Preserving Charleston's Past, Shaping Its Future

In the post-Civil War period, Southern women slowly shook loose from the longstanding image of the lady on the pedestal and, through club work and group association, developed independence and began to affect public life. One such notable new woman was Charleston's Susan Pringle Frost (1873-1960). This book recounts the life story of this active woman, describing her background, philosophy, and accomplishments in the area of advancing the image of the woman in society. A member of an illustrious old family, Frost constantly challenged convention, as a federal district court stenographer, as a real estate woman with an office in the professional district, as a women's rights advocate. She helped get women admitted to the College of Charleston and headed city and state National Woman's Party efforts to achieve women's suffrage and later, the Equal Rights Amendment. Bland asserts that Frost is chiefly important, however, as an historic preservationist. In a rapidly expanding sweep, beginning about 1909, Miss Frost bought and renovated numerous houses in the historic East Battery ristrict. Indebtedness mounted, and to aid her efforts she founded and for many years headed the Preservation Society of Charleston. On several Charleston civic commissions and, in her seventies, still a member of the Zoning Board, Susan Frost was a life-long worker for city betterment and tirelessly monitored Charleston preservation efforts. Preserving Charleston's Past, Shaping Its Future shows how a preservation pioneer, Susan Pringle Frost, helped shape the Southern new woman image and served as a role model for women of all generations.

SIDNEY R. BLAND is Professor of History at James Madison University, where he has taught since 1965. He has made scholarly presentations at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, The Citadel's Conference on the South, and Furman University's Conference on Women in Southern History, and has received grants from the American Philosophical Society, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy, and James Madison University. He is the author of chapters in Architecture: A Place for Women (1989) and in Developing Dixie: Modernization in a Traditional Society (Greenwood, 1988), as well as numerous articles on women in Southern history.