Historic Charleston Foundation lends John Goug Linen Press to the DAR Museum

Historic Charleston Foundation is excited to support the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Museum for its new exhibition, Fighting for Freedom: Black Craftspeople and the Pursuit of Independence. The Foundation is loaning the splendid John Gough secretary linen press, c. 1795, pictured below, for exhibit in DC. Cabinet maker John Gough worked in Charleston during the last decades of the 18^th century. He was a freed African American cabinetmaker who had served in the Revolutionary War, owned enslaved people, and was financially successful.

Displaying fine furniture, metals, ceramics, textiles, art, tools and personal accessories, Fighting for Freedom seeks to underpin the idea of African American craft as a catalyst for freedom-seeking. The exhibit will be on display at the DAR Museum in Washington, DC from March 29 to December 31, 2025.

The Founders’ cries for liberty from tyranny and oppression resonated with African Americans and were embraced by Black craftspeople, both free and enslaved.

“The Founding Fathers, while enslaving tens of thousands of people, unintentionally created a ripple effect,” states exhibition co-curator and founder of the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive Dr. Tiffany Momon, “and we hope that visitors will see just how important those cries for liberty were to Black craftspeople and how they pursued it despite being marginalized.”

Certainly John Gough, as a successful craftsman who also enslaved people himself, adds a layer of complexity to the juxtaposition of liberty and slavery as well as our understanding of agency within the freed African American community.

While the John Gough secretary is at the DAR Museums on loan until early 2026, a scale model of Bennett Rice Mill by Charleston artist Tom Boozer will be on display in the Nathaniel Russell House Gallery. In 1844, Governor Thomas Bennett commissioned the construction of a rice mill on his property between East Bay Street and the Harbor. He envisioned that its design would surpass all other mills of its time. Exhibiting the Bennett Rice Mill model will not only provide an opportunity to share an important part of Charleston’s agricultural and industrial history. It will also allow the museum to highlight current preservation and advocacy efforts to save the building's fragile façade.