Antebellum
The decades before the Civil War — plantation economies, abolitionist networks, and a country pulling apart.
Seven landmarks across 6 states. Start with French Quarter, Savannah Historic District and Charleston Historic District.
- Landmarks
- 7
- Period
- 1815–1861
Pictured French Quarter
Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress · No known restrictions · via Library of Congress
The Landmarks
- Antebellum
French Quarter
New Orleans, LA
The French Quarter — the Vieux Carré, or 'Old Square' — is the historic heart of New Orleans and one of the most distinctive neighborhoods in America.
AntebellumSavannah Historic District
Savannah, GA
The Savannah Historic District is one of America's largest and most beautiful historic districts — the graceful heart of the oldest city in Georgia.
AntebellumCharleston Historic District
Charleston, SC
Charleston's Historic District is one of the largest and most intact historic neighborhoods in America — a living museum of colonial and antebellum architecture in one of the nation's oldest cities.
AntebellumThe Hermitage
Nashville, TN
The Hermitage was the home of Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States and one of the most consequential and controversial figures in American history.
AntebellumArlington House
Arlington, VA
Arlington House occupies one of the most contested hills in American memory: built as a monument to George Washington, home to the Confederacy's most famous general, and the literal ground from which Arlington National Cemetery grew out of the wounds of the Civil War.
AntebellumOak Alley Plantation
Vacherie, LA
Best known for its cathedral-like canopy of 300-year-old oaks, Oak Alley has become a model for how a plantation museum can confront, rather than romanticize, the forced labor that built its wealth.
AntebellumNatchez Historic District
Natchez, MS
A city so wealthy from cotton and slavery that it once claimed more millionaires per capita than anywhere in America, Natchez survived the Civil War almost untouched, leaving one of the largest concentrations of antebellum mansions in the South standing beside the site of one of its largest slave markets.