Episodios

  • Episode 303: The Granite Roadways of Gilded-Age Charleston

    Episode 303: The Granite Roadways of Gilded-Age Charleston
    Jun 27 2025
    During the twilight years of the nineteenth century, radical changes to local thoroughfares helped the City of Charleston evolve from a declining seaport into a tidy modern metropolis. Uniform blocks of durable granite displaced most of the city’s lumpy cobblestone streets during the 1880s, after which the municipal government achieved mixed results with trials of several curious paving compounds.
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    24 m
  • Episode 302: Reconstructing the Streets of Post-Civil War Charleston

    Episode 302: Reconstructing the Streets of Post-Civil War Charleston
    May 30 2025
    Amidst the financial doldrums that followed the American Civil War, Charlestonians struggled to reconstruct their politics, rebuild their economy, and repair a neglected streetscape. Budget constraints compelled officials of the late 1860s and 1870s to perpetuate old-fashioned paving habits and to recycle outdated materials, but a few novel additions to the public right-of-way cheered the spirits of local drivers, pedestrians, and velocipedestrians.
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    26 m
  • Episode 301: Cobbling the Streets of Antebellum Charleston

    Episode 301: Cobbling the Streets of Antebellum Charleston
    May 16 2025
    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 m
  • Episode 300: Frederick Douglass in 1888 Charleston

    Episode 300: Frederick Douglass in 1888 Charleston
    Jan 31 2025
    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 m
  • Episode 299: The Orange Economy of Colonial Charleston

    Episode 299: The Orange Economy of Colonial Charleston
    Jan 17 2025
    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 m
  • Episode 298: Illuminating the Streets of Early Charleston

    Episode 298: Illuminating the Streets of Early Charleston
    Dec 13 2024
    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 m
  • Episode 297: Giving Thanks for Native American Food in 1670 Charleston

    Episode 297: Giving Thanks for Native American Food in 1670 Charleston
    Nov 22 2024
    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 m
  • Episode 296: Charleston Common: A Brief History of A Fractured Landscape

    Episode 296: Charleston Common: A Brief History of A Fractured Landscape
    Nov 8 2024
    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 m