History’s Heroines: 20th Century Women of the Joseph Manigault House
The Joseph Manigault House (ca. 1803 and located at 350 Meeting Street) has a preservation history championed by women
during the 20th century.
As the United States entered into a new century marked by major changes in industry and society, many people believed the old needed to be removed so the new era could prosper. This meant the dismantling of historic properties and sites with little regard to what the nation would lose. However, across the country, women—watching in horror as architectural and historical places were threatened—played a key role in the preservation of historically significant sites. Charleston was no exception. The Charleston Museum’s Joseph Manigault House is a shining example of the role women played in preserving the city’s history.
Susan Pringle Frost and Nell McColl Pringle, working with thirty others, founded the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings in 1920—establishing the first preservation society in the United States. The Society served as the model used by preservationists throughout the country and continues today as the Preservation Society of Charleston. The Society’s first meeting was held at Nell Pringle’s home located on South Battery Street where Susan Pringle Frost was unanimously voted the first President.
Frost was instrumental in the preservation of Charleston’s architectural history, was one of Charleston’s first female realtors, and was influential in the fight to open the College of Charleston to women. Additionally, “Miss Sue” was the first woman in Charleston to drive. Using her role as a realtor, Frost purchased historic properties in the city to save them from demolition. Many well to do citizens supported her efforts by offering financial backing for the purchase of these properties in an effort to keep Charleston historic.
In 1920, the Charleston Motor Company purchased the Joseph Manigault House from Sidney Riggs, planning to build a car dealership. Under Frost’s tenure, the Society purchased the Joseph Manigault House from the motor company, thereby saving it from destruction. The Joseph Manigault House was the first house to be saved by a preservation society in the country. Nell McColl Pringle advanced the group five thousand dollars in cash to purchase the property.
Susan Pringle Frost standing at an open window in the dining room at the Joseph Manigault House. A view of the Summer House can be seen in the background. This photograph was taken sometime between 1940 and 1949.
After purchasing the property, Pringle ran a boarding house for Black residents during the 1920s to help offset the costs of maintaining the site. Eventually, the residents moved out and the house was opened for tours and teas. Guests of the Joseph Manigault House paid a quarter for a cup of tea. At this time Charleston was not a tourist destination, and many locals did not want to donate for the upkeep of the property, so the Society had to make some difficult decisions in the name of preservation.
One of these decisions was to sell the back gardens to the Standard Oil Company in an effort to stay current on taxes and the mortgage. Standard Oil built an Esso Station on its newly acquired property which included the Summer House, a gazebo-like structure original to the time of the Manigault family. Nell Pringle sent a letter and telegram—followed by a phone call—to Mr. Rockefeller pleading for the Summer House to be saved. This structure was turned into a bathroom and used as tire storage during the occupation of the Esso Station.
Unfortunately, by 1932, the loan on the house was called, and the Society lost ownership of the Joseph Manigault House. In 1933, The Charleston Museum purchased the property buoyed with a donation of $3001 from Henrietta Pollitzer Hartford, known as Princess Pignatelli after her 1937 marriage to an Italian prince.
Henrietta Pollitzer Hartford, known as Princess Pignatelli, gifted The Charleston Museum $3001 to use toward the purchase of the Joseph Manigault House in 1933. She also donated the pictured chandelier to hang as the crowning jewel of the house’s spiral staircase.
Henrietta Pollitzer was born in Bluffton, South Carolina, to a wealthy Jewish family. She married Edward V. Hartford, heir to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company—better known as A&P Grocery. Pollitzer donated the funds to The Charleston Museum in honor of her mother who had recently died. A plaque on the Ashmead side of the house commemorates this generous donation. The property was brought closer to its original size in 1936 when Standard Oil donated the Summer House and back gardens to The Charleston Museum after the demolition of the Esso Station.
In 1941, the United Services Organization leased the Joseph Manigault House, and by 1942, the house opened as a USO post. In four years of operation, 8,993 women volunteered at the site including 1,205 senior volunteers and 7,788 junior hostesses. The women helped to take servicemen’s minds off the war before they shipped overseas to fight or when they returned to the home front.
Photograph of Peg Drennan and three servicemen identified as “Nick, ?, and Ralph” taken in 1944 in the gardens of the Joseph Manigault House after an archery lesson. Peg Drennan served as the director of the USO post at the Joseph Manigault House from 1943 to 1944. While many amenities were offered to servicemen at this post, the fine archery equipment was a highlight to servicemen and volunteers alike.
It was the job of the USO site director to plan activities and conduct daily business of the post. The directors at the Joseph Manigault House throughout the USO period were Peg Drennan, Mrs. Geraldine Parker, Miss Finnegan, Miss O’Meara, and Miss Verla Doherty. Activities included dances, meals, snacks including cookies and tea, games, archery, volleyball, horseshoes, badminton, darts, and billiards.
While the women of the USO did not actively participate in the preservation of the property, their presence and actions breathed new life into the house. The women of the USO bolstered the spirits of young men, many of whom had never even left their hometowns before and who were facing the harrowing reality of war. Money from the USO was used in the restoration of the property as well as the addition of plumbing and electricity to the house.
In 1947, the Garden Club of South Carolina designated the Joseph Manigault House Garden as a project for restoration. By 1951, the women of the Garden Club of Charleston began restoration of the Joseph Manigault’s gardens using a watercolor drawing of the property created by the original lady of the house, Charlotte Drayton Manigault. The Garden Club of Charleston, founded in 1922 and one of the oldest garden clubs in the country, continues to maintain the gardens and decorates the exterior and interior of the house every December for the holidays.
The legacy of the women of the Joseph Manigault House serves as an inspiration for the continued efforts of The Charleston Museum to preserve and interpret the history of the property and those who sacrificed, advocated, and volunteered on this site.
-Elise Reagan, Chief of Education, March 2025
Select Bibliography
Bland, Sidney. Preserving Charleston’s Past, Shaping its Future: The Life and Times of Susan Pringle Frost. University of South Carolina Press, 1990.
“Henrietta (Pollitzer) Pignatelli (1881-1948).” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://americanaristocracy.com/people/henrietta-pollitzer-pignatelli.
“Joseph Manigault House.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://thegardenclubofcharleston.org/joseph-manigault-garden-350-meeting-street/#foogallery-3122/i:2547.
“The Nation’s First Preservation Organization.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://www.preservationsociety.org/about/.