Sweetgrass Baskets

Image by Teri Norris; Used with her permission

The early rice industry in the Lowcountry owed its success to a particular type of black rush basket, the "fanner". The enslaved people "fanned" threshed rice into the air from the baskets to let the wind separate the chaff. On the plantations, the male slaves wove fences, granaries, traps, and heavy field baskets. It was up to the women to make the smaller, fancier baskets for the households. Read more about Sweetgrass Baskets in our recently revised and expanded Local History & Nature page on the topic. 

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