Work Basket, Sapelo Island, Georgia, 1850-1900
notes: label: Description
content: The Lowcountry (coastal) region of the Carolinas and Georgia and the nearby Atlantic Sea Islands were and continue to be home to a distinctive regional African American culture that is now recognized as the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor. By the mid-1700s, rice became the dominant cash crop and plantation owners wanted enslaved people from West Africa who already knew how to cultivate rice. The work of these enslaved Africans made the Carolina rice planters the richest planters in the American colonies. The West African peoples knew how to make coiled grass baskets for a variety of use. They innovated the method by using materials similar to those at home in their new environment. This bulrush work basket was made on Sapelo Island, Georgia, sometime between 1850 and 1900. At one time, baskets like these were common on working farms on the coast and in fancy homes around Savannah, but today baskets from the 1800s are very rare.
place: label: place made
content: United States: Georgia, Sapelo Island, Sapelo Island
topic: label: Subject
content: Blacks
label: Subject
content: African American
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ethnic
label: See more items in
content: Many Voices, One Nation
label: Exhibition
content: Many Voices, One Nation
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CL.401993
label: catalog number
content: 401993
label: accession number
content: 251760
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Basket
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: fiber, plant (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: grass, swamp (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: coiled (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 cm x 36 cm x 36 cm; 4 23/32 in x 14 3/16 in x 14 3/16 in