"T" is for Talvande, Rose (ca. 1790-1840) and Ann Marsan (Mason) Talvande (ca. 1807-1850)

"T" is for Talvande, Madame Rose (ca. 1790-1840) and Madame Ann Marsan (Mason) Talvande (ca. 1807-1850) Educators. Between approximately 1816 and 1850, Madame Talvande’s Ladies Boarding School in Charleston educated the daughters of the elite families of South Carolina, including diarist Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut and novelist Susan Petigru King. The school provided a typical finishing school for education for girls, including lessons in French, music, and dancing. In addition, it offered instruction in rhetoric and the sciences—courses in which young women seldom received training. The curriculum reflected the high expectations of the Talvande academy’s clientele, who paid dearly for the school’s services. Talvande’s was considered exclusive enough not to have to advertise for students. Madame Rose Talvande and Madame Ann Marson (Mason) Talvande were refugees from Santo Domingo and became naturalized Americans in Charleston.