Preserving Charleston's Past, The life and times of Susan Pringle Frost
... The school was an all girls boarding school that many more prominent men would send their daughters to. It was known as a school that reaffirmed family values (11). After school Frost spent the next years visiting cousins, living at home, entertaining and sewing. Following all this Susan’s family experienced hardships that caused bankruptcy, this pressured her to go and find a way to support herself. She met a man named Bradford Gilbert, he was an architect who was called in to help with the Industrial fairs that traveled up and down the south. She became his secretary. Through Gilbert, Frost grew to appreciate and love architecture, it was then that she began to adore Charleston’s architectural heritage. Though working Frost was not making much money. She set out to find another job, and after competing for a job as a stenographer for the U.S. District Court found herself traveling with several judges around the states. These were huge changes for Frost to undergo. At first she was the sheltered daughter of an aristocrat who spent her days sewing and socializing. She was kept “safe” and hidden from the outside world. But after some years she goes full circle and branches out as a modern woman looking to make her own in a new world. She did something that women would not have dreamed of in earlier years. Frost fought many battles in her time. During her years as a court stenographer she became aware of the discrepancies in wage between males and females. This made her conscious of the issues of fairness and equality that she would fight for the rest of her life. She started her own real estate company. It was on a street that had only male businesses. People did not know how to deal with her actions, even her uncle was against her. She was the first female on the Real Estate Exchange and later became an honorary lifetime member because of it. (57). She started her business during a time of depression and had to work seven days a week trying to make ends meet. She often lost money on sales of houses she had put many of her own hours into. She fought the city, trying to get money to pave the streets and to fix houses that she realized were important to the city. While this was going on Frost was the head of many women’s suffrage groups. She was very active and traveled through the states speaking and writing letters. Her time with the judges had educated her on the many battles women were fighting and she took the time to write to other suffragette leaders saying in one case, “I am the possessor of 15 houses in this town, and my people have lived here for generations, molding the destinies of the Country, yet that after 60 yrs. Of the earnest labors of the women of the country because that of accident of birth, I am not fit to vote but a foreigner of the most ignorant class can come here and in 7 years attain ful...