3-5.4
Standard 3-5: The students will demonstrate an understanding of the major developments in South Carolina in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century.
3-5.4 Explain the impact and the causes of emigration from South Carolina and internal migration from the rural areas to the cities, including unemployment, poor sanitation and transportation services, and the lack of electricity and other modern conveniences in rural locations. (H, E, G)
It Is Essential For Students To Know
- Migration is an essential understanding that will be addressed repeatedly in the standards.
- Students must understand what the term migration means, the difference between emigration and immigration, and that both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors influence migration.
- During the late 19th century, African Americans began to emigrate from South Carolina to the North and Midwest. They were pushed from South Carolina by segregation, discrimination and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan (3-5.3) as well as by the cycle of poverty of sharecropping and the lack of other economic opportunities in the state. They were pulled by jobs in other states, particularly at the time of World War I.
- Although segregation was practiced in the North and Midwest, segregation was not mandated by law as it was in South Carolina. African Americans were allowed to vote in regions outside of the South.
- This movement is known in American history as the Great Migration and led to the flowering of African American culture in the Harlem Renaissance.
- Internal migration occurred in South Carolina as a result of the cycle of poverty of sharecropping (push) and the opportunity for work in the textile mills (pull) that was provided for whites and a few African Americans.
- Improved sanitation and water lines and the greater availability of electricity in cities such as Charleston, Greenville and Columbia also made mill towns around these cities attractive to poor workers American and white South Carolinians and their families. However, mill workers were not well paid and most could not afford to buy the conveniences that electricity made possible.
- As a result of both the emigration of African Americans and the internal migration of white farm families to mill towns, agriculture in South Carolina was impacted, particularly the planting and harvesting of labor intensive crop such as cotton.
- Students should be able to use maps to understand migration patterns.
It Is Not Essential For Students to Know:
- It is not essential for students to know how many South Carolinians emigrated from the state or moved from farms to mill towns.
- Students do not need to know specifics about the Harlem Renaissance or the South Carolinians who were part of it.
- Students do not need to know how much mill workers were paid or how much modern conveniences run by electricity cost.
3-5.4 Links To Information For Teachers