Paige M. Wagoner, "Constructing Free Identity: The Invention and Adaptation of the Charleston Freedman's Cottage" (MA Thesis: University of Virginia, 2007).
 n the decades following the Civil War, black Charlestonians began to construct a free identity
steeped in the local architectural traditions of the old southern city. Employing the small unassuming structure commonly referred to as the freedman's cottage,
African-Americans enlisted the architectural cues of their immediate environment to build new identities as free men and women. Relying on little published research,
this thesis attempts to generate a history of the freedman's cottage form and its unique place within the context of post-emancipation Charleston. The widespread
appearance of the freedman's cottage into the twentieth century reflects the way in which African-Americans utilized local architectural traditions to create not only
their own building form, but an identity steeped in newfound freedom.
This thesis is offered as a beginning to the understanding of the freedman's cottage and its value to the architectural and cultural history of Charleston. It focuses
on the geographic and historical context as well as the form of the structures, a form directed by the political and social atmosphere of a post-Civil War southern
city and the spirit of its local architectural traditions.
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