Pollitzer, Carrie T. (Carrie Teller), 1881-1974

Carrie Teller Pollitzer was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1881, the oldest daughter of Gustave and Clara Pollitzer. As an advocate for the national Progressive Movement, Carrie dedicated herself to enhancing childhood education and advancing women’s rights in South Carolina in the early twentieth century.

In the late nineteeth and early twentieth centuries, Carrie received her primary and secondary education at Charleston’s Memminger Normal School. Founded by Christopher G. Memminger in 1858, the two-fold mission of the school was to provide public education for Charlestonians and to train female teachers to serve the state at large. Due to Jim Crow segregation, Memminger's students were all white. African American students and teachers-in-training were educated separately, and many matriculated at Charleston’s Avery Normal Institute. After graduating in 1901, Carrie relocated to New York City to study at the Columbia Teacher’s College. While in New York, Carrie also worked with the city’s nascent Kindergarten Association, founded in 1889. When Carrie returned to Charleston in 1908, she worked for the South Carolina Kindergarten Training School, an affiliate of New York’s Kindergarten Association, before she went on to establish the city’s first free kindergarten program in a carriage house behind her family home on Pitt Street. In this context of educational reform, Carrie became a leader in Charleston’s Progressive Movement.

In addition to her work with children’s kindergarten education, Carrie became a prominent advocate for women’s rights in Charleston.

Later in life, Carrie and her sister Mabel were recognized by the Charleston chapter of the National Organization of Women in appreciation for their contributions to the women’s equality movement. Carrie lived the rest of her life with her sister Mabel in their family home at 5 Pitt Street in downtown Charleston. She and Mabel often visited their sister, Anita, in New York City. Carrie remained active with the Free Kindergarten Association throughout her life.