Confederate Home and College

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Description:

Black and white photograph of the south (front) elevation of the Confederate Home and College (also known as the Home for Mothers, Widows, and Daughters of Confederate Soldiers of Charleston) located at 60-64 Broad Street.

Built c. 1800 by Gilbert Chalmers as a Georgian style double tenement build, it was home to Governor John Geddess from 1810 to 1825, used as the Carolina Hotel from 1834 to 1867, and housed the U.S. District Court. In 1867, Mary and Isabella Snowden established a housing program in the large tenement to shelter mothers, widows and daughters of Confederate soldiers, eventually purchasing the building the outright. Later they started a college to provide educational opportunites for the young women and it become known as the Confederate Home and College. A cantilevered piazza through the center of the building was built between 1872 and 1882 and the present Victorian facade was added in 1887 after the building was damaged from the Earthquake of 1886.

Photographer Charles N. Bayless, funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, photographed and recorded the Carolina Lowcountry between 1970 and 1988. The South Carolina Project took place between 1977 and 1979.