Craft: An American History

by Glenn Adamson

The best-documented example of this shift in the Charleston area is a shop that had been established prior to the Civil War by Guy Simmons, an enslaved artisan. After emancipation, his son Peter Simmons inherited the shop, and eventually moved it to downtown Charleston. In 1925, Peter took on a thirteen-year-old apprentice named Philip Simmons (no relation). Just as Philip began learning the trade, it all but disappeared. He responded creatively, shifting from the carriage trade to more skill-intensive architectural metalwork: decorative gates, railings, and window grills. He became a self-taught specialist in the techniques and styles of the historic city. “You got to study this thing,” he told a later interviewer. “Put a lot of time in studyin’ it. Just like you get books on Charleston—study the wrought iron—I walk around here and see what the other man got.” At a time when American decorative art history was in its infancy, restoration artisans like Simmons were the most expert authorities on their subjects. Over the course of his career he worked on hundreds of metalwork elements on buildings all over town—in many cases, replacing or repairing the handwork of enslaved artisans of past generations. By the 1950s, he was the one and only blacksmith registered in the city directory.18