This book reveals an incredible collection of black-and-white images taken by an unheralded turn-of-the-20th-century photographer, images that capture Charleston when she is coming into her own a half-century after the Civil War. Charleston, S.C., was considered 2Queen of the South,3 until bloody conflict, famine, fire and infestation ravaged the city during the Civil War and reconstruction. When George W. Johnson came on the scene in the early 1900s, Charleston was catching her breath, on the verge of an era of great inspiration. Unlike his peers who mostly confined their work to the studio, Johnson took to the streets and byways of Charleston and the lowcountry. His black and white images freeze frame the city and her people during this time of great transition. The collection of Johnson images compiled by authors Douglas Bostick and Daniel Crooks has never before been presented. These images and the thoughtful narrative accompanying them capture the spirit of a time rarely portrayed in Charleston histories. In addition, the authors portrayal goes a long way toward debunking some long-held myths about the history of Charleston during that time. Johnsons photographs of black Americana are raw and real faces that show the wear of hard times and, sometimes, a moments joy. Johnson captured Charlestonians at work and at play. He captured the architecture, churches, intricate ironwork and the wharf, as well as one of the most notable events of the time, the Worlds Fair held in Charleston in 1901-02.

"The essays tell how these and other individuals faced the tensions and contradictions of their time and place. While some traced their lineage back to the city's first families, others were relative newcomers. Some broke new ground racially and sexually as well as artistically; others perpetuated the myths of the Old South. Some were censured at home but praised in New York, London, and Paris. The essays also underscore the significance and growth of such cultural institutions as the Poetry Society of South Carolina, the Charleston Museum, and the Gibbes Art Gallery."--BOOK JACKET.

"The Charleston Renaissance chronicles a dynamic period of Southern history, detailing the artistic legacy of native and national artists whose collective image-making led to Charleston's transformation from a faded Southern capital to a premier tourist destination. Martha Severens, as art historian, curator, and former Charleston resident, introduces readers to the city's traditions and lore, and delineates their impact on the art of the day. Through her examination of the major local figures of the period - Alfred Hurry, Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Anna Heyward Taylor, and Verner - as well as the impressive list of visiting artists - including Birge Harrison, Childe Hassam, Edward Hopper, Lilla Cabot Perry, and many more - Severens expands upon the existing scholarship, adding new depth and dimension to both the period and the place. Ultimately, by connecting the artistic advances in Charleston to the greater American art scene, Severens brings clarity to the "ancient, beautiful" city's vital role in Southern art and American regionalism."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Alice Ravenel Huger Smith (1876-1958), a leader of the Charleston Renaissance, immortalized the beauty and history of the Carolina Lowcountry and helped propel the region into an important destination for cultural tourism. A lifelong Charleston resident, she helped spark the city's historic preservation movement, depicted the waning days of rice planting, and captured the mystical spirit of the Lowcountry in luminous watercolors. This beautifully-illustrated volume is a personal account of the artist's life and work that draws on unpublished papers, letters, and interviews. It includes over 200 paintings, prints, sketches, and photographs, many shared for the first time. The most comprehensive book ever made of Alice's work, it is both an important contribution to Southern art scholarship and a gorgeous addition to the bookshelves of art lovers.Published by Evening Post Books in collaboration with the Middleton Place Foundation.

Based on years of research and thousands of notes left by John Bennett, Mr. Skylark is an unusually intimate biography of a pivotal figure in the Charleston Renaissance, the brief period between the two World Wars that first witnessed many of the cultural and artistic changes soon to sweep the South. The book not only examines Bennett's life but also reveals the rich tapestry of the literary and social history of Charleston. An outsider who became an insider by marrying into the local aristocracy, Bennett was perfectly placed to observe social and artistic change and to prompt it. He published the first scholarly treatise on Gullah, the language of the coastal Southern blacks, and collected African American spirituals and tales. But after breaking several racial taboos of the time, he was publicly condemned, and it was only through mentoring such writers as Hervey Allen and DuBose Heyward that he was eventually welcomed back into the heart of the city. Today, the Charleston aesthetic, which mourned the loss of beauty in a modernizing South, is often overlooked in the study of Southern literature, but Bennett, through his extensive private correspondence and notes, offers insight into the forces that shaped this cultural movement. Restored to us in all his complexity and humor, Bennett is important for his own accomplishments, but also for providing a lens through which to view southern literary history and the complexities of a changing South.