Located in the heart of Beaufort, South Carolina, the Mather School Museum and Interpretive Center is the legacy of Rachel Crane Mather, who founded the Mather School in 1868. With the intention of opening a Normal School to educate prospective educators in the Lowcountry, Ms. Mather traveled south from Boston, Massachusetts. Upon her arrival, she realized that the need wasn’t for teachers, it WAS to teach. The freed enslaved African American women there needed to be taught basic life skills, as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Ms. Crane dedicated her life to teaching African American locals. When she passed away in 1903 she passed that torch to the future teachers and administration who would continue to educate students until its closure in 1968.
Mather Interpretive Center 