house building since the state capital had been relocated to Columbia in 1786.3 What the Charleston Museum was like during its beginning five years is difficult to say, especially in terms of exhibits and intended audience, though it is safe to assume that its presence was not robust given its provincial socio- economic setting in contrast to institutions elsewhere, such as metropolitan Lon-don. We can look to the British Museum in London as a model, and by inference we might speculate that little exhibit interpretation took place initially.

Established in London in 1753, the British Museum used the Montagu House, a mansion located in London’s Bloomsbury district, as its home from 1759 until the 1840s.4 During the eighteenth century, the demographic of Bloomsbury shifted from the wealthy class to the middle class. So, we can assume that in the nineteenth century, those who primarily visited the British Museum were the Victorian era’s bourgeois. However, the purview of the British Museum collections were not ex-clusively focused on natural curiosities as in Charleston, but also antiquities, manu-scripts, and ethnographic items such as coins, drawings, medals, and prints. Fur-thermore, during this early period, museums and libraries were often integrated. For instance, the British Museum was initiated with the bequest of Sir Hans Sloane’s (1660–1753) personal collection of 70,000 items for purposes of advanced learning for all, as means of honoring God. Sloane’s collections were subsequently joined by other private donations over the years. In 1757, King George II donated the Royal Library to the British Museum, which included the receiving of copyrighted books, as well as some financial support.5 Thus, the British Museum quickly grew into one of the world’s preeminent repositories of natural phenomenon, antiquities, and hu-man knowledge, though the professionalization of museums still had yet to develop. Educated American colonists were well aware of the British Museum, based on its coverage in eighteenth-century newspapers.6 Moreover, for much of the eighteenth century, the British Museum received an average of 5,000 visitors annually (who


did not pay an entrance fee), where London’s population c.1750 was approximately 675,000.7 These statistics are significant when figure that on the eve of the found-ing of the Charleston Museum, the city of Charleston’s (free white) population was slightly over 10,000.8 Establishing a museum in South Carolina, in emulation of the British Museum, was a symbol of cosmopolitan prestige and maturity on the colo-nial frontier.

During the 1790s, the Charleston Library Society set about the task of rebuild-ing its collections, both literary works as well as museum pieces, and continued to look to London for inspiration. For instance, a copy of Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (1809) 9 can be found within the Library Society’s collection. The early Charleston Museum “exhibits,” if that is what they can be called at this time, were primarily a hodgepodge of natural curiosities and phenomena found and donated for display around the small library, not too different from the “cabi-net of curiosities” approach at the Montagu House for the British Museum. Thus, the presentation of objects by the Museum did not involve much interpretation or contextualization for an audience that was mostly Library Society subscribers. Since subscription required an annual fee, it was a luxury of the educated middle and up-per classes, who were more likely to be “studious and curious persons” interested in a museum experience, the same intended demographic of the British Museum.10 Nonetheless, George G. Simpson, of the American Museum of Natural History, proudly declared the Charleston Museum of the eighteenth century to be “The First Natural History Museum in America.”11 The adornment of the Charleston Library Society’s building with the Museum’s objects continued until 1815. In that year, the entire Museum was transferred to the Charleston Literary and Philosophy Society, so that it was no longer an auxiliary activity of the Library. The Library Society could now focus on its primary objective as a subscription library devoted to edu-cation and intellectual discourse. The Literary and Philosophy Society also had a scholarly interest in natural history, which better suited the growing collections of the Museum.12

The Charleston Museum in the Nineteenth Century

Charleston’s Literary and Philosophy Society members were likely not too different from those who belonged to the Library Society, considering their parallel interests, though the reputation was that the Library Society was more elitist. Unfortunately, membership rosters for both societies could not be found (for c.1815) to make a true comparison. However, in 1815, both the City of Charleston and the state gov-ernment of South Carolina appropriated money to the Literary and Philosophy So-ciety for the purpose of further developing the museum.13 Part of these funds were used to purchase the private collections of Félix Louis L’Herminier (1779–1833), a French naturalist from the Caribbean. L’Herminier was also hired as the first mu-


seum curator, where he worked until 1819. So, four decades after its initial incep-tion, management of the Charleston Museum shifted from the realm of amateurs with other priorities to a devoted professional with a background in natural history, not so different from a trend found within the growing museum movement as a whole during this period. L’Herminier also developed a collegial relationship with Charleston pharmacist, Jacob De La Motta, who had ties with the Medical College of South Carolina that would later prove valuable.14

Over the subsequent decade, the Charleston Museum’s collections grew and normal visitation hours were established; however, attempts to erect its own fa-cility failed as it continued to reside in the South Carolina Statehouse, and other makeshift accommodations under the Literary and Philosophy Society. In 1827, the Charleston Museum was passed on to the Medical College of South Carolina, thus bringing it under publicly-funded stewardship. The Museum would be housed at the Medical College until 1850. Considering the Medical College’s interest in the natural world for the purposes of developing new medicines and medical treat-ments, the Museum’s new “home” was an appropriate fit. Furthermore, since the Medical College was a public institution, so, by extension, was the Museum. Space was also found for the Museum to more adequately display its exhibits.15

In 1827, the Charleston Museum was open every day except Sunday, from 9:00 am, and located at the corner of Meeting and Market streets. In the evenings, the exhibits were “Brilliantly Illuminated” with gas lighting, and admission was 25 cents, or one dollar for a season ticket.16 Precedent for artificial lighting at muse-ums began in 1816, at Baltimore’s Peale Museum, the first purpose-built museum in the United States.17 However, the Peale Museum began as a private endeavor by Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827), who actually attempted to make a livelihood out of museum exhibition, in contrast to a learned society or government agency that managed museums for the betterment of the public. Peale’s interest in extend-ing evening hours through artificial lighting attracted higher visitation as well as additional collected admission fees. Buildings constructed for the intended purpose as a museum, such as the Peale, were rare well into the nineteenth century. For in-stance, the Quadrangle Building, the first and oldest part of the British Museum built for the institution, designed in 1823 by Sir Robert Smirke (1780–1867), took decades to erect. The first completed wing, the King’s Library, was not finished until 1827, and the last part of the sprawling complex was completed in 1852.18 The first Smithsonian museum building, the “Castle” on the Washington, DC National Mall and the official national museum of the United States, was not completed until 1855. Within the United States, at the Smithsonian, George B. Goode (1851–96) formally developed and published The Principles of Museum Administration (1895). Prior to this, no guidelines had been formally developed for museums.19

Those who were permitted to visit the Charleston Museum during the mid- nineteenth century were of different types, in contrast to museums elsewhere in the United States, such as Philadelphia. In a defense editorial on the treatment of freed-


men (former African slaves) in South Carolina from 1839, Jeha Jones, personally commented in The Colored American:

I had the advantages of travelling, which I improved, carefully looking out for a home, and reviewing the condition of the colored people. In this also, I have been sadly disappointed, although I have visited almost every city, and town, between Charleston, South Carolina, and Port-land, Maine, I can find no such home—and no such respectable body of colored people as I left in Charleston. The law in my adopted city, Phila-delphia, is not as good as at Charleston, when in opposition to the white people, unless we have a respectable white witnesse to sustain us. Prop-erly, colored people generally transact their business through the agen-cy of white people. They cannot rent a house in a court or square, unless the white neighbors consent. They are shamefully denied the privilege to visit the museums, &c. [author’s emphasis]. All the advantages that I can see by living in Philadelphia is that if my family is sick, I can send for a doctor anytime of the night without a ticket.20

Jeha Jones was a freedman who originated from Charleston and, we might assume, a “studious and curious” African American who visited museums in Ante-bellum America. Unfortunately, no further information regarding the visitation of African Americans to the Charleston Museum from the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries has been found. In a striking contrast, however, proponents of states’ rights, slavery, and secessionists also claimed the Charleston Museum as an impor-tant symbol, as pronounced in “Our Museum—Another Handsome Contribution” by The Charleston Mercury: “The establishment of this cabinet [i.e., Museum] in the city of Charleston is another step towards the consummation of our independence of Northern cities and Yankee colleges.”22 So, by being available to whole of the gen-eral public, museums negotiated social and political arenas relative to demographics.

Between 1850 and 1907, the Museum was housed at the College of Charles-ton, then a city college (not a state institution like the Medical College). During the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Museum floundered for many years due to the poor state of the economy, but gradually recovered by the end of the nineteenth cen-tury. The Museum exhibits were housed at the College of Charleston, a campus that comprised one large city block. So, what was the exhibit space like on the interior of the Charleston Museum during the nineteenth century, in the spaces provided by the Medical College and College of Charleston? From the Greenville Mountaineer we find an enlightening account from 1849, on the eve of the Museum’s transfer between institutions:

We presume there is not one in ten of the strangers visiting Charleston aware that the City contains such an establishment as a Museum. There


is a Museum connected to the Medical College, which possess[es] the finest and largest collection of minerals, rare beasts, birds, fishes, rep-tiles, insects, etc. etc. to be found in the State. It seems to us that the officers of the College would add no little to the attractions of the city, and obtain considerable revenue, by appointing a superintendent of the Museum, whose duty it should be to wait upon visitors and receive a reasonable price for their admittance. Hitherto, the Janitor has polite-ly conducted strangers through the apartments, which is a severe tax upon his time, and frequently upon his patience, for which he is not allowed to charge. Let the public know that they can visit the place, without considering it as somewhat an intrusion, and it seems to us that there would be a greatly increased number of calls. And again: if the Museum was more resorted to, thereby an opportunity of gradually increasing the collection of curiosities.22

At mid-century it appears that the Charleston Museum was open to the entire public, but without a devoted staff for curating or interpretative purposes since it was the college’s janitor who provided access to the Museum. Professional curators and managers, such as Félix Louis L’Herminier, were sporadic, and not a consistent presence. Unless one was aware of the Museum, knowledge of it was limited to word of mouth and occasional newspaper advertisements. For its time and location, the Museum collections and activities were impressive and bore witness to the financial support of the Museum as well as the public’s expectations for museums during the period.

Into the Early Twentieth Century

The Charleston Museum was also not obviously visible from the public right of way. One could have been standing in front of it and not have been aware of it because where the institution was housed did not look like a “museum,” but a college build-ing. Not to forget that it was common practice that colleges had collections from which their faculty taught lessons in natural history. This practice changed in 1907 when the Charleston Museum relocated from the College of Charleston to Thomp-son Auditorium, a Greek Revival building constructed in 1899 next to Cannon City Park, thus becoming a physically separate institution for the first time. The Greek Revival architecture gave a fitting “museumesque” aura that worked successfully.23 In 1915, nearly a century and a half after its founding, the Charleston Mu-seum was independently incorporated, whereas prior it was under the auspices of another learned society or public institution of higher education. Not until 1980 would the Charleston Museum inhabit a building specifically designed and built for it (still in use today). The structure is located on a section of Meeting Street dubbed


“Museum Mile.” Its former building was destroyed by fire a month after the institu-tion relocated into its new home, and the old ruin’s Corinthian columns have been repurposed as a reminding vestige in Cannon City Park.24

That the Charleston Museum did not have a purpose-built home until the late twentieth century should not be interpreted as a shortcoming of the institution. Many museums across the world continue to use buildings and space repurposed for their exhibits. The most famous example is the Louvre in Paris, the former pal-ace of French kings. The point is that museum’s architecture, purpose, and image identity go hand in hand. Not only can architecture pronounce what a building’s in-tended use is, but it can also spark bystander curiosity. There are no historical prec-edents for museums, so architects and museums have had to collaborate on what architectural design best represents the public image of the institution. According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination for Baltimore’s Peale Mu-seum, “Having no plan to follow, he [Rembrandt Peale] erected a brick three-story [townhouse] that had a two-story wing in back. Inside, the central hallway opened onto four small rooms on the first floor, in which were placed scientific and natural exhibits. A large drawing room occupied the second floor and the third floor held a painting gallery.”25 The exterior has some Federal style architectural detailing. This is in contrast to the British Museum, which emulated a Greek temple; or the first Smithsonian building that utilized eclectic Romanesque and Gothic architectural

Figure 2. The Charleston Museum in Thompson Auditorium on Rutledge Avenue, Charleston, South Carolina. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.


adornment to make a “Castle.” The current Charleston Museum building is a mod-ern-style brick building with little exterior architectural ornament. Each architec-tural style engages the public differently from the outside. The Peale Museum’s only real advancement, in 1816, was its initial development with gas lighting to illumi-nate the exhibits so that it could function at night time–an innovation copied by the Charleston Museum and others, such as the British Museum, soon after.

Less than a decade after being incorporated, the Charleston Museum greatly expanded its purview by developing robust art and antiquity collections, in addi-tion to its natural and scientific holdings. This evolution was greatly influenced by Museum Director Laura M. Bragg (1881–1978), the first female museum director in the United States when she was appointed in 1920.26 In 1929 and 1933 respec-tively; the Charleston Museum purchased the Heyward-Washington and Joseph Manigault residences for the sole purpose of turning them into house museums. The Heyward-Washington House Museum has the distinction of being the first in Charleston, in a city renowned for these historic attractions. The reasons why the Charleston Museum decided to venture into house museums are many. The Hey-ward-Washington house is named after two men: the original owner of the house and founding museum member Thomas Heyward, Jr., and George Washington, who resided there for a week in 1791 as Heyward’s guest.

A very influential member of the Charleston Museum at this time, Edwin Du-Bose Heyward, 27 was a direct descendent of Thomas Heyward, Jr., and better known as the author of the novel and play Porgy (1925–27) as well as the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). The setting of Porgy is the neighborhood of the Heyward-Washington House. Edwin DuBose Heyward, as well as a small group of others artists and writ-ers, were the people who originated the Charleston Renaissance (c.1915–1941), a cultural renewal of the city that continues to have a lasting impact. For instance, the city’s first historic district was born out of this movement in 1931, and was also the first municipal historic district in the United States.28 The creation of the Heyward-Washington House played an important part within the city’s preservation move-ment. Since Charlestonians had become interested in historic preservation and the Charleston Museum engaged this interest through the innovative development of the house museum as an extension of its collections and exhibition of objects (pri-marily antiquities), which also came to include the Joseph Manigault House.

Conclusion

Looking at this summarized history of the Charleston Museum as a case study, we have learned how the oldest museum institution in the United States started with humble beginnings. It began as a small collection of natural history specimens that were displayed as curiosities in makeshift accommodations provided by libraries, philosophical societies, and small colleges of higher education. Little signage or ex-


planation of objects was provided about the collections or their significance. The lack of organized purpose and mission was also reflected in how the Museum en-gaged the public, primarily limited to occasional advertisements in local newspaper classifieds and word of mouth. According to the Greenville Mountaineer correspon-dent in 1849, “not one in ten of the strangers visiting Charleston [was] aware that the City contains such an establishment as a Museum.” 29 Yet, at the same time, the Museum was known by multiple demographics, including freedmen abolitionists and white secessionists. During periods when open viewing times were not main-tained, one had to seek out an impatient janitor to gain access to the exhibits, which were minimally interpreted by today’s standards.

But the Charleston Museum grew and its collections evolved over time. It be-came its own independent institution in 1915, and blossomed further still as it par-ticipated in the Charleston Renaissance.30 The Heyward-Washington House was a significant undertaking that the Charleston Museum took on, which, in turn, had a profound impact on the creation of historic house museums in Charleston as well as the emerging grassroots historic preservation movement within the city, also spurred by the local Renaissance. The Museum’s collections and presentation became more sophisticated, especially with the creation of auxiliary house museums. All of this captivated the public’s attention, creating a proactive interpretation program that continues to respond to the times. Contemporary organized activities now include “Life in the Civil War,” garden tours of the Heyward-Washington House, an indigo dyeing workshop, a bird walk at the Dill Sanctuary, and calligraphy workshops, not to mention an attractive visual presence on Charleston’s “Museum Mile” and on the internet. Within Charleston the Colonial-American Revolution (the interpretation of the Heyward-Washington House) and Civil War periods are the most popular topics among tourists, hence the emphasis of the Museum’s interpretation. Much has changed over the last two and half centuries at the Charleston Museum. By ap-preciating and understanding the evolution of collections and exhibition over time at an institution like the Charleston Museum (vis-à-vis other places like the British Museum and the Peale Museum) one can make better-informed decisions for the future. Imagine what the next two and a half centuries will bring with respect to this institution’s ever-evolving facilities, exhibitions, and public engagement.

Notes

1. See Paul M. Rea, “One Hundred and Fifty Years of Museum History,” Science, N. S., 57:1485 (15 June 1923), 677–81.

2. Quoted by James Raven, London Booksellers and American Customers: Transatlantic Literary Community and the Charleston Library Society, 1748–1811 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002), 65.


3. Raven, 65. The Old South Carolina Statehouse in Charleston has since been rehabilitated into the Charleston County Courthouse at Broad and Meeting streets, when the capital moved to Columbia in 1790.

4. See Robert Dodsley, General Contents of the British Museum (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1762). The British Museum had no home between 1753 and 1759.

5. See Arthur MacGregor, Sir Hans Sloane: Collector, Scientist, Antiquary, Founding Father of the British Museum (London: British Museum Press in association with Alistair McAlpine, 1994).

6. See “Extract of a Letter from Sir Thomas Stanhope, to Com. Keppel, Dated Basque Road, July 22, 1761,” Boston Evening-Post, 1365, (26 October 1761), 2; and “European Intelligence. London, October 21,” Georgia Gazette, 39, (29 December 1763), 1 for examples where the British Mu-seum is discussed, as well as provides geographic breadth of British Museum discussion from Massachusetts to Georgia colonies.

7. Eric G. Nellis, An Empire of Regions: A Brief History of Colonial British America (Toronto, Uni-versity of Toronto Press, 2010), 264; and Colin G. Pooley and Jean Turnbull, Migration and Mo-bility in Britain Since the Eighteenth Century (London: University College London Press, 1998), 85.

8. The British Museum, History of the British Museum, (2009) https://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/the_museums_story/general_history.aspx, (accessed 2 May 2014); and Copyright Act of 1709.

9. British Museum, Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum (London: Cox, Son, and Baylis, 1809).

10. James Cuno, “View from the Universal Museum,” in Imperialism, Art and Restitution, John H. Merryman, ed. (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2006), 15–36.

11. George G. Simpson, “The First Natural History Museum in America,” Science, N. S., 96:2490 (18 September 1942), 261–63.

12. Lester D. Stephens, “The Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina: A Forum for Intellectual Progress in Antebellum Charleston,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine, 104:3, (July 2003), 154–75.

13. Rea, “One Hundred and Fifty Years of Museum History,” 677–81. 14. Albert E. Sanders and William D. Anderson, Natural History Investigations in South Carolina:

From Colonial Times to the Present (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999), 40-41. 15. See Rea, “One Hundred and Fifty Years of Museum History,” 677–81. 16. Charleston Courier; Date 12–29–1827; Page 3; Location—Charleston, South Carolina 17. Donald W. Linebaugh, The Springfield Gas Machine: Illuminating Industry and Leisure, 1860s–

1920s (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2011), 13. 18. The British Museum, Architecture, (2009) http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/the_muse-

ums_story/architecture.aspx, (accessed 2 May 2014). 19. George B. Goode, The Principles of Museum Administration (York: Coultas & Volans Exchange

Printing Works, 1895), 20–21. 20. “A Sweet Morsel for the Abolitionists,” The Colored American [New York and Philadelphia], 3:21,

(27 July 1839), 3. 21. “Our Museum—Another Handsome Contribution,” The Charleston Mercury, 79:11, 286 (22

October 1861), 2. 22. “Charleston Museum,” Greenville [South Carolina] Mountaineer, 3, (25 May 1849). 23. See William G. Mazÿck, The Charleston Museum: Its Genesis and Development (Charleston:

Walker, Evans & Cogswell Co, 1908). 24. Jonathan H. Poston, The Buildings of Charleston: A Guide to the City’s Architecture (Columbia:

University of South Carolina Press, 1997), 560–61.


25. Joseph S. Mendinghall, “Peal’s Baltimore Museum,” National Register of Historic Places Inventory —Nomination Form (Washington DC: National Park Service, 2 February 1975).

26. See Louise A. Allen, A Bluestocking in Charleston: The Life and Career of Laura Bragg (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001).

27. Laura M. Bragg, “Report from the Director,” Bulletin of the Charleston Museum, 17:4 (1922), 41–46.

28. See Martha R. Severens, The Charleston Renaissance (Spartanburg, SC: Saraland Press, 1998). 29. “Charleston Museum,” Greenville [South Carolina] Mountaineer, Issue 3, (25 May 1849). 30. See Louise A. Allen and James T. Sears, “Laura Bragg and Her ‘Bright Young Things’: Fostering

Change and Social Reform at the Charleston Museum,” in Renaissance in Charleston: Art and Life in the Carolina Low Country, 1900–1940, James M. Hutchisson and Harlan Greene, eds. (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2003), 155–75 for further discussion on the Charles-ton Museum and the Charleston Renaissance.

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OUR MUSEUM—ANOTHER HANDSOME CONTRIBUTION