Jennie Holton Fant

Jennie Holton Fant has explored the history of Charleston as told by its travelers in two published volumes of collections, The Travelers’ Charleston: Accounts of Charleston and Lowcountry, South Carolina, 1666–1861, and Sojourns in Charleston, South Carolina, 1865-1947. She is a South Carolina native, editor, writer and librarian, who served on the staff of Duke University Libraries. In addition to her books, she has previously published articles about Charleston in innumerable Southeast publications. She has a new book coming out in the near future titled The Regions of the Rice Planter: Journeys Around Georgetown and the Waccamaw River Regions 1734-1875. Fant now lives at Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

According to reviewer Bill Thompson in the Charleston Post and Courier, “The Holy City was a favored destination of visitors, and writers, long before travel magazines anointed it as such. Jennie Holton Fant’s anthologies amplify the fact in arresting collections of narratives about the city. Her second book, Sojourns in Charleston broadens the themes Fant introduced in her previous volume, The Travelers’ Charleston: Accounts of Charleston and Lowcountry, South Carolina, 1666-1861, again featuring the writing of a diverse group of journalists, travelers and tourists whose observations, good and bad, still resonate. Even natives and long-time residents will find surprises here, not least in many of the book’s startling facts or connections. Fant, a former Charleston resident, has done an impeccable job, providing an education on a century of Charleston history as seen by outsiders.”

These presentations explore the history of Charleston as witnessed in the documentary testimony of its travelers, none who were from the South. This speaker provides an easy understanding of the complicated and captivating history of America’s most intriguing city.