The extent to which companies could still require workers to show up to work during events like Hurricane Helene has been challenging in our state’s “employment at will” environment.

Over the years, many empty textile mills have been reclaimed and reused as living and shopping spaces, thanks to state legislation that provides tax credits for doing so.

This time out we’ll be talking with Tracey Todd, the Director of Museums for the Historic Charleston Foundation, and Andrew Agha, an archaeologist working on the site of the Nathaniel Russell house, a National Historic Landmark on Meeting Street. We’ll be talking about the Foundation’s most recent preservation initiative which involves the kitchen house, an ancillary structure that included a kitchen, laundry, and living quarters for the enslaved.Nathaniel Russell arrived in Charleston from Bristol, Rhode Island in 1765 and, thanks to extensive contacts in his home colony, established himself as a successful merchant and trader of captive Africans. In 1808 the Russell family moved to their new townhome at 51 Meeting Street. Accompanying them were as many as eighteen enslaved people who toiled in the work yard, gardens, stable, kitchen and laundry.By uncovering the material history contained in the kitchen house, the Foundation hopes to further illuminate the lives of the men, women, and children who lived and worked there.

This week we’ll be talking with former poet laureate of South Carolina, Marjory Wentworth about her new collection of poems entitled One River, One Boat (Evening Post Books, 2024). This collection of occasional poems and essays includes those written about heartbreaking and joyous times in South Carolina’s history and Wentworth’s own life including the deaths of relatives, gubernatorial inaugurations, the Mother Emmanuel AME massacre, Hurricane Hugo, and more.Marjory no longer lives in South Carolina, but it will be obvious in our conversation, as it is in her poetry, that she has deep roots here. And her love of the Lowcountry, as well as her deep understanding of humanity, shines through in One River, One Boat.

On this episode of the South Carolina Lede for December 21, 2024: our full interview with USC Research Economist Dr. Joey Von Nessen, recapping the economic year of 2024 and previewing 2025.

On this episode of the South Carolina Lede for December 17, 2024: we look at what’s going on this week from the statehouse to Congress; Sen. Lindsey Graham shares his thoughts on President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary; a look back on the lives of Congressman John Spratt and former state Sen. Kay Patterson; and more!