Anyone who walks into the Charleston Museum and peruses its exhibits probably doesn’t fully appreciate the significance of the facility, the first of its kind in the United States, which celebrates its 250th anniversary this week and this year.
For those unfamiliar with the inside of the brown blocky building on 360 Meeting Street, this anniversary is not just another attraction for locals and visitors, but an engaging and relevant educational institution. I hope that it will deepen your understanding and appreciation of the place. .
To ensure that America’s first museum has survived this long, continues to teach us new things about Charleston, our region, our state, and beyond, the museum, its staff , congratulates current and former Trustees, members and other supporters for their efforts. strongly demand.
If the past is the prologue, museums are guaranteed to see many important and positive changes during the generations to come. It has already undergone many transformations since we all agreed to create an agency to catalog the natural history of the Colony of South Carolina, perhaps drawing inspiration from the relatively new British Museum. Their original collection was lost in flames a few years later, but the museum’s supporters had already decided to rally after the Revolutionary War, start fresh, and expand their reach well beyond the state. was (One of his earliest surviving artifacts in the museum is a grass helmet from the Hawaiian Islands.)
The museum moved to Randolph Hall at the University of Charleston in 1852 and gradually expanded its set of artifacts, becoming more mature under the direction of Gabriel Manigault, who became curator in 1873, and attracting more researchers. I put it in the course. Visitor. He helped retrieve one of the museum’s signature exhibits, the skeleton of a right whale that had been cornered after entering Charleston Harbor. He also acquired a mold of Egyptian artifacts from the British Museum. It’s a dramatic tool for visitors to learn about the wider world before photography and the Internet.
The dawn of the 20th century brought even more changes. Curator Paul Ray hired the museum’s first staff and moved into his own building on Rutledge Avenue. The place was originally known as Thompson’s Auditorium and was built somewhat hastily as a large hall for reunions. A Confederate veteran from a few years ago. Until 1980, the museum moved into a house specially built for its needs. The current home at 360 Meeting Street provides the precise temperature and humidity controls essential to preserving many of the museum’s 2.4 million artifacts. We moved just in time. The auditorium he burned down in 1981 and only four pillars remain in Canon Park today.
The 20th century saw several other major changes. The first female curator, Laura Bragg, greatly expanded the museum’s educational reach to local schoolchildren and engaged the museum in Charleston’s emerging historic preservation movement. She opened the city’s first residential museum, Hayward She Church Washington She House on She Street, and shortly thereafter Joseph She Manigote took ownership of her House. For this uncertain future, the Society for the Preservation of Old Homes, now the Charleston Preservation Society, was founded. More recently, its conservation efforts have extended to nature, particularly the 580-acre Dill Nature Reserve on James Island, which hosts educational programs.
The Charleston Museum, in the will of the late British scientist James Smithson, grants our nation a large sum of money to create “in Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an institution for the increase and dissemination of knowledge.” Established about 75 years ago.
Anyone interested in the history of the Charleston Museums, and national museums in general, is invited to attend the first special event of the 250th anniversary. Anthea Hartig, Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, speaks Thursday at 6 p.m. About how the national museum movement, which started here, has impacted our country over time. The event is free, but pre-registration is recommended.
Visitors to the museum today can also see a special 250th anniversary exhibit and more traditional exhibits. Visitors may be surprised to learn that of the museum’s 2.4 million artifacts, only about 6,000 are currently on display. The roughly two million archaeological finds aren’t exciting to look at, but they’re valuable to researchers because the museum not only preserves the objects, but also information about where they were found. For example, a recent team of researchers analyzed his DNA from some early cattle bones found in Charleston to better understand the colony’s early ranching economy.
“We have a very important collection and people come here from all over the world,” says museum director Karl Borik. “The museum will continue to be an important place for people to learn about the history of the region, the good and the bad.”
Charleston’s rich history is intertwined in so many touchpoints with this extraordinary museum that it continues to evolve. As the museum celebrates its 250th anniversary, I hope it continues to enlighten, discover and educate about our past. Use that knowledge to build a better, more prosperous future.
