South Carolina in the Modern Age

Walter B. Edgar

Description

Originally published in 1992, South Carolina in the Modern Age was the first history of contemporary South Carolina to appear in more than a quarter century and helped establish the reputation of the Palmetto State's premier historian, Walter Edgar, who had not yet begun the two landmark volumes—South Carolina: A History and The South Carolina Encyclopedia—that also bear his name. Available once again, this illustrated volume chronicles transformational events in South Carolina as the state emerged from the devastation that followed the Civil War and progressed through the challenges of the twentieth century.

After the Civil War, South Carolina virtually disappeared from the national consciousness and became a historical backwater. But as the nation began to look to the twentieth century, South Carolina stirred once again. It took a world war, the U.S. Supreme Court, and strong-willed leadership to place South Carolina once more within the American mainstream.

Edgar has divided this text into four essays, each covering a quarter century of South Carolina history. Each essay has a particular focus: South Carolina's hectic political scene (1891-1916); a period of economic stagnation during which the myths of the state's glorious past were honed and polished (1916-41); the impetus that World War II gave to economic development (1941-66); and social changes wrought by urbanization, industrial development, and desegregation (1966-91). South Carolina in the Modern Age also includes a chronology of state history and a list of suggested readings. More than seventy illustrations, many previously unpublished, add a visual dimension to the story.

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Universidad Clemson
• Carolina del Sur
• Rutherford B. Hayes
• South Carolina Republican Party
• Antebellum South Carolina
• Ellison D. Smith
• New South
• South Carolina State Museum
• University of South Carolina
• Albert Watson (South Carolina)
• Southern strategy
• Southern United States
• General officer
• Clemson University
• Reconstruction era of the United States
• South Carolina
• James Meredith
• General
• Université de Clemson
• Old South
• Université de Caroline du Sud
• Strom Thurmond
• Rutherford Birchard Hayes
• Caroline du Sud

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 05 juin 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611171266
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 8 Mo

Extrait

South Carolina
in the Modern Age
South Carolina
in the Modern Age
Walter B. Edgar
University of South Carolina Press
1992 University of South Carolina
Cloth and paperback editions published by the University of South Carolina Press, 1992 Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press, 2012
www.sc.edu/uscpress
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print editions as follows:
Edgar, Walter B., 1943-
South Carolina in the modern age / Walter B. Edgar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87249-830-1 (hard cover : acid free). - ISBN 0-87249-831-X (pbk. : acid free)
1. South Carolina-History-1865- I. Title.
F274.E34 1992
975.7 04-dc20
92-9357
ISBN 978-1-61117-126-6 (ebook)
for Eliza and Amelia
C ONTENTS
I LLUSTRATIONS
P REFACE
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
C HAPTER 1. A P OLITICAL B ULLRING , 1891-1916
Some Background: The United States in 1890
South Carolina in 1890
The Rise of Ben Tillman
Legalizing Jim Crow
The Coming of the Mills
A Divided Electorate
The Blease Phenomenon
The Progressives
The Threat of Violence
Richard I. Manning
The Mill Problem
A New Order
C HAPTER 2. A L AND OF M ONUMENTS AND M EMORIES , 1916-1941
The War to End All Wars
The Farm Problem
The Draining Years on the Cotton Farms
Exodus
Hard Times in the Textile Industry
A Shortage of Ready Cash
Boosters and Tourists
Cherishing the Past
Preserving the Past
Black and White: Slogans and Reality
Ol Car lina
The Agrarian Tradition
South Carolina Upon a Pedestal
The Great Depression
The New Deal in South Carolina
The Political Scene
South Carolina and FDR
C HAPTER 3. I GNITED BY W AR , 1941-1966
World War II
Coming Home
The Sky Didn t Fall
Killbillies and Opera in Greenville
The Spark of Industrial Development
A Cooperative State Government
A Two-Fisted Competitive Spirit
Town and Country
The Price of Prejudice
South Carolina Reacts to the Brown Decision
We Shall Overcome
The Year of Decision: 1963
The Confederate War Centennial
The Emergence of Two-Party Politics
Some Things Changed; Some Things Didn t
C HAPTER 4. C HANGES AND C HALLENGES , 1966-1991
The Decline of Rural South Carolina
Bubba Gate, Lost Trust and Reform
Two-Party Politics
Adjusting to New Circumstances
Private Schools
Pennies for Education
Questioning Plastics in Beaufort-and Development
D j Vu With A Difference
South Carolinians Abroad
South Carolina Then and Now
A S OUTH C AROLINA C HRONOLOGY , 1890-1991
N OTES
S UGGESTED R EADINGS
I NDEX
I LLUSTRATIONS
Governor Ansel at a stump meeting, 1909
Cotton on the docks at Georgetown
The unfinished State House
Confederate veterans, 1910
Winthrop students, 1912
Interior of the Dispensary
Branchville, 1907
Neptune Volunteer Fire Department, Greenville, 1894
The Palace of Agriculture, Interstate and West Indian Exposition, 1901
The Negro Building, Interstate and West Indian Exposition, 1901
Columbia Duck Mill
Blease The Menace, a cartoon, 1910
A drugstore in St. Matthews
Laying trolley tracks in Anderson, 1915
Charleston buzzards
Columbians at Wilson s inauguration, 1913
University of South Carolina football team, 1912
Jury that acquitted James Tillman
A lynch mob and victim
A chain gang at work
A farm lake near Pelion, 1908
Charleston skyline, ca. 1920
South Carolina troops in France, 1918
Erosion in Fairfield County
A case of pellagra
Carolinians flee the cotton fields, 1933
From big house to tenant house, Newberry County
Hartsville cotton market
A truck farmer
Boat races in Charleston, 1937
Ocean Forest Hotel, 1926
Plantation house in McCormick County
Fourth of July picnic near Beaufort, 1939
Heyward-Washington House before restoration
Segregated housing project in Charleston
Graduation at Mather School, Beaufort
Boat landing at Little River
Morgan Square, Spartanburg, 1938
Northern duck hunters, Georgetown
Suffrage parade, Aiken, 1917
Poinsett State Park
Foundations of Santee Cooper power house, Moncks Corner, 1939
Stringing tobacco
State Farmers Market, Columbia
Canning vegetables
Mary McLeod Bethune at Shanklin School, Beaufort
FDR at Fort Jackson, 1942
Raising an E flag at Winnsboro Mills
Gold Star Mothers, Columbia, 1945
Governor Olin D. Johnston s inauguration, 1943
Blacks voting in the Democratic Primary, Columbia, 1948
Catawba potter with wares
Roadside vegetable stand
South Carolina Products Exposition
Hickman Mill, Aiken County, 1947
Cornell Arms, Columbia, 1949
Picking cotton
Rocking on the porch
Black Carolinians preparing to protest segregation, Columbia
Harvey Gantt registers at Clemson, 1963
Confederate Centennial float
Thurmond wedding party in the Governor s Mansion, 1947
Eisenhower and Byrnes campaigning, Columbia, 1952
Illegal still, Gumville Section of Berkeley County, 1949
Indianfields Campground near St. George
A sweet grass basket maker and her wares, Charleston
An abandoned tenant house
Picking peaches, Lexington County, 1975
James B. Edwards, the first Republican governor in a century, 1975
Statewide Republican winners, 1990
Governor Robert E. McNair, Keeping the Schoolhouse Door Open, a cartoon, 1970
School children, Columbia, 1985
Governor Dick Riley signs the Education Improvement Act, 1984
Erosion on Fripp Island, 1985
The Isle of Palms after Hurricane Hugo, 1989
On the floor of a textile factory
Senator Fritz Hollings s Hunger Tour, Columbia, 1969
Families welcome home Desert Storm soldiers
Kensington Plantation and Union Camp, Richland County
P REFACE
S outh Carolina is one of the most fascinating, yet most often misunderstood, states in the Union. Surveys taken outside the South reveal that average Americans usually confuse the Palmetto State with its neighbor to the north. This lack of identity is the result of history and South Carolina s role in it.
Prior to 1860, what South Carolina and her leaders did was important on both sides of the Atlantic. During the colonial period, South Carolina was the wealthiest mainland British colony-one of the crown jewels of the empire. Between the American Revolution and the outbreak of the Civil War, how the state and its leaders reacted to issues was of concern to politicians in Washington.
Then the events of 1860-61 changed matters. South Carolina led the South out of the Union and into war, a war that was not kind to either the state or the region. Because of its role in the breakup of the Union, the state paid a price-especially in the history books. Because of the war, South Carolina lost a generation of young white men and virtually all of its capital wealth. It recovered from the former, but it has yet to recover from the latter.
With relatively little political clout and a poverty-stricken population, South Carolina disappeared from the national scene. It appeared as if the state had sunk into a lethargy which it did not shake off until after World War II. In South Carolina between 1891 and 1991, appearances were truly deceiving. Within its borders changes were taking place that would enable the state to jump from the eighteenth century to the twentieth in only a matter of years. 1
Kelly Miller, a sociologist and historian, in 1925 described his native state in this fashion: South Carolina is the stormy petrel of the Union. She arouses the nation s wrath and rides upon the storm. There is not a dull period in her history. 2 Benjamin Brawley, a contemporary of Miller, was even more emphatic when he discussed the role of the Palmetto State: The little triangle on the map known as South Carolina represents a portion of our country whose influence has been incalculable. 3
This book examines the third century of South Carolina history from the rise of the populist Ben Tillman with his political and agricultural agendas of the 1890s to the Sun Belt development of the 1990s. It is divided into four essays, each of which examines a quarter century. The chronological breakdown has been determined as much by outside events as by those within South Carolina. The first essay deals with the time period from the triumph of Pitchfork Ben Tillman to the reelection of President Woodrow Wilson; the second from Wilson to the country s entry into World War II; the third from the war to the unopposed reelection of Governor Robert E. McNair; and the fourth from McNair, a New South Governor, to the present. Originally, I had planned to end the book in 1990, but the events of 1990-91 seemed to me to provide a more fitting conclusion.
As someone who has taught South Carolina history at the state s flagship university since the mid 1970s, I have long felt that there was a need for a new contemporary history of the state. Natives as well as newcomers know little about twentieth-century Carolina and the people and forces that shaped it.
The last contemporary history of the state was Ernest M. Lande