3-5.1

It Is Essential For Students To Know

• Although agriculture remained the dominant economic activity in South Carolina, the state experienced changes in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century due to developments in industry and technology.
• The growth of the textile industry provided jobs and an increase in economic activity. Local entrepreneurs became boosters of the idea of a New South that was based on investment in industry as well as agriculture.
• South Carolina's geography provided ideal locations for textile mills. Mills were located along fall line rivers where they could use the swift flowing water to make hydroelectric power to turn the turbines to run machinery. This also placed the mill close to the source of cotton.
• Towns were built near textile mills to provide housing, social activities, and needed goods for the textile workers.
• South Carolina also had a steady supply of workers. Farmers who could no longer make a living from the land because of falling cotton prices and depleted soil (3-5.3) moved to the towns so that they, their wives and children could find work in the mills.
• Because of segregation and discrimination (3-5.2), African Americans were not hired to work in the mills but might get jobs loading and unloading the cotton bales and finished cloth outside of the mill.
• The growth of the railroad in South Carolina improved the movement of both goods and people and so promoted economic growth. Many more miles of track were laid, especially in the upstate. Peach
• farmers were able to get their crop to market in special refrigerated cars. Textile mills were able to ship cloth out of the state to markets across the country.
• Towns grew up along the railroad routes across the state.
• Streetcars also helped to expand the cities of Charleston and Columbia.
• Other technological innovations such as the telephone, electricity and the automobile had limited impact
• in South Carolina. Many people who lived in the state, especially those who lived in rural areas, were not able to get service and many others could not afford to pay for it.
• Automobiles led to an increase in paved roads in the state.

It Is Not Essential For Students to Know:

• It is not essential for students to know about working conditions in the mills or the lack of child labor laws or that inventors were attracted to South Carolina because of the lack of labor unions.
• Students do not need to know that the paternalistic attitude of some mill owners led them to control the lives of the workers who lived in the mill villages.