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Tuesday 10am - 4pm Wednesday 10am - 4pm Thursday 10am - 4pm Friday 10am - 4pm Saturday 10am - 4pm

The South Carolina Historical Society

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The South Carolina Historical Society

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Collecting, preserving, and sharing the stories of all South Carolinians since 1855.

As the state's oldest historical society, our mission is to expand, preserve, and make accessible our invaluable collection, and to encourage interest in the rich history of our state.

11/09/2026

Museum Mile Month passes are on sale now! For one low ticket price, you can visit participating Museum Mile sites throughout January 2027, in whatever order fits your schedule. The South Carolina Historical Society is proud to be one of them.

Order by December 7, 2026, to guarantee delivery before the holidays.

Tap the link in our bio to purchase your pass.

11/07/2026

: This Cranberry Pie recipe was found in an undated recipe book from the Stoney family, and it sounds like a perfect addition to a Thanksgiving dessert table!

It’s the time of year for delicious food, and many of the dishes we’ll enjoy this season have been around for a long time. Throughout November, we’ll share recipes from our collections, some of which you may recognize.

11/05/2026

Have you ever had Jeff Davis pie? It’s a Southern custard pie, a close cousin of chess pie, often spiced and sometimes filled with dried fruit and nuts like raisins, dates, and pecans. This recipe is found in the John T. Rogers papers, 1921-1930, housed in our collections.

11/03/2026

It’s Election Day. This image shows National Woman’s Party promotional materials from circa 1919 to 1930. Founded by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns in 1913, the National Woman’s Party pursued women’s suffrage and equal rights. These pamphlets are part of the Anita Pollitzer Family Papers at the South Carolina Historical Society.

Casting a ballot is a cornerstone of democracy, and the history we preserve here is part of an ongoing story about our community and our nation.

11/02/2026

It’s the time of year for delicious food, and many of the dishes we’ll enjoy this season have been around for a long time. Throughout November, we’ll share recipes from our collections, some of which you may recognize.

First up is an undated recipe for Mashed Irish Potatoes, found in Mary M. Pringle’s recipe book. The book includes recipes from prominent Lowcountry women and from Black cooks, as well as directions for medicines and remedies for ailments. This recipe, however, seems to come from New York, as noted at the bottom. The book is housed in the Alston-Pringle-Frost papers.

10/31/2026

Happy Halloween from the SCHS! 🎃

Dressing up has always been fun! These c. 1920 photographs of persons in costume are part of the Visual Materials from the Elias Ball Bull Papers, 1860-1988.

10/29/2026

Happy National Cat Day! And fitting for the continuation of our Halloween series... that stare is a little unsettling.

This glass negative is located in our Visual Materials Collection.

10/26/2026

A new spooky episode of From the Vault is now live! This special spooky episode features ghost stories, murders, and family history drawn from an account book kept on several Ball Family plantations.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts; click the link 🔗 in our bio.

10/25/2026

To kick off our Halloween week series, full of spooky things from our collections, we’re sharing a 1951 plan of the cemetery at St. Andrews Parish Church, drawn by landscape architect Loutrel W. Briggs.

Built in 1706, St. Andrew’s is the oldest surviving church building south of Virginia. Its graveyard dates back to the church’s founding, and the cruciform church, expanded in 1723, is the only colonial church of its shape left in South Carolina.

Briggs was born in New York City in 1893 and graduated from Cornell in 1917 with a degree in “rural art,” what we now call landscape architecture. After a successful career in New York, he married Emily Crompton Barker in 1929 and opened an office in Charleston, where he worked for the next forty years. Along the way, he chaired the American Society of Landscape Architects and served as a delegate to the International Conference of Landscape Architects in 1948. He died in 1977.

This plan is housed in our Loutrel Briggs landscape designs, 1922-1980 collection, Call # 42-300-802.

10/23/2026

To close out our Family History Month series, we’re sharing an 1847 Ravenel family genealogical chart from our collections (GC-262). 🌳

This chart follows a family with roots in both South Carolina and Georgia. Thomas Porcher Ravenel (1824-1898) was a plantation owner in Berkeley County, S.C. His son, Thomas P. Ravenel Jr. (1850-1936), moved to Savannah and practiced law there. He married Emily Howard, and their daughter Mary Wallace Ravenel married Thomas Heyward Gignilliat (1897-1988), a Savannah attorney, historian, and community leader.

Several South Carolina names appear in the family tree, including Mazyck, Porcher, Mulberry, Marion, and Gaillard.

Thank you for following along all month. If these stories have you curious about your own family, we invite you to explore more family papers in our collections. Start your research by visiting the Archives in person or click the 'Start Research' tab in our bio.

Address

100 Meeting Street
Charleston, SC
29401

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 4pm
Wednesday	10am - 4pm
Thursday	10am - 4pm
Friday	10am - 4pm
Saturday	10am - 4pm

Telephone

+18437233225

Website

https://linktr.ee/schistoricalsociety

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