The Charleston Museum Debuts Part II of its Special 250th Anniversary Exhibit

Press Release

The Charleston Museum, located at 360 Meeting Street, is pleased to announce the opening of part two of its 250th anniversary exhibit,  America’s First Museum: 250 Years of Collecting, Preserving, and Educating, on Saturday, June 17th, 2023 in its Historic Textiles Gallery. The exhibit, which will run through January 7, 2024, features iconic representative objects from the Museum’s five major collections: archives, archaeology, history, historic textiles and natural history. The Museum’s collections, which include over 2.4 million objects, are unmatched in their interpretive value to South Carolina history and the nation. 

This latest exhibit will showcase artifacts that have rarely been shown to the public, including:

• A pew from a church on Edisto Island made by enslaved craftsmen in the 1830s.
• A recently acquired double chest, c. 1730s, constructed by cabinetmaker James Carwithen, the oldest known example of a Charleston-made double chest.
• The never exhibited nearly two feet in length skull of Pelagornis sandersi, the world’s largest known flying bird, which was found at Charleston International Airport in 1983.
• The Revolutionary War coat of Major Thomas Pinckney for a limited time due to its fragility, as well as a Revolutionary War era coat worn by Thomas’s brother, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.
• A c. 1780 vest worn by Revolutionary War patriot Henry Laurens and unique 20th century fashions such as a 1920s Fortuny gown and 1970s Bill Blass dress and jacket.
• Archaeological finds from the Lowcountry, including examples of colonoware, an unglazed ceramic often recovered at sites inhabited by people of African descent, and carved bone pins made by Native peoples around 2000 BC.

“We are so proud to unveil part two of our 250th anniversary exhibit,” said Carl Borick, Director of The Charleston Museum, and primary author of The Charleston Museum: America’s First Museum. “It was not an easy task to select pieces from our sizeable and ever – growing collections, but we are so pleased with the efforts undertaken by our team in assembling this display and look forward to showcasing these rare pieces, some of which have never been displayed before.”

Learn more about Charleston Museum’s exhibits and special events here.

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