Charleston Library Society

The Charleston Library Society was founded in 1748 as a private subscription library by colonial Charles Town’s leading merchants and planters. It is safe to assume that these learned figures would never dream that the organization they created would be in continuous existence through a future Revolutionary War, a Civil War, two World Wars, and Facebook.

The Charleston Library Society is the third oldest institution of its kind in the United States. Through the centuries its collections of books, periodicals, newspapers, maps, and pamphlets have made it a locus of scientific, literary, aesthetic, and political activity during every era of South Carolina and American history.  The Library Society is the intellectual birthplace of the Charleston Museum, College of Charleston, and South Carolina Historical Society.

The Library Society’s first independent address was 82 Broad Street.  That building had previously been the British colonial capitol and the first South Carolina State House. In 1835, the Society moved to 50 Broad Street, then again, in 1914, to its present-day location at 164 King Street.

Over the past five years, the Library Society moved has repaired and renovated the main building’s roof to preserve from destruction the circulating collection, and portions of the Society’s collections of colonial and antebellum newspapers, rare books and pamphlets, historical maps and manuscripts, and fine arts objects.   A vital complement to the Library Society’s restoration of its buildings has been a restoration and revival of its place in the scholarly, intellectual, and cultural life of the city and nation.