Row Upon Row: Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry

By Dale Rosengarten, McKissick Museum and Jane Przybysz

An in-depth, illustrated history of South Carolina's Lowcountry baskets

Coiled grass baskets are icons of Gullah culture. From their roots in Africa, through their evolution on Lowcountry rice plantations, to their modern appreciation as art objects sought by collectors and tourists, these vessels are carriers of African American history and the African-inspired culture that took hold along the coast of South Carolina and neighboring states.

Row Upon Row, the first comprehensive history of this folk art, remains a classic in the field. The fourth edition brings the narrative into the twenty-first century, with a chapter describing current challenges to the survival of the time-honored tradition. The artform continues to adapt to the changing consumer market, the availability of materials, economic opportunities, and most recently, the widening of the highway near the majority of basket stands. As globalization transforms the world, the coiled basket in all its iterations retains its power as a local symbol of individual identity and cultural distinction.

A preface is provided by Jane Przybysz, executive director of the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Release date: Jun 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781643362748

Book preview

ROW Upon ROW

This publication is the result of a documentation and exhibition project funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Folk Arts Program. This fourth edition is funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission.

© 2022 University of South Carolina

© 1986, 1987, 1994, McKissick Museum,

University of South Carolina

Text by Dale Rosengarten © 2022 Dale

Rosengarten

Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208

www.uscpress.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

31  30  29  28  27  26  25  24  23  22

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/.

ISBN 978-1-64336-273-1 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64336-274-8 (ebook)

McKissick Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

Front cover photograph © Betty Johnson / Alamy Stock Photo

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

Jan Arrow: 35a, 62

Will Barnes, courtesy McKissick Museum: iii, 5a, 6b, 7bde, 8a, 9bc, 10ab, 11, 14b, 15ac, 19a, 32b, 41, 42, 60, 63–69, 71, 75, 76, 78, 81

Brookgreen Gardens Archives, Murrells Inlet, South Carolina: 16b, 17a

The Charleston Museum, Charleston, South Carolina: 12b

Jannie Cohen: 25a

John Coles: 39b

College of Charleston Libraries, Charleston, South Carolina: 47

Brian C. Crockett: 49

Greg Day: 1a, 5bc, 28a, 29a, 45

Susan Dugan: 6a, 24b, 30

Robert Dufault: 53

Antwon Ford: 51

Francis Marion National Forest, US Department of Agriculture: xiv, 29b

Gibbes Museum of Art: xi, xii, 12a, 14a, 17b, 18b, 39a

Thomas P. Grimball III, courtesy Ginny Lentz, publisher of the great CHARLESTON catalogue, 1983: 48

Louise Johnson Guy: 31a

John E. Huguley: 2b, 26b

Clifford L. Legerton: 25b, 26a, 27ab

Library of Congress: 13a (Alfred R. Waud), 23b (Archives of Folk Culture)

Courtesy McKissick Museum: 31b, 36c

John McWilliams: 3a, 38

New York Historical Society, New York, New York: 16a

Penn School Collection at the UNC-Chapel Hill Wilson Library (permission granted by Penn Center, Inc., St. Helena Island, South Carolina, or Penn Center Archives, St. Helena Island, South Carolina): 19b, 20ab, 21a, 22a

The Rice Museum, Georgetown, South Carolina: 1b

Dale Rosengarten: 4bcd, 7ac, 24a, 32a, 34, 35b, 36a, 50, 58, 70

Theodore Rosengarten: 3b, 4a, 9a

Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Division of Community Life: 8b

South Carolina Arts Commission, Columbia, South Carolina: 37ac

South Carolina Historical Society Charleston, South Carolina: 15b, 18a

South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina: 18c, 21b, 22b

Reprinted with permission from the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium: 2a

Gary Stanton, courtesy McKissick Museum: 23a

Darcy Wingfield, courtesy McKissick Museum: 28b, 33, 36b, 37b, 46, 61

CONTENTS

Preface to the Fourth Edition

Introduction to the Second Edition

ROW Upon ROW

Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry

BABYLON IS FALLING

The State of the Art of Lowcountry Basketry

Acknowledgments to the 1986 Edition

Catalog of Exhibition (1986–90)

Exhibition Itinerary

Bibliography

Basket Makers Interviewed in the Lowcountry Basket Project (1985)

The Folk Arts Program: McKissick Museum

PREFACE

to the Fourth Edition

THE TIMING COULD NOT BE BETTER for this fourth edition of Row Upon Row: Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry, the catalog that accompanied the groundbreaking exhibit Dale Rosengarten guest curated at McKissick Museum in 1986. On the heels of the publication of her essay, Babylon Is Falling: The State of the Art of Sweetgrass Basketry, in the summer 2018 issue of Southern Cultures and included as a coda in this new edition of Row Upon Row, Dr. Rosengarten received the 2019 Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award for her advocacy of the sweetgrass basketmaking tradition. Like the award itself, the new edition recognizes the continued relevance of Rosengarten’s seminal research, her ongoing efforts to document the tradition as it evolves, and the respect she has earned among academics and the artists whose work she has championed for decades.

In 2008, Rosengarten cocurated with Enid Schildkrout, Chief Curator at the Museum for African Art (MfAA), the landmark exhibition Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art. Made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, and the MetLife Foundation’s Museums and Community Connections Program, the exhibit was organized by the MfAA in collaboration with the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston, McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina, and the Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Festival Association (SCAFA) in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. It ended its two-year tour with a six-month venue in Washington, DC, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art.

In reviewing Rosengarten’s contributions to the book that accompanied the exhibit for the April 2010 issue of H-AfrArts, Kristine Frank Elias wrote, While her [Rosengarten’s] work is objective, it reflects the empathy, integrity, and respect of a scholar intimate with her subject. It is clear that she understands not only the history but also the present circumstances of Lowcountry communities and the role basketmaking plays in the lives of contemporary people from a source of income to a source of pride. True to form, when Dale and I were discussing the content of this preface, she was quick to suggest that I bring readers up to date on the disruption that Lowcountry basket makers and their families are facing due, not only to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to the proposed widening of Highway 41, which runs through the historic Phillips Community.

After the Civil War, African Americans who were formerly enslaved on Laurel Hill, Parker Island, and Boone Hall plantations and had become successful tradesmen came together and bought ten-acre parcels of land along Horlbeck Creek to form the Phillips Community. Since the writing of Babylon Is Falling, congestion at the intersection of Highway 17 and Highway 41 has worsened from traffic serving new sprawling, gated, and lavishly landscaped subdivisions close by. Initially, a plan to address the bottleneck on Highway 41 envisioned diverting vehicles to a widened road bordering the residential developments. But subdivision residents pushed back hard, not wanting to have increased traffic, noise, and pollution near their homes.

Much to the consternation of Phillips Community residents, a second plan was drafted that proposed widening the two-lane Highway 41 to five lanes. There are far fewer residents along Highway 41 than in the adjacent subdivisions, but many Lowcountry residents and organizations raised their voices in support of Phillips Community members. The basket makers among them protested having to bear the brunt of the disturbance caused by increased traffic. The Coastal Conservation League, Historic Columbia Foundation, Charleston Preservation Society, Save Shem Creek, Charleston Moves, Lowcountry Land Trust, East Cooper Land Trust, Southern Environmental Law Center, Center for Heirs Property Preservation, and the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors all joined in calling for the implementation of Alternative 7A—the building of a bypass around the Phillips Community and through the subdivisions.

Meanwhile, some Phillips Community basket makers have experimented with building stands along Highway 41. Most, however, continue to bring their baskets to stands along heavier traveled Highway 17. Not that business is all that great on Highway 17 these days. Basket maker Mary Manigault recently reported that sales at her Highway 17 basket stand were not good. The traffic is so bad, they [customers] can’t hardly stop ’cause they drive so fast. Since March 2020, the pandemic has stopped her from going to the corner of Meeting and East Bay Streets in downtown Charleston where she used to sell baskets to tourists. In reflecting on the situation the Phillips Community is facing, she laments, So many people are going to lose their land from ancestors. It’s real bad [because] a lot of people’s houses are right on the highway and would have to be torn down or relocated for the road to be expanded to five lanes.

At the time of this writing, Charleston County has proposed what is being called a road to compromise. Announced August 5, 2021, the revised plan will not require relocating any residents or businesses. Instead, it calls for a new road to be built through the edge of Laurel Hill County Park and for all Highway 41 traffic to be routed southbound. These changes are projected to relieve traffic for fifteen years, rather than the twenty years’ relief the previous plan promised.

If approved, the proposed compromise will represent something of a victory for Phillips Community members and their supporters. And while no one can foresee how Lowcountry basket makers ultimately will adapt to changes wrought by new residential developments that squeeze out historically African American communities, or to the COVID-induced decline in the tourist market, history makes me hopeful. Through any number of geographic and economic dislocations, Lowcountry African American basket makers have made a way out of no way.

As Rosengarten optimistically observes in her coda, the artistic quality of baskets has reached new heights. The art form is enjoying recognition not just locally—at Charleston’s Gibbes Museum of Art and at the Sweetgrass Pavilion in Mt. Pleasant, for example—but among international art collectors as well. Time will tell whether Charleston’s tourism market will rebound to pre-pandemic levels, perhaps re-energizing basket makers and inspiring more young people to try their hand at sewing. With COVID dramatically reshaping how families and community members spend time together, basketmaking could enjoy a renaissance as a slow art suited to a slower pace of life. Publication of this new edition of Row Upon Row suggests it is time for a major museum exhibit of work by contemporary makers that highlights how they are creatively responding to challenges on multiple fronts. As renown actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis has observed, Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change—it can not only move us, it makes us move. As you read through Row Upon Row, may the baskets move you.

I would be remiss if I did not point to specific changes made to the text of the previous edition, and acknowledge the contributions others have made to the preparation of this fourth edition. In recognition of on-going public conversations about what terms are appropriate for talking and writing about racial identities, we updated our vocabulary to what we consider the most current and respectful. For example, we changed most instances of the noun slave to the adjective enslaved, in an attempt to right the power balance. Also, given that it has been thirty-five years since the writing of the first edition, we edited references to recent conversations and artwork. Instead, we added mention of a particular year or decade to better anchor the reader in the time period in which Rosengarten conducted her primary research.

I owe a big thanks to Dale and Ted Rosengarten for bringing their editing prowess to the preparation of this fourth edition. Also, without the help of Graduate Assistant Hannah Patton—who rekeyed the text of the original volume, ferreted relevant images out of McKissick’s Folklife Resource Center, and helped secure photo permissions—this edition might not have seen the light of day. Thank you to the always patient USC Press staff, especially Acquisitions Editor Aurora X. Bell and Publishing Assistant Lily Stephens, for shepherding this project to completion. Finally, I want to recognize the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Folklife Partnership grant which has financially supported this venture.

Jane Przybysz, PhD

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

MCKISSICK MUSEUM

2022

INTRODUCTION

to the Second Edition

SOUTH CAROLINA HAS ALWAYS ENJOYED a rich heritage of folk traditions largely due to the early cultural interaction of diverse African, European, and Native American peoples in the Lowcountry region. As the plantation system came to dominate Carolina’s social and economic development, some ethnic traditions became less distinct. But those traditions that remained intact during the eighteenth-century creolization of South Carolina’s Lowcountry society are responsible for much of the distinctive folk art produced in that area. Among the most readily identifiable products of this cultural tenacity are the coiled baskets produced along the southeastern coast. They belong to a basket-sewing tradition—centered today in the community of Mt. Pleasant northeast of Charleston—that has survived in America for over three hundred years.

Row Upon Row: Sea Grass Baskets of the Lowcountry is part of an in-depth study of this folk art form. Eighteen months of intensive investigation included both research into the history of the still flourishing African American craft and a survey of its current status. While this coiled basket tradition has evolved over the past century from an agricultural craft to an art form produced for sale, there remains a strong sense of continuity and family tradition. Besides examining documentary materials such as plantation records, diaries, wills, and old photographs, much of the study was devoted to the craft as it is practiced today. Nearly forty contemporary basket makers were interviewed by Dale Rosengarten with regards to their aesthetic approach to the craft and what changes in the tradition they had witnessed in their lifetimes. Each individual’s techniques and favored styles were examined. In addition, the role of the basket maker’s family in transmitting the tradition was studied. McKissick’s investigation has yielded the first full-scale description of the history of this important folk art. Comparisons of old baskets with current techniques, styles, and materials indicate that this craft has undergone sometimes subtle and sometimes striking changes during its development in South Carolina.

Watercolor Study by Alice R. H. Smith

An important goal of this project has been to describe how cultural and economic events have affected the baskets and their makers. Though the creation of folk art can be considered a personal statement, it is also the response to a demand. The early forms of this craft were determined by the introduction of rice culture into the plantation economy. Processing rice required a variety of tools, including the