3-5.5

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.
3-5.5 Explain the effects of the Great Depression and the New Deal on daily life in South Carolina, including the widespread poverty and unemployment and the role of the Civilian Conservation Corps. (H, E, P)

It Is Essential For Students To Know

The Great Depression had a profound effect on South Carolina as it did in other parts of the country and around the world.
Many South Carolinians were already living in poverty prior to the Great Depression.
The Crash of 1929 did not cause the Depression; it was a symptom of many problems that undetermined the health of the economy in the 1920s.
As a result of the Depression, many South Carolinians lost their jobs because textile mills closed, their life savings because banks failed, and their homes or farms because they could not pay their mortgage. Up to one in four South Carolinians were unemployed because of the Depression.
Between 1929 and 1933, the United States government did little to directly help the many people who were out of work and hungry.
In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected and inaugurated president of the United States in 1933. Roosevelt and the Congress created many New Deal programs to relieve the suffering of the American people, to help the economy to recover from the Depression and to reform the system so that such a depression would not happen again.
One of the New Deal programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), provided employment by hiring young men to work on outdoor projects. CCC projects included soil conservation, reforestation, fire prevention, and the development of recreational areas across the state. The CCC planted crops that helped the South Carolina soil to recover from years of planting cotton. The work of the CCC in South Carolina provided the foundation of South Carolina's state park system and enhanced the geography of the state.
However, the CCC was racially segregated. Other New Deal programs also discriminated against African Americans. Sharecroppers, many of whom were African Americans, lost their land because a New Deal program took farm land out of production in order to lower supply and boost the price that land owners could get for their crops.
Whites were given preference on the public works projects designed to put the unemployed back to work.
New Deal programs were designed mostly to relieve suffering by putting people back to work and therefore earning a paycheck. They were also designed to help bring the economy out of the Depression.
Once workers spent their paycheck they would help others such as grocers and store keepers. These grocers and store keepers would then order more goods from farms and factories. People would be hired to produce these goods and more people would get a paycheck to spend.
The New Deal relieved some suffering and gave many people hope. However, it did not end the Depression.
The Depression ended only with government spending and the job creation that resulted from the start of World War II.

It Is Not Essential For Students To Know

It is not necessary that students understand the causes of the Great Depression or specific details of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 or any other economic indicators such as bank closures and unemployment rates during the Great Depression.
However, they should understand that the crash did not cause the Depression but was a symptom of economic problems that included farmers’ low prices for crops such as cotton and the low wages that many factory workers, including textile workers, received for their labor.
Students do not need to know about Hoovervilles or bread lines. However, such details would help students to understand the poverty of the time period.
Students do not need to know about other New Deal programs that impacted South Carolina such as the South Carolina Public Service Authority (Santee Cooper) which brought electricity to rural South Carolina, the Works Project Administration (WPA) which built houses, schools, sewers, and roads, and the South Carolina Emergency Relief Fund.
Students do not need to know about the Federal Writers’ Project of the WPA which gave writers jobs and collected the Slave Narratives. This oral history project preserved the stories of African Americans who had been slaves.
Students do not need to know the names of the specific state parks that were created as a result of the CCC during the New Deal.

3-5.5 Links to Information For Teachers