St. Cecilia Society - Early Membership

Early Membership

The full list of the early members of Charleston's St. Cecilia Society perished with the rest of its records during the Civil War. Recent efforts to reconstruct the early membership from archival sources have yielded more than two hundred names, which, while representing only a fraction of the membership, allow some general conclusions to be drawn. From the beginning, the St. Cecilia Society's membership included the most prosperous planters, politicians, lawyers, physicians, and merchants in the South Carolina Lowcountry. As with other social organizations and political institutions formed in eighteenth-century South Carolina, the society’s early membership consisted entirely of white Protestant men, with members of the Anglican or Episcopal Church forming a clear majority. Following the example of the numerous subscription concert organizations in late eighteenth-century Britain, the membership of the St. Cecilia Society was (and still is) open only to men. Women have formed a significant part of the audience at the society's events since 1767, but they have never been considered members of the organization.