The Rollin Sisters

The Rollin sisters of South Carolina were some of the most influential African American women to have lived during the Reconstruction Era. Frances Ann (Frank), Katherine (Kate), Charlotte (Lottie), Marie Louise (Loyise) and Florence Rollin were born in Charleston, but eventually settled in Columbia, South Carolina. The daughters of William Rollin, a wealthy lumber dealer of French Catholic Haitian origin who owned both slaves and real estate, these five women influenced the political sphere in spite of their inability to vote or hold political office.^[1]

The Rollins sisters were born to a free black couple who belonged to Charleston's antebellum free black "aristocracy". Very little is known about their mother. William Rollin was a fervent Roman Catholic and was very concerned with his daughters' education.

In the spring of 1871, two New York newspapers covering South Carolina politics, the Sun and the New York Herald, published long interviews with the sisters.^[2] By that time, the sisters had become known for their salon, which was referred to as "the Republican Headquarters" at the time. The Rollin sisters were closely aligned with both white and black radical Republican leadership in the area. The Sun compared the women to Catherine de Medici, Charlotte Corday and Louise Mulbach.^[3]

References

1. ↑ "Profile: The Rollin Sisters". The African American Odyssey, 5th Edition. Ed. Darlene Clark et al. Pearson: New York, 2011.
2. ↑ "The Remarkable Misses Rollin": Black Women in Reconstruction South Carolina". Willard B. Gatewood, Jr. The South Carolina Historical Magazine , Vol. 92, No. 3 (Jul., 1991), pp. 172-188.
3. ↑ The Sun, March 29, 1871.

External links

• "African American Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century".
• "Rollin Sisters".