The Civil War destroyed William Rollin’s business and left his family in dire financial straits. His three eldest daughters, who had stayed in the North with relatives and friends during the war, returned to South Carolina to support their parents. Like many educated African American women at the time, they became teachers, one of the few professions open to them.
As teachers, the sisters were part of the effort to educate newly freed African Americans in the South. Frances Rollin taught at American Missionary Association schools in Charleston and Beaufort. Charlotte and Katherine Rollin founded a school for African American children in Charleston. After an unsuccessful effort to secure funding from the Catholic Diocese of Charleston, the Rollins moved to Columbia, the state capital, in hopes of establishing another school there. This move brought them into the world of Reconstruction-era politics.
HPS Magazine 