Press Release
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Charlotta Drayton (1884 - 1969) |
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Drayton Hall Celebrates National Women's History Month
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Drayton Hall Celebrates Its Remarkable Women, Past and Present, during National Women’s History Month
Featuring focused house tours on Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00am and 2:00pm, throughout the month of March. Included with regular admission.
Over the past three centuries, Drayton Hall has been home to generations of women, both white and black, who have distinguished themselves in remarkable ways. On Saturdays and Sundays during the month of March, Drayton Hall’s 10:00am and 2:00pm house tours will be focused on the lives of the women connected with this circa 1738 historic site. Reservations are highly recommended as these tours will fill up fast. Please call (843) 769-2638, Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm, to reserve.
About the women of Drayton Hall:
"There's a tendency for people to think of the women on Southern plantations as leading a life of ‘moonlight and magnolias’ or perhaps similar to wealthy women of title in English manor homes. Nothing could be further from the truth,” explained Pattie Jack, a Drayton Hall interpreter who has made it her mission to debunk the myths surrounding the plantation mistress. With a Master’s Degree in History and a twenty-five year career in museum education, Pattie has enjoyed researching Drayton Hall’s history through the lives of its women.
“By necessity, Drayton Hall women had to be strong, smart, and independent," said Ms. Jack. "There was no huge ‘upstairs/downstairs’ staff as some of our visitors imagine. Instead, the Drayton wives and women across the south, were responsible for running the plantation household and everything that entailed: from directly supervising the enslaved domestic staff, to serving as surrogate planters and making important economic decisions while their husbands were away for extended periods. They also often personally handled some of the plantation’s most unpleasant tasks. For example, part of a typical day might see her supervising the proper slaughter of animals and then hand-scraping the intestines for sausage casings, or perhaps salting or pickling the raw meat to preserve it."
According to Ms. Jack, even though Drayton Hall was one of the finest plantation homes of its day in terms of material possessions and the family’s social and political standing, that status along with its hundreds of comforts, both large and small, "could not be sustained without the daily and often heroic efforts of its women.”
Since Drayton Hall was first under construction in 1738, African-American women and men have played important roles in its development and the production of its wealth. Oral history describes the ancestors of one family, the Bowens, arriving as slaves in the 1670s. Many of the Bowens descendants still live in the Charleston area; in fact, the great-granddaughters of Catherine Bowens, Catherine Braxton and Rebecca Campbell, live not far from Drayton Hall and are members of its African-American Memorial Steering Committee.
While there are doubtless many stories of strength, skill, and survival that have been lost to history, surviving records tell of an African-American slave, Cath Drayton, "Formerly slave to Mrs. Drayton near Charlestown", who escaped during the American Revolution. A Black Loyalist, in 1783 she was listed on the ship Ann & Elizabeth bound for Port Roseway, Nova Scotia, where she helped found a number of free black settlements.
What to expect on a Drayton Hall House Tour
Every Drayton Hall House Tour is unique because each one is unscripted: Drayton Hall’s professional interpreters not only design their own program after extensive research and training, they continue to enrich their presentations through Drayton Hall’s ongoing research and archaeological investigations. As a result, while all presentations offer a solid overview of the history of Drayton Hall and its people, they may be told through the lens of women’s history, African-American history, architecture, culture, or other field of interest.
Read More About Women’s History at the Drayton Hall Museum Shop!
Visitors can learn more about their discoveries during National Women’s History Month through the books available for sale in the Museum Shop. Now through the end of March, guests save 15% on featured women’s history titles.
Recommended reading:
* The Plantation Mistress by Catherine Clinton
* Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
* A Diary from Dixie by Mary Chesnut
* Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller
* Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the South by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Drayton Hall is a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Drayton Hall Celebrates Its Remarkable Women, Past and Present, during National Women’s History Month
Featuring focused house tours on Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00am and 2:00pm, throughout the month of March. Included with regular admission.
Over the past three centuries, Drayton Hall has been home to generations of women, both white and black, who have distinguished themselves in remarkable ways. On Saturdays and Sundays during the month of March, Drayton Hall’s 10:00am and 2:00pm house tours will be focused on the lives of the women connected with this circa 1738 historic site. Reservations are highly recommended as these tours will fill up fast. Please call (843) 769-2638, Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm, to reserve.
About the women of Drayton Hall:
"There's a tendency for people to think of the women on Southern plantations as leading a life of ‘moonlight and magnolias’ or perhaps similar to wealthy women of title in English manor homes. Nothing could be further from the truth,” explained Pattie Jack, a Drayton Hall interpreter who has made it her mission to debunk the myths surrounding the plantation mistress. With a Master’s Degree in History and a twenty-five year career in museum education, Pattie has enjoyed researching Drayton Hall’s history through the lives of its women.
“By necessity, Drayton Hall women had to be strong, smart, and independent," said Ms. Jack. "There was no huge ‘upstairs/downstairs’ staff as some of our visitors imagine. Instead, the Drayton wives and women across the south, were responsible for running the plantation household and everything that entailed: from directly supervising the enslaved domestic staff, to serving as surrogate planters and making important economic decisions while their husbands were away for extended periods. They also often personally handled some of the plantation’s most unpleasant tasks. For example, part of a typical day might see her supervising the proper slaughter of animals and then hand-scraping the intestines for sausage casings, or perhaps salting or pickling the raw meat to preserve it."
According to Ms. Jack, even though Drayton Hall was one of the finest plantation homes of its day in terms of material possessions and the family’s social and political standing, that status along with its hundreds of comforts, both large and small, "could not be sustained without the daily and often heroic efforts of its women.”
Since Drayton Hall was first under construction in 1738, African-American women and men have played important roles in its development and the production of its wealth. Oral history describes the ancestors of one family, the Bowens, arriving as slaves in the 1670s. Many of the Bowens descendants still live in the Charleston area; in fact, the great-granddaughters of Catherine Bowens, Catherine Braxton and Rebecca Campbell, live not far from Drayton Hall and are members of its African-American Memorial Steering Committee.
While there are doubtless many stories of strength, skill, and survival that have been lost to history, surviving records tell of an African-American slave, Cath Drayton, "Formerly slave to Mrs. Drayton near Charlestown", who escaped during the American Revolution. A Black Loyalist, in 1783 she was listed on the ship Ann & Elizabeth bound for Port Roseway, Nova Scotia, where she helped found a number of free black settlements.
What to expect on a Drayton Hall House Tour
Every Drayton Hall House Tour is unique because each one is unscripted: Drayton Hall’s professional interpreters not only design their own program after extensive research and training, they continue to enrich their presentations through Drayton Hall’s ongoing research and archaeological investigations. As a result, while all presentations offer a solid overview of the history of Drayton Hall and its people, they may be told through the lens of women’s history, African-American history, architecture, culture, or other field of interest.
Read More About Women’s History at the Drayton Hall Museum Shop!
Visitors can learn more about their discoveries during National Women’s History Month through the books available for sale in the Museum Shop. Now through the end of March, guests save 15% on featured women’s history titles.
Recommended reading:
* The Plantation Mistress by Catherine Clinton
* Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
* A Diary from Dixie by Mary Chesnut
* Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller
* Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the South by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Drayton Hall is a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.