These photos from our Archives are (with a few exceptions) of unidentified women, sometimes with very general dates as we had little provenance. If you can provide any assistance in identification, we would be happy to add that information to our cataloguing!

1. Possibly Barbara Muller Lindstedt, daughter of John D. Muller and Margueretha Agnes Wieters, circa 1925; photography by Melchers Studio.
2. Unidentified woman wearing a dark dress, or possibly matching coat and dress, with fur trim at the collar and sleeves.  Handwritten in lower, right corner: Sincerely, H.B.P.L.  Photographer and exact date unknown.
3. Possibly Barbara Muller Lindstedt, daughter of John D. Muller and Margueretha Agnes Wieters, circa 1920; photography by Marions Studio.
4. Unidentified woman standing in shade near a brick wall, wearing a cloche hat.  Photographer and location unknown. (Appears to be same woman as in MK 13505 - same hat).
5. Unidentified woman, wearing a coat and cloche hat.  She appears to be standing in front of the bridge at Magnolia Gardens.  Handwritten on the reverse: 1920.  Photographer is unknown.  (Appears to be same woman as MK 9987).
6. Unidentified woman sitting in a vintage automobile at Magnolia Gardens.  Photographer and exact date unknown.
7. Unidentified woman on Charlotte Street - possibly in the vicinity of 40 Charlotte.  Handwritten on reverse: by 2nd Presbyterian Ch., house on Charlotte in background, c.1920s. Photographer unknown but note his shadow in the photograph.

Beaumont-Adams revolver
Frederick E.B. Beaumont (1833-1899) & Robert Adams (1809-1880)
Britain
1862-65

Improving the original Adams Patent revolver of 1854, Lieutenant Frederick Beaumont, a veteran of the Crimean War, patented a mechanism that connected the revolver’s trigger directly to the hammer creating a double action firing system - the first of its kind. Thus, instead of having to manually pull back the hammer, the user needed only squeeze the trigger to advance the cylinder, cock the gun and fire. A standard sidearm in the British Army, both the United States and the Confederacy imported hundreds of Beaumont-Adams pieces during the Civil War to supplement their armories, where firearms stockpiles were approaching dangerously low levels. This .38-caliber revolver somehow fell into the holding of Charleston’s Washington Light Infantry after the Civil War and was donated to the Charleston Museum in 1921.

Weaponry Wednesday: Each Wednesday we post an object (or group of objects) from the Charleston Museum’s diverse weapons collection. Many Weaponry Wednesday items may be on permanent exhibit in our armory or elsewhere in the museum, but some pieces rarely see exhibition, temporary or permanent, but are well worth sharing.  We hope you enjoy our selection each week – do let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see on WEAPONRY WEDNESDAY! Also, we always want to learn more about our collection - if you have some insights on a piece, please feel free to share!  #WeaponryWednes

Horseracing in South Carolina has a long and colorful history. The first recorded race was run on February 1, 1734 on a green across from what is now the Charleston Museum. Today’s textile is an exciting part of that past. It is a jockey suit, 1830s or 1840s, made by “plantation tailors” (undoubtedly slaves) for Col. William Alston of Clifton and Fairfield Plantations on the Waccamaw River, in his livery colors.

The silk shirt is hand-sewn of red and dark green stripes, the front opening has red silk-covered buttons and the cuffs on the long sleeves have green silk-covered buttons. It has a stand-up collar and a red silk drawstring around the bottom edge. It is lined with white silk. The white buckskin breeches have a front buttoned fly and a short buckskin tie in back. The waistband has pearl buttons around and there are buttons at the knee along with a tie.

William Alston (1756-1839) of Georgetown owned many plantations in the area, and was a state representative and senator. He successfully raised thoroughbred horses and was a founding member of the South Carolina Jockey Club in the 1780s. In 1792, the club purchased land that became the Washington Race Course (now Hampton Park), the site of an annual race week in February for 70 years.

Apparently horses could be jockeyed by their gentlemen owners, young boys and servants, or slaves. It was not until 1845 that the club dictated a regulation on a specific jockey costume, after the English (silk jacket and cap, buckskin breeches and neat boots) and the need to register their colors before a race. Alston may have elected to have his jockey thus attired even before the mandatory regulation.

Alston’s grandson, J. Motte Alston (1821-1909) wrote in his memoirs a description of the Alston livery: house servants wore dark green broadcloth coats trimmed with silver braid and red facings and green plush trousers. He recalled the green and red coach, driven by Thomas Turner, a slave at Fairfield Plantation. “Thomas Turner was a great favorite, and was indulged and respected. He was my grandfather’s most trusted race-rider – when he owned a number of famous horses… horseracing was confined to gentlemen, and not gamblers, and was a pastime and not a profession. There were Gallatin, Shark, Comet, Black Maria, Symmetry and many others.” He told how in the summer the horse racers met in Virginia and in the winter at Charleston, Columbia, Camden, etc. Perhaps Thomas Turner was the jockey who wore this wonderful outfit, racing around the track at Washington Race Course.

TEXTILE TUESDAYS: Each Tuesday we post a piece from our textile collection.  Some items have been on exhibit, some will eventually be shown in our Historic Textiles Gallery and some may be just too fragile to display. We hope you enjoy our selection each week – do let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see on TEXTILE TUESDAY! #TextileTuesday

A hand-drawn copy of the Map of James Island by Alex Sprunt, Jr., done in 1927 from the original map by Robert E. Mellichamp in 1888. It covers the areas of James Island, Johns Island, Morris Island, Charleston Harbor and Sullivan’s Island as they were during the years of 1863 and 1864. Illustrations depict the disposition of the Union and Confederate forces both on and off shore as well as individual blockade runners and wrecks.

We are not quite sure why Sprunt copied the Mellichamp map. He was a well-regarded ornithologist and wrote the book on birds in this state, South Carolina Bird Life, in 1949.

EPHEMERA FRIDAY: Each Friday we post a selection or small collection from our Archives. Some items may be on exhibit, some may be too fragile to display and some may be too unusual to fit into our typical Lowcountry exhibit themes. We will occasionally ask for help identifying people or places in photographs that have come to us with little or no information. We hope you enjoy our selection each week – do let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see on EPHEMERA FRIDAY.

Enjoy this selection of fishing-related photographs and a postcard from the collection!

1. fishing the bridge, Otranto, SC; photographer M.B. Paine, July 1901
2. unidentified young boy holding fish; circa 1905, photographer and location unknown
3. unidentified young boy holding fish; circa 1905, photographer and location unknown
4. three unidentified men fishing from a boat; photographer and location unknown, no date
5. Man checking his fishing line on dirt road leading to beach - possibly Folly Beach; photographer M.B. Paine, no date
6. Postcard, addressed to Mr. Baron Holmes at 18 Church Street in Charleston, postmarked 1911
7. black grouper caught 26 fathoms off Charleston, length 4’7” and weight 137lbs; July 1933
8. Handwritten on reverse of photo: “Cooper River near Strawberry”; no date given
9. Folly Beach, September 1937; photographer M.B. Paine

Lowcountry South Carolina chintz appliqué quilts are usually full of wonderful floral motifs, celebrating springtime and the beauty of the area’s gardens. This rather unusual quilt is no exception. The central floral wreath medallion is almost completely missing, but the vast array of other applied motifs easily make up for that. The entire central square is printed with tiny little flowers and edged with a beautiful border fabric, printed especially as a border. The maker has created the next border herself by applying an undulating line of a leafy print, setting off alternating floral bouquets. The final border, 16.75” wide, is a repetition of fabulous urns and floral swags. It appears that the maker ran out of fabric and substituted a totally different print on one side, probably where the pillows would cover it. The final product is covered with tiny cross-hatch quilting and the whole piece is edged with woven tape binding.

This quilt probably dates c. 1830 and descended in the Lee family of Charleston. It was in the estate of Miss Eleanor May Lee (1903-1987), the daughter of Jacob Allison Lee and Eleanor Manson Wright, and given to the museum through her niece, Eleanor Cave Hill in 1988.

TEXTILE TUESDAYS: Each Tuesday we post a piece from our textile collection.  Some items have been on exhibit, some will eventually be shown in our Historic Textiles Gallery and some may be just too fragile to display. We hope you enjoy our selection each week – do let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see on TEXTILE TUESDAY! #TextileTuesday

This incredible evening coat and bag belonged to artist Elizabeth O’Neill Verner (1883-1979), who played a huge role in the Charleston Renaissance back in the 1920s and 1930s. Not only did she become a nationally-known artist, but her work echoed the charm and beauty of the city and influenced the preservation movement at that time and for many years.

Her coat is stenciled velvet – gold on black -  with a fabulous green silk lining and corded edging. It bears a label from its designer, Mariano Fortuny (1871-1949). Born in Granada, Spain into a family of renowned artists, he moved with his mother to Paris in 1874 and to Venice in 1889, where Fortuny found his true home. He was a painter, etcher, sculptor, photographer, architect and inventor – truly a Renaissance man. After his marriage to Henriette Negrin of Paris, he entered the fashion industry in 1907, producing his own fabrics including stenciled velvet. Simply constructed, his garments focused on the elegance and beauty of the fabric and graceful flow of the garment.

This coat was left to Mrs. Verner in a bequest from her friend, Caroline Mitchell Bacon (Mrs. George Woods Bacon) of New York in 1931. The Bacons had moved to Charleston in the late 1920s, buying a house on Orange Street. Mrs. Verner wore it for over thirty years until she no longer went out in the evenings and the coat was given to the Museum in 1984 by her daughter.

The little tapestry evening bag was brought to Elizabeth O’Neill Verner by her sister, Kathleen, whose husband Lt. Horace Oscar Cushman was stationed in Tientsin, China in the 1920s. Married in 1920, the Cushman’s three children were born in China. The bag has ivory satin lining and a jade clasp on the brass frame.

Elizabeth Quale O’Neill Verner was educated in Charleston, Ursuline College in Columbia, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia under Thomas Anshutz. She also studied with Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, another well-known Charleston artist and in 1937 traveled to Japan, working with pastels on silk. She was a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club, chairman of the Carolina Art Association and a founder of the Southern States Art League. Her artwork has been exhibited widely, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Art. She illustrated Dubose Heyward’s Porgy and, in 1998, was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame.

Coming Friday: a selection of Verner’s etchings will be featured in our Ephemera Friday posting for 3/15/13

TEXTILE TUESDAYS: Each Tuesday we post a piece from our textile collection.  Some items have been on exhibit, some will eventually be shown in our Historic Textiles Gallery and some may be just too fragile to display. We hope you enjoy our selection each week – do let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see on TEXTILE TUESDAY! #TextileTuesday

Maria Martin was born in Charleston in 1796, the daughter of Jacob Martin and Rebecca Solars. She lived with her sister Harriet, and her sister’s husband, John Bachman, helping to run the household and raise their nine children as Harriet was chronically ill. Two years after Harriet died in 1846, John Bachman remarried Maria. In 1831, John Bachman and John James Audubon met and became lifelong friends. Audubon stayed at the Bachman home whenever he was in Charleston - and so he met Maria. Her artistic skill was discovered and nurtured by both Audubon and Bachman, and she painted the backgrounds for many of the plates in Audubon’s Birds of North America.

These examples of her work are a 1918 donation from the family. They appear to be separated from their journal and came to us as loose pages. There is also some fire damage.

Click to view Maria’s painted silk purse recently featured in our Textile Tuesday blog. Also, learn more about Maria Martin Bachman and other women naturalists active in Charleston in this past presentation by our archivist, Jennifer Scheetz.

EPHEMERA FRIDAY: Each Friday we post a selection or small collection from our Archives. Some items may be on exhibit, some may be too fragile to display and some may be too unusual to fit into our typical Lowcountry exhibit themes. We will occasionally ask for help identifying people or places in photographs that have come to us with little or no information. We hope you enjoy our selection each week – do let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see on EPHEMERA FRIDAY.

Theodosia Gordon Collection
This collection came to the Charleston Museum in 2007 and is comprised of books, photographs and memorabilia including postcards, certificates, and a family Bible. The owner of the items, Theodosia Elizabeth Cox Gordon Robinson, was born in 1874 to Thomas Campbell Cox and Elizabeth Singleton. Thomas was twice elected as Darlington County Sheriff and, per family lore, was a member of the Charleston “Mulatto Elite.” Theodosia’s mother died when she was young and she was adopted by her paternal aunt, Julia Cox Gordon. Raised in Charleston, she moved to Washington, D.C. in her early 20s. She married and raised her children there, working for, and eventually retiring from, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Theodosia died in 1947. The images here are just a small portion of the 123 photographs in the collection. While some are identified, many including these shown here, are unknown.

Click here and here to view 1920s textiles from the Cox-Gordon collection

EPHEMERA FRIDAY: Each Friday we post a selection or small collection from our Archives. Some items may be on exhibit, some may be too fragile to display and some may be too unusual to fit into our typical Lowcountry exhibit themes. We will occasionally ask for help identifying people or places in photographs that have come to us with little or no information. We hope you enjoy our selection each week – do let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see on EPHEMERA FRIDAY.