American Adventures: A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' — Text and Context

A Unified Upper Class in Charleston

Street declares Charleston “the last stronghold of a unified American upper class,” where Madeira, Port, and noblesse oblige are fully understood. This is not a generic compliment but a specific claim about social cohesion. He contrasts this with other Southern cities, implying a hierarchy of tradition. The city’s architecture, manners, and lingering aristocracy become a recurring touchstone. Street’s language is precise: he notes the “curious old box pews” and “Royal Arms of Great Britain” at Goose Creek Church, linking material details to a broader sense of continuity. The reader is invited to see Charleston as a living museum of class and custom, where the past is not just remembered but performed.

Goose Creek Church and the Weight of History

At Goose Creek Church, built about 1713, Street finds the “oldest looking thing in the United States.” He catalogs its features: memorial tablets with foreign names, a tall pulpit with winding stair, and brilliantly colored Royal Arms. But the church is also a stage for Revolutionary-era stories. One tale involves Mad Archy Campbell, a British officer who drew a pistol to force a wedding. Another recounts Ralph Izard’s dry “Good Lord, deliver us!” after the prayer for the King. A third describes a prayer-book hurled at the minister. These anecdotes are not mere filler; they illustrate how the church embodies contested loyalties and personal drama. Street uses them to show that history here is tactile, not abstract.

Movement Between Scenes: From City to Countryside

The journey from Charleston to Summerville by motor passes The Oaks, an estate with a new colonial house and an avenue of live-oaks where the Swamp Fox once camped. Street’s transitions are deliberate: he moves from the urban stronghold of class to a rural landscape layered with Revolutionary and botanical history. Michaux’s camellias, planted in 1786, still stand at Middleton Place. The narrative rhythm alternates between set-piece descriptions and travelogue asides, such as the “Most Beautiful Girl in the World” who winters in a lovely lazy town. This structure mirrors the book’s subtitle—a second trip abroad at home—where each leg of the journey reveals a new facet of Southern identity.

Recurring Images: Gardens, Thorns, and Nosegays

Street’s foreword introduces the nosegay metaphor, and the image recurs throughout. He gathers chapters from Southern gardens, warning that some flowers have thorns or are merely weeds. This is not just decorative language; it signals his method of selection. The gardens are literal—Middleton Place’s camellias, The Oaks’ live-oaks—and figurative, representing the culture he observes. The thorns are the uncomfortable histories: the pistol-wedding, the prayer-book thrown, the lingering wound of the Civil War. Street’s voice remains that of an enamored outsider, but he insists on including the prickly details. The result is a travelogue that balances affection with candor, never letting the reader forget that the bouquet is deliberately chosen.

Street’s narrative is best approached as a series of vignettes rather than a continuous argument. Each chapter stands alone, yet together they build a composite portrait of the South in 1917. Readers should attend to the interplay between Street’s personal reactions and the historical anecdotes he weaves in. The illustrations by Wallace Morgan add a visual dimension, often capturing the same scenes from a slightly different angle. For those interested in early twentieth-century travel writing or Southern social history, this book offers a candid, if partial, view—a nosegay with thorns intact.

That rainy afternoon, Julian Street's married-couple metaphor for the South stayed with me—two regions bickering under one roof. Later, flipping pages, I wondered what a woman's voice would make of such a union. That thought led me to A Truthful Woman in Southern California — Text and Context, where the landscape itself becomes the argument, softer but no less insistent.