Charleston Icons: 50 Symbols of the Holy City Book

Charleston is a cocoon of gentility surrounded by a sensuous landscape of verdant tea olives, majestic magnolias, and undulating coastal dunes. Prized for its well-preserved architecture and savored for its antiquated charm, this great city bustles with the vigor of artists, chefs, and visionaries. Charleston Icons illustrates the quintessential places, events, and items that make Charleston so fascinating.

Profiled here are fifty classic symbols of this extraordinary city, revealing little-known facts, longtime secrets, and historical legends. From seersucker suits to sweetgrass baskets, discover the inside story about the very things that give this city its character.

Did you know that Porgy and Bess was a groundbreaking folk opera set in Charleston that made its debut in 1935 with a cast comprised entirely of African Amercan actors? Or that the joggling board, a rocking chair–bench hybrid created in the 1830s as a therapy for rheumatism, quickly became a fashionable local piazza adornment? Or that the Charleston Tea Plantation is the only farm of its kind in North America?

For natives and newcomers alike, Charleston Icons is a treasured keepsake of this charming city.