The Charleston Freedman's Cottage


Book Description

Charleston's "freedman's cottages" are some of the most understudied and undervalued vernacular buildings in the city, found as far south as Council Street and as far north as North Charleston. Though these cottages have long been associated with African American history and culture, they in fact extend much further into the history and development of Charleston and deserve to be studied and understood. The predominant theory is that these tiny houses, often no larger than five hundred square feet, were constructed by and for freed slaves after the Civil War, due to a rising need for inexpensive housing. Who occupied these houses over time? What were their lives like? Most of them were ordinary citizens to whom we can all relate. Each one of these houses has at least a hundred stories to tell, many of which have been uncovered and recounted here. Join local preservationist Lissa D'Aquisto Felzer as she elevates the freedman's cottages to their rightful place in the history of Charleston architecture.




Old Houses


Book Description

From an unrestored masterpiece such as the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston, South Carolina, to a farmhouse in upstate New York, inhabited only by a bird nesting in the bathroom sink, Old Houses profiles 20 houses whose peeling paint, faded fabrics, and antique furniture impart a surprising elegance and beauty. An unusual volume, this book will appeal to historians, restoration specialists, and style-conscious homeowners lookingfor new ideas form examples of the past. Over 250 full-color photographs.




Haunted Plantations


Book Description

A shackled West African tribe drags themselves off a slave ship while singing, drowning in a Georgia creek to avoid being sold. Mysterious letters from a long-ruined church near Mepkin Abbey solicit a man to join faith. A French teacher disappears from a school after marking final exams in blood. An Egyptian mummy triggers a heart attack in a city museum. These stories and more are wrenched from the gravest parts of America's past--real lives of people on plantations from Savannah and the coast of the Carolinas. Most deal with the hub of the East Coast slave trade, Charleston, South Carolina. All are richly illustrated with both historic and contemporary images. Dwelling in the affairs of plantation life is to tread the fires of emotionally raw history. Sifting through the folklore and legends, the old hushed embers of the south ignite once again in this collection. While these stories relate encounters with the supernatural, readers will find that what actually happened here doesn't always need a ghost to be disquieting.




Haunted Charleston


Book Description

Leave embellishment by the wayside and let these ghastly and sometimes dreadful stories of the historic streets of Charleston tell themselves! Combing through the oft-forgotten enclaves of the Holy City, where true life is stranger than fiction, authors Ed Macy and Geordie Buxton bring readers face to face with a group of orphans who haunt a College of Charleston dorm, a Citadel cadet who haunts a local hotel and the specter of William Drayton at Drayton Hall Plantation - just to name a few. Based on historic events and specific details that are often lost in most ghost stories, this collection of haunting tales sparks curiosity about what figure might still be lurking in the alleyways of Charleston's storied streets.




You Did What?


Book Description

How to make buckets of dosh, screw things up, lose the lot, shake with fear, talk your way out of it, live under a false name, behave appallingly, fall in and out of love - often with the wrong people, feel joy, shame, terror, misery, disbelief, skirt death a few times, have an endless stream of dreadful hangovers - and still be at it when I should be tucked up in bed with a nice warm drink. If the idea of that little lot interests you, here's a few snippets from my story.* Three stabbings and two near funerals: Believe it or not, I have been stabbed or partially stabbed three times. And I damn nearly lost my life twice after two of them.* Hiding from Hitler: In 1940, I trembled with fear in a bomb shelter. Was Hitler going to conquer Britain? It looked like it. Being scared like that is something hardly anyone nowadays can imagine, but I remember it vividly.* Millions made and millions lost: I never kept the millions I should have, though I did make two or three. Then through my own stupidity, lost almost all of it. Find out how to avoid my mistakes!* Trips to Ogilvy's Chateau Touffou ... How my wife took the great man for a ride ..."Have you any idea what the roof cost?" ... "I hate rabbit" ...... the lost owl ...Helena Rubinstein's bed, "That's the local mayor; he hates me." And other Ogilvy stories* She saw Daddy ***ing Granny... It's absolutely true, and it refers to my mother seeing my father doing something no father should do with his mother-in-law.* Why did she forgive him...? Nowadays, people get divorced for infinitely less than what my father did to my mother, yet she forgave him, because of what had happened to her as a child.* Even after he gave her the ****? Surely no marriage could survive what my father did to my mother. But they stayed together. What made their extraordinary marriage survive?* Knee deep in shit with David: Ever visited a sewage plant? They don't often run conducted tours, but I made an impromptu entrance when young with one of my cousins. I can almost smell the pungent results 70 years later.* My most stupid money mistake: I never would have had to work again if I'd taken the advice of my accountant back in 1967. But I didn't, so I had to struggle for decades afterwards. Let me tell you why I think this was a blessing. Confused? You May Be. But not as much as me.This book is a mongrel. That's because half is about my private life, which has been slightly unorthodox. I hope you find it entertaining. The other half is about my business life. Read that not just for entertainment, but for profit. By that I mean I will offer you an awful lot of advice, mainly based on an awful lot of mistakes and very little success.It could save you a lot of misery and quite possibly make you a great deal of money. You just have to avoid all the stupid things and copy the very few intelligent ones I did. I hope you'll find it entertaining.




Drayton Hall Stories


Book Description

A new portrayal of this 18th-century icon among America's historic sites, Drayton Hall Stories: A Place and Its People is the first book in the nation to focus on a site's recent history using interviews with descendants (both White and Black), board members, staff, donors, architects, historians, preservationists, tourism leaders, and more. Like different pieces of a mosaic, each interview combines with others to create an engaging picture of this one place, revealing never-before-shared family moments, major decisions in preservation and site stewardship, and pioneering efforts to transform a Southern plantation into a site for racial conciliation. Readers will come to see Drayton Hall's people not as stereotypes, but as the real people they were-and are. Maps, photographs, lines of descent, interview questions, a how-to guide, and related website, all provide blueprints for readers who wish to undertake similar endeavors to build community in today's world.







The pioneers, a tale


Book Description




Regendering the School Story


Book Description

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.