Monday afternoon a group of SINHG members braved downtown sidewalks to learn about the Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, who were the first female abolitionists in the country and who also charted the course for the Suffragette Movement. This wonderful, signature Carol Ezell-Gilson tour highlights Sue Monk Kidd’s recent novel, The Invention of Wings, which celebrates the story of these two remarkable Charleston women.
Carol used archival photographs and other materials to illustrate places and events discussed in the book. Below are two photos taken on our Monday walk. Please note Carol’s eye-catching yellow gloves. Besides spearheading tours, Carol works part-time at the Charleston Executive Airport helping to park incoming planes.
Some of you Saturday Night Live! devotees may remember Spatula City. Tuesday morning found some of us heading instead to ‘Dish City’ in Mt. Pleasant, headquarters for Channel 2 news and weather, for a behind- the- scenes tour of the Action Team Newsroom, severe weather center and production studios. It was a great trip for all. We toured the newsroom and watched a reporter tape her story. Channel 2 Storm Trooper Rob Fowler showed us the infamous green weather wall, explained how the daily weathercast is produced, and answered many of our questions about the storm center and the running of a newsroom. Lastly, if you watched Channel 2’s news broadcast that Tuesday evening you would have glimpsed footage of our tour! Shown below are two photographs of the group taken that morning.
And finally, on Thursday we toured the belly of the beast, the storage wing of the Charleston Museum, in another behind-the-scenes tour. We were greeted by Head Curator Grahame Long, who told us a bit about the history of the museum—the country’s oldest, founded in 1773. At its inception its focus was natural history, and most of the lower floor of the storage area is filled floor-to-ceiling with scientific curiosities collected world-wide: stuffed mammals and extinct birds, skeletons, shells, rocks, bits of fauna, etc. Over the years the museum’s mission became Charleston’s history, and the collections now reflect this change. Among the things we were shown were firearms, jewelry, silver, furniture, clothing and piecework. Of particular interest was an exquisite silk gown worn by Eliza Lucas Pinckney that is about to undergo lengthy restoration. For those of you who missed this wonderful tour, you may be interested in two shows currently featured in the main part of the museum: a collection of firearms including a punt shotgun own by the Middletons capable of firing 16-oz. of lead birdshot (today’s equivalent of firing twelve 12-gauge shells simultaneously) to clear birds off the rice fields. Also not to be missed is a stunning display of vintage wedding gowns.
-Submitted by Carol Bane