Name/Title
BasketEntry/Object ID
L.2011.002.13Description
Fanner basket
South Carolina, nineteenth century
Sweetgrass and palmetto frond
H. 4 3/4 x Diam. 23 1/4 inches
Lent by The Charleston Museum, Charleston, SC, HW0132
Boasting a plantation-based economy and a port city located between the Caribbean and Europe, Charleston was a major center of trade and agriculture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Early in the eighteenth century, planters discovered that Charleston's marshy environs were well suited for the production of rice; by 1761 Governor James Glenn observed that rice was the only commodity of any consequence in South Carolina. The labor-intensive production of rice led to an increase in the importation of slaves from Africa, especially the Gold Coast-present-day Ghana. Africans from this region were desirable to planters because the western part of Africa had a tradition of rice cultivation dating back to the first century C.E. These enslaved agriculturalists brought with them a cultural identity preserved today in the language, arts and religion of the Gullah culture.
Combining traditional weaving methods with local resources, enslaved Africans made baskets of traditional African forms from sweetgrass and rush found in the surrounding landscape. The fanner, or winnowing, basket was used to manually separate the chaff from the grain by "fanning" it into the wind. While many basket forms were woven of sweetgrass, the fanner was generally constructed of rush, cornshuck or straw-more durable grasses that could withstand the rigors of rice cultivation for several planting seasons.Collection
The Charleston Museum C/O: Historic Charleston FoLexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Primary Object Term
BasketNomenclature Class
ContainersNomenclature Category
Category 07: Distribution & Transportation ObjectsIntake
Loan In
L.2011.002Lender
Dr. John Brumgardt, DirectorDate Received
Jan 12, 2011Date Returned
Feb 1, 2011Created By
admin@catalogit.appCreate Date
January 12, 2011Updated By
admin@catalogit.appUpdate Date
December 7, 2012