A Conversation with the Director of the Charleston Museum

 

Carl Borick has been the director of the Charleston Museum for the past 9 years, having started in 2013. During that time he has overseen various projects and summer camps at the museum. Despite COVID throwing a wrench in the museum’s running, With a Masters in history (focusing on the Revolutionary War),  Borick talked with me over the phone to discuss his favorite exhibits and what families can take away from visiting the museum. 

 

Charlotte Hansen: What drew you to working at the Charleston Museum? Are you from Charleston originally?

Carl Borick: Not originally, but I've been here since the early ‘90s. I should have started I'm a CPA (Certified Public Administrator) by trade. I started as the Museum's administrative officer and then became director but I've also got a Master's in history so I kind of have been able to combine both of my talents here. 

 

CH: Is there a particular exhibit that you like? 

CB: For me, the Revolutionary War exhibit. But from a kid's perspective, this is what's great about the museum is I think we reach all age groups. We've got regular permanent galleries including a natural history gallery and natural history gallery, we have organisms that lived in this area, and we have the world's largest flying bird that ever existed. We've got a cast of that and our natural history gallery, we've got a giant ground wall that’s 15 feet tall. 

 

And there's actually a special classroom that we use for school programs, but any family [can] go in there. It's got things that kids can handle, like a pair of shark jaws, and all kinds of interactive stuff that kids can put their hands on in the natural history,

 

And then we actually have a special dedicated gallery called Kid Stories, and that's basically museum exhibits are designed specifically for kids. We've got one kind of reproduced in there with a very short door they can go through and inside they can there's like kids games from the 18th century, we have, you know, musical instruments and I don't know if we have to try on clothing anymore out there because that might have been a COVID thing.

 

CH: How is your museum different from the other history museums in the area? I also saw that you're connected to both the Joseph Manigault House and the Heyward-Washington House.

CB: What differentiates us is our collection is 2.4 million objects. And only a small fraction roughly 6000 of those are exhibited abroad. Nobody in the area has the kind of collection we do. And we have great collegial relationships with all the cultural attractions around here and all of our great sites individually, but no one has what we have to offer in terms of three dimensional objects that people can really get a sense of what history was like or what Charleston was, like 250 years ago, or 150 years ago. 

 

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