DINING ROOM

The Whitehall Dining Room, part of a house erected in 1818 in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, is an excellent example of the increasing popularity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century of dedicating an entire room to the social ritual of dining. Over time, the social functions of the eighteenth-century hall had been given their own spaces, resulting in at least one parlor, separate bed chambers, and a dining room, often the most formal space in the house. The dining room was large enough to accommodate a central table surrounded by a matching set of chairs and appointed with matching place settings, symbols of the shared, exclusive status enjoyed by those invited to the meal. The small fireplace opening of the Whitehall Dining Room is framed by a marble surround and elegant mantle piece, features that had appeared in the best houses of the earlier century. The mantle has vertical elements emulating classical pilasters, a broad frieze punctuated by a central panel, and a shelf above to carry the increasingly abundant decorative art objects now found in houses across the economic spectrum. Executed in fancy gauge work, the woodwork for the mantle, cornice, and door frames create in the space a decorative ensemble.

The woodwork of the Whitehall Dining Room was removed from a building that stood on property to be flooded between 1939 and 1942 by the Santee Cooper Project, a series of dams and canals that created Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie.  The height of the available gallery space and the necessity to follow a specific tour route mean that the ceiling of the Whitehall Dining Room, installed when MESDA opened in 1965, is a full two feet lower than it was in its original context and that the doors are not in their original locations.  This photograph at the top shows the interior of the Whitehall dining room as it was installed at MESDA in 1965.  The photograph at the bottom is one of the few images that survive of Whitehall before it was flooded.