One Giant Penis in Charleston
Symbols, Signs, and Brothels in Charleston History
Brothels have used signs and symbols to attract customers, identify a house discreetly, or create a recognizable public image. The symbols varied by place and period; no single mark was universal. In Charleston, hearts in shutters and a phallic carving above the doorway at 22 State Street have prompted speculation about local brothel signals. These details make for a compelling story, but a suggestive symbol is not, by itself, proof that a building was a brothel or that its owners intended the symbol as advertising.
Heart-shaped cutouts in shutters are often described in Charleston as signals connected with houses of prostitution. A heart can suggest love, romance, or sexual availability, while shutters could provide privacy and control over what passersby saw. Hearts also appear as decorative motifs, so their presence alone may not establish a building’s use.
One of the clearest examples of suggestive brothel signage comes from San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. In his 1933 history of the district, Herbert Asbury described a brothel known as “At the Sign of the Red Rooster.” Outside of a prominent building stood a large scarlet rooster figure with a red light burning in its beak; a sign identified the establishment by name. Asbury also described red lights outside brothels and painted signs bearing a house’s name or information about its workers. His account shows that some U.S. brothels used openly suggestive imagery but may not actually establish a nationwide custom.
While Phallic images have a long history in communication, their meanings often depended on the context.
In ancient Roman settings, phallic carvings and amulets could represent sexuality, fertility, good fortune, or protection from the “evil eye.” The popular claim that carved penises in Pompeii acted as arrows pointing customers to brothels is both accepted, and disputed by historians.
The prominent Phallic carving above the doorway at 22 State Street in the historic district of Charleston remains unconfirmed as an actual brothel symbol. The property is identified as the Johnson–Poinsett Tenements, built around 1841; that description notes the central archway and unusual stucco phallic carving, but does not identify the carving as a brothel marker. However, that does not prove or disprove its use over the last 185 years. We simply don’t know.
Given Charleston’s reputation as the Las Vegas of the colonial period. It should not come a surprise that brothels were clustered in several parts of Charleston over time. For the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the strongest documented concentration of brothels was in the area around King, Queen, Beaufain, and Logan Streets. A 2024 Clemson historic-preservation thesis mapped brothel addresses using city directories. It found this area to be the densest red-light district in the city, with brothels spreading north and east in some periods of Charleston’s history.
A Sanborn map’s notation “F.B.,” meaning “female boarding,” could serve as a discreet label for a brothel. In the early twentieth century, Beresford Street—renamed Fulton Street in 1942—became known as the heart of the local red-light district. The neighborhood’s reputation and records were often a more reliable way of identifying brothels than any one architectural feature.
The history of prostitution’s legal status in Charleston is complicated. Local authorities at times tolerated prostitution and attempted to regulate it – often charging for local licenses and medical exams administered by the police. During the Civil War, Union-occupied cities often used the same process that required sex workers to obtain licenses and undergo regular medical examinations.
Like most other social issues, Charleston’s toleration for prostitution did not end all at once. During World War One the Navy experienced the side effects of the trade as many of the sailors in Charleston had fallen victim to illness. By 1941, U.S. military leaders had learned their lesson and pressured City Council to remove the vice from the Beresford Street area, and the property owners later sought a new street name.
The state-level legal change followed: a local property-history account reports that South Carolina ratified legislation making prostitution illegal on May 17, 1942. That distinction matters: 1941 marks the city’s crackdown on the district; 1942 marks the reported statewide criminalization, rather than the first appearance of laws regulating prostitution.
Today these symbols in Charleston’s architecture still invite questions about Charleston’s past relationship with the sex trade. Hearts on shutters remain part of local speculation; phallic imagery has varied meanings across American cultures.
At 22 State Street, the striking outline of a two-story penis carved above the door may be a lead—but it is not a conclusion. The truth is we simply don’t know why someone felt the need to carve such a symbol, and we probably never will.
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James Island helped shape Charleston through agriculture, harbor defense, and the enduring culture of its people. Across the Ashley River from the peninsula, this South Carolina sea island supported the city long before bridges connected their neighborhoods. Its story reaches from ancient Indigenous communities to Revolutionary War soldiers, celebrated musicians, and families who transformed emancipation into landownership.
That prosperity depended on slavery. According to the town’s historical summary, James Island had 21 plantations, 1,533 enslaved people, and 193 white residents in 1860. Enslaved Africans and their descendants supplied much of the labor and agricultural knowledge behind plantation production.
James Island contributed to Charleston’s cultural identity through its Gullah communities. Their religious traditions, music, language, and family networks preserved African influences across generations, despite slavery and later segregation.
In 1787, 
The American moose presented a rather large problem for Buffon’s theory because a full-grown moose is difficult to describe as small, weak, or unimpressive, and Thomas Jefferson wanted Buffon to see one for himself.
Women who traveled with the Continental Army played an essential role in the Revolutionary War. Commonly called camp followers, they were usually soldiers’ wives, partners, children, servants, laundresses, nurses, cooks, or sutlers who sold food and small necessities. The name can make them sound like spectators. In reality, their work helped transform an improvised force into an army able to remain in the field. They marched with the baggage and handled labor that kept soldiers fed, clothed, cleaner, and ready for duty.
During Revolutionary War marches, commanders required women to remain with the baggage train behind the fighting formations. Most walked while carrying bedding, clothing, cookware, personal property, and sometimes infants. Army wagons were reserved for ammunition, tents, hospital stores, provisions, and official baggage, so orders often prohibited women from riding. Although necessity sometimes overruled policy. Illness, pregnancy, young children, or exhaustion could lead to travel by horse or wagon.
Compensation for Revolutionary War women often consisted of food rations, small wages, or payment for assigned work. Some women received reduced rations compared with soldiers, and laundresses could be attached to a set number of men. Payment remained uncertain because the Continental Army frequently lacked money and supplies. A woman might complete exhausting labor and still receive late or incomplete wages. Conditions also depended on rank, race, freedom, and personal connections. Officers’ wives generally had better wages and shelter, while enslaved women and women with no social or political connection could be forced to work for no or very low compensation.
Long before Kentucky became famous for Thoroughbred horses, Charleston had an important racehorse breeding center of its own. The Johns Island Stud was established around 1750 at Fenwick Hall, a plantation on John’s Island owned by Edward Fenwick Sr. It became one of the best-known horse breeding programs in America and helped introduce carefully selected English racing bloodlines to the American South.
Horse racing was more than a sport in colonial Charleston. It was part of the city’s social calendar. Fenwick helped organize the South Carolina 
Washington Race Course became the center of Charleston’s famous Race Week. Thousands came for racing, food, betting, parties, dinners, and balls. The horses and breeding traditions developed by families such as the Fenwicks helped create the horse culture that made this later track possible. The Johns Island Stud itself was not located at Hampton Park, but created the foundation of breeders and Jockey Club leaders who built Charleston’s racing tradition.
Christmas in historic Charleston carried two different meanings. For wealthy families, the season brought dinners, visiting, music, and celebration. For slaves, Christmas meant three days of freedom. A short break from labor, freedom of movement, gifts, special food, alcohol, and opportunities to earn money.
Charleston records preserve powerful examples. In 1840, the Charleston Courier described an enslaved man named Fortune who received a Christmas ticket to visit his family on Wadmalaw Island. South Carolinian John Andrew Jackson used the relaxed movement of Christmas to escape bondage in 1846. Traveling toward Charleston, Jackson presented himself as someone visiting another plantation for the holiday. Once in the city, he joined enslaved men working on the wharves, earned money, and eventually found passage north. His story shows how slaves could sometimes turn a temporary privilege into something more permanent.
Some enslavers supplied fresh meat or foods uncommon in ordinary rations, and enslaved communities prepared communal meals with music and dancing. On some plantations, the slaves were invited into the house for a celebratory Christmas dinner prepared by the family, including whiskey, rum, cider, brandy, and other drinks.
