Charleston Museum

Founded in 1773, The Charleston Museum is widely regarded as America’s first museum. Located on Meeting Street in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, it explores the natural and cultural history of the South Carolina Lowcountry through collections that have grown over more than two centuries. Its wide-ranging collection covers archaeology, decorative arts, fine art, natural history, textiles, photography and military history. Permanent galleries examine the region’s Indigenous peoples, European and African American communities, the American Revolution and Civil War, while the Bunting Natural History Gallery presents fossils, geological specimens and animals from the Lowcountry.