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  • Episode 301: Cobbling the Streets of Antebellum Charleston

    Episode 301: Cobbling the Streets of Antebellum Charleston
    2025/05/16
    Charleston’s cobblestone streets fascinate residents and visitors alike, inspiring visions of pirates and horse-drawn carriages rattling through ye olde colonial capital. Imported from Europe as ship ballast since the 1670s, these roundish stones provided the city’s earliest street covering, but the campaign to pave local thoroughfares with cobbles didn’t commence until the early 1800s. To better understand the traveling conditions endured by early Charlestonians, let’s take a stroll through paving history from colonial times to the American Civil War.
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    30 分
  • Episode 300: Frederick Douglass in 1888 Charleston

    Episode 300: Frederick Douglass in 1888 Charleston
    2025/01/31
    Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) was a towering figure in the history of the United States, occupying the vanguard of the nation’s struggle for African-American civil rights during the nineteenth century. Near the end of his celebrated career, Douglass visited Charleston in the spring of 1888 as part of a lecture tour across several Southern states. His brief tenure in the Palmetto City inspired members of the local Black community, while their frank conversations challenged Douglass’ view of the state of American racial politics.
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    31 分
  • Episode 299: The Orange Economy of Colonial Charleston

    Episode 299: The Orange Economy of Colonial Charleston
    2025/01/17
    Orange trees and their delicious fruit are not native to North America, but they form a curious and poorly-remembered chapter in South Carolina’s early history. During the second quarter of the eighteenth century, British settlers planted thousands of orange trees in the Charleston area to capitalize on the fruit’s high commercial value. Although cold temperatures ended dreams of an orange bonanza before the American Revolution, vestiges of Charleston’s colonial citrus experiment survive on the modern landscape.
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    25 分
  • Episode 298: Illuminating the Streets of Early Charleston

    Episode 298: Illuminating the Streets of Early Charleston
    2024/12/13
    Can you imagine navigating the streets and roads of Charleston County between dusk and dawn without the aid of street lamps? The earliest inhabitants of this area relied on moonlight to guide their steps at night, but a campaign to provide nocturnal illumination commenced in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The number of street lamps fueled by whale oil, then manufactured gas, then electricity gradually increased over the decades, establishing the comforting but unnatural glow that brightens the night sky over modern Charleston.
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    34 分
  • Episode 297: Giving Thanks for Native American Food in 1670 Charleston

    Episode 297: Giving Thanks for Native American Food in 1670 Charleston
    2024/11/22
    Thanksgiving, an American holiday rooted in harvest celebrations, acknowledges the bounty of food so many of us take for granted. This tradition in South Carolina recalls the meals shared by English adventurers who landed at Albemarle Point in 1670. They arrived with modest supplies of perishable provisions and planned to sow fresh crops immediately, but a series of misfortunes quickly eroded their food security. The survival of the infant colony depended on contributions from hospitable Native Americans who sustained the hungry immigrants during a season of need.
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    25 分
  • Episode 296: Charleston Common: A Brief History of A Fractured Landscape

    Episode 296: Charleston Common: A Brief History of A Fractured Landscape
    2024/11/08
    The place-name “Charleston Common” applies to a large swath of land reserved for public use since 1735. Conscious that the provincial capital lacked a traditional English common, South Carolina’s colonial government designated approximately eighty-five acres abutting the Ashley River for the perpetual use of all inhabitants. Municipal leaders violated that trust through a series of questionable sales, however, leaving just fifteen acres of the forgotten common at three sites now identified as Colonial Lake, Moultrie Playground, and Horse Lot Park.
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    31 分
  • Episode 295: Mutiny and Murder aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion, Part 4

    Episode 295: Mutiny and Murder aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion, Part 4
    2024/10/25
    The trial of Hispanic carpenter Joseph Lortia, accused of confederating with pirates aboard the Cuban schooner Nuestra Señora, unfolded through a series of episodes within South Carolina’s executive Council Chamber in July 1734. Conflicting testimony from the survivors recounted Lortia’s odd behavior at sea and challenged Anglo-American judges to determine the measure of his guilt. After settling the carpenter’s fate in court, Governor Robert Johnson restored the vessel’s remaining treasure to the widowed Doña Petrona de Castro, who sailed from Charleston with her newborn child.
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    36 分
  • Episode 294: Mutiny and Murder aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion, Part 3

    Episode 294: Mutiny and Murder aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion, Part 3
    2024/10/18
    The young Cuban widow, Doña Petrona de Castro, suffered in the shadows during the first half of this story, but moved to center stage after the bloodied vessel Nuestra Señora docked in Charleston. When her disheveled treasure came ashore in late June 1734, the pregnant lady’s plight attracted the personal attention of South Carolina’s respected royal governor. Under his personal supervision, members of the provincial government secured the señora’s private property and initiated steps designed to render solace to their distressed Hispanic guest.
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    26 分