Our weekend travels took us to Charleston South Carolina a couple weeks ago, where we of course enjoyed all the many wonderful things that are expected. I’ll be sharing more about that trip when I find a spare moment, but for now, I wanted to briefly tell you about our afternoon at the Aiken-Rhett House Museum, c 1820s.

Purchased by the Historic Charleston Foundation in 1975, the house is being “preserved as found” and represents a stark example of the wealthy vs the urban enslaved. The house and its surviving furnishings offer a compelling portrait of urban life in antebellum Charleston”.

This hallway connected the quarters of the enslaved as well as the kitchen and laundry. Walking the halls, seeing the rooms, visualizing the conditions of the enslaved was disturbing. How did slave owners not see how wrong they were?

To see this image in B&W, visit my post on Monochromia here.