Here, you can delve into the captivating story behind these iconic creations, tracing their rich heritage from their African roots to their significance in the South Carolina low country. Explore the evolution of sweetgrass baskets, learn about the traditional techniques passed down through generations, and discover the cultural significance woven into each intricate design. Join us on a journey through history and tradition as we unravel the timeless allure of sweetgrass basketry.
Basket making in Mount Pleasant is a family enterprise Skills and knowledge are passed down through generations by observation and imitation. Children as young as four or five learn from mothers, grandmothers, and aunts. They begin by making "bottoms." Many older basket makers remember when they had to make a bottom each night before bed. Today it can be a challenge to interest children in basket-making when so many other opportunities are available. Some basket makers are heritage educators, dedicated to teaching the skills and history of the craft. As basket maker Henrietta Snypes says, "This is what will hold this art together - the next generation.
Basket makers use a special tool or sewing awl called a nail bone to make a space for the binder to pass through the bundle. In the old days, the awl was made from an animal bone. Today, most basket makers use a spoon handle. The bowl of the spoon is removed, and the end is filed down to form a smooth point. Sewers often become attached to their nail bone, and it can be distressing if one is lost.
"When I first learned to sew baskets, they would kill a hog and they'd take it from the hoof and then they split it... split away at the hoof and then sharpen that down and make a bone like that"
Maggie Manigault [d.]. Hamlin basket maker
All coiled baskets, no matter how simple or how fancy, are created with the same technique. Basket makers begin by taking a small bundle of longleaf pine needles, which they twist and tie into a tight knot. They use pine needles because they are soft and easy to bend. Bundles of rush or sweetgrass are added to the knot to form the coil. The rows are sewn together with strips of palmetto, called the binder or thread. The coil is built row upon row to create the form. Tight, even stitching is important for producing a sound and beautiful basket.
"My mother and my aunt, they (are) my inspiration in the basket sewing. All that I learned about weaving baskets is from them."
Eartha Lee Washington, Hamlin basket maker
Family Heritage & tradition
freedom & farming
The end of the Civil War brought hardships to freedom as well. The Lowcountry economy was devastated by the war and money was scarce. Despite these and other challenges, many African Americans were able to purchase or rent land and take up farming for themselves. Today's communities of Scanlonville, Greenhill, White Hall Terrace, Hamlin, Six Mile, Seven Mile, and others were created on old plantation lands by former slaves. In the 20th century, some of these new freedmen's settlements became the heart of Mount Pleasant's basket-making tradition.
Basket makers were no longer required to mass-produce agricultural baskets; they developed new designs and forms to use for their purposes. At the same time, farmers from Mount Pleasant began to sell their surplus produce in Charleston. Women and children traveled daily by ferry from Mount Pleasant to Charleston to sell their wares. They carried their goods in large vegetable baskets balanced on their heads. In the early 1900s, local photographer George W. Johnson developed a popular postcard series depicting Charleston's famous street vendors. These historical images show ladies with coiled "head-tote" baskets full of vegetables or flowers perched on their heads, ready to supply Charleston's housewives with onions, greens, potatoes, beans, and okra.
An iconic street vendor postcard by George W. Johnson from the collections of the SC Historical Society.
CONTINUITY AND CHANGE
Today, the art and craft of basket-making thrives in Mount Pleasant. However, if this important art form is to continue to flourish, it will require the nurturing of new generations of basket makers as well as the protection of the natural resources needed to make baskets. There is no doubt that development in the 1980s and '90s affected basket makers and their materials. Traffic along US Highway 17 has increased, the land where native sweetgrass grows has changed, and access to sweetgrass is limited by private property rights. Fortunately, many basket-making families and organizations such as the Town of Mount Pleasant and the Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Festival Association are working hard to find ways for young people to learn basket-making skills and to create new venues for basket sales. Efforts are under way to protect sweetgrass habitat and to propagate and plant new stands of sweetgrass.
"If you don't nurture it, or take care of it, or you don't know the history about it, its gone.
” Pearl Ascue, Ten Mile resident and basket collector
The Town of Mount Pleasant recognizes the importance of sweetgrass basket making as a historic industry. Local residents value and take pride in the unique character that Lowcountry baskets bring to the town. To honor the contribution of basket makers to our heritage, the town helps sponsor the annual Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Festival, is undertaking an extensive sweetgrass planting program on town property, and works with local business owners to build new basket stands in safer, more accessible places along US Highway 17. In 2006, South Carolina designated sweetgrass baskets the official state handcraft and a portion of US Highway 17 Sweetgrass Basket Makers Highway. Recently, the federal government established the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. Sweetgrass baskets are an essential feature of the corridor that extends from North Carolina to northern Florida. The Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Pavilion is a tribute to the generations of basket makers in Mount Pleasant. Through dedication to their craft and respect for their elders, these artisans have transformed a simple agricultural tool into a world-renowned art form.
Basket Maker Beverly Grant shows children how to sew a basket.
AFRICAN ROOTS & AMERICAN ART
Travel along US Highway 17 in Mount Pleasant and you will see one of the oldest, most important, and most I vibrant folk traditions in the United States, the art of making baskets from sweetgrass. Three hundred years ago, African captives sold into slavery in South Carolina brought their knowledge of growing rice and other valuable skills, including the craft of basket making. These skills have been passed down from generation to generation in the African American communities that grew up in Mount Pleasant after the Civil War. While the sweetgrass basket may have its origin in West Africa, today it is an American art form unique to the Lowcountry.
The earliest slave-made baskets were winnowing baskets called fanners. The fanner was an essential tool on rice plantations used to separate the rice from the chaff. Pounded rice was placed in the basket and tossed into the air. The breeze carried away the husks. These early baskets were made from coiled bulrush sewn together with split oak or palm. Before the harvest, plantation basket makers, usually men, created large quantities of fanners. In 1836, a Berkeley County planter noted in his diary that "Jacob was occupied 3 weeks in making baskets." The typical Charleston County plantation produced hundreds of thousands of pounds of rice a year. Imagine the number of baskets required to process that much rice!
"This is something that our ancestors left to us. We can't just let it go just like that, without a fight.. .
Edward Steed, Four Mile resident
This photograph, taken on Edisto Island on April 8, 1862, may be the earliest photoaraoh of a lowcountry coiled basket collection of the New-York Historical Society.
Arts craft and catalogs
In the late 19th century, proponents of the American Arts and Crafts movement encouraged a new appreciation for authentic handmade products. The Lowcountry coiled basket was recognized as an emblem of African American culture. Encouraged by Charleston's expanding tourist trade, sewers created new shapes and designs to serve these new customers. At this time, flexible, strong, and sweet-smelling sweetgrass became the basket maker's material of choice.
Sam Coakley, a patriarch of the Hamlin Beach comm-unity. is credited with mobilizing residents to take up basket making as a source of income. Mr. Coakley acted as a go-between for sewers and local businessmen. The most famous partnership was with Charleston businessman Clarence W. Legerton, who ran a gift shop on King Street.
Every other Saturday, basket makers took their wares to Sam Coakley's home, where Mr. Legerton inspected them and made his purchases. Renowned basket maker Mary Jackson recalls that her grandmother sewed for Clarence Legerton.
In 1916, Clarence Legerton created the Sea Grass Basket Company. He sold baskets as far away as New York and the Midwest. Basket makers produced sewing baskets, tablemats, trays, and cake baskets, forms that were functional and easy to ship. Mr. Legerton's patronage became a reliable source of cash income, and in some years could bring three to four thousand dollars into the community. This is an amazing sum if you consider that small sewing baskets sold in his wholesale catalog for $4.25 a dozen!
"When there were no jobs in the Mt. Pleasant area, my family would make baskets and take the ferry over to Charleston to sell them in the market."
M. Jeannette Gaillard-Lee, Seven Mile basket maker
Mount Pleasant early entrepreneurs
In the early 1930s, Mount Pleasant's basket-making industry was transformed by enterprising basket-makers determined to control their own prices and products. With the paving of US Highway 17 and the completion of the Grace Memorial Bridge in 1929, this coastal route became an important transportation artery bringing tourists from the north to Charleston and down the coast to Florida. Basket makers were quick to take advantage of the opportunity to sell directly to their customers and set up roadside stands to display their wares. These stands evolved from overturned boxes and chairs to more permanent structures outfitted with heaters, chairs, and other conveniences.
There is some debate about who was the first to sell baskets along US Highway 17. Some people give credit to Lottie "Winee" Moultrie Swinton and Lydia Span Graddick. Others say it was Ida Jefferson Wilson and her husband, Jack. After Ida was dismissed from her job, so the story goes, Jack suggested she sell baskets in their roadside vegetable stand.Ida hung baskets on a ladder-back chair, and the sweetgrass basket stand was born. Edna Mae Rouse and her mother, Betsy Johnson, are credited with expanding the idea by hammering nails on the outside of their vegetable stand and "hanging out" baskets for sale. The first basket stands were constructed with sapling posts set in the ground. Strips of wood were nailed between the posts. Nails served as pegs to display the baskets. Today's stands have not changed much. Saplings have been replaced with treated timbers, and some stands have roofs and even windows to provide protection from the weather. There are approximately 100 stands along US Highway 17 and 500 people sewing baskets in Mount Pleasant.
"You were glad to just walk along the highway, and you would stop at every little stand... to communicate with the people as they were sewing baskets, and everybody welcomed you."
Eva Wright, Mount Pleasant basket maker
"When there were no jobs in the Mt. Pleasant area, my family would make baskets and take the ferry over to Charleston to sell them in the market."
M. Jeannette Gaillard-Lee, Seven Mile basket maker