Page 25 →6 Postbellum Landscape
Population, 1900
Population, 1950
One dot represents 25 people.
The postbellum landscape after the Civil War saw many changes: increased cultivation of cotton, the rise of tenant farming, large-scale migration of Black people from the state, and a growing trend of rural-to-urban migration. At the beginning of the twentieth century the state’s population stood at 1,340,000. This number would climb to 2,117,000 by 1950. These maps show the rapid growth of urban areas. The 1950 map shows “blank” spaces in the Inner Coastal Plain, which are reservoirs. The growth of towns created a demand for electricity. While the earliest hydroelectric plants were constructed in the 1890s, rivers were dammed to create large reservoirs like Lakes Greenwood, Murray, Marion, and Moultrie in the 1930s and early 1940s. While South Carolina’s population tripled from 1870 to 1950, this growth lagged far behind the nation’s growth and exceeded the national growth rate only twice during this period. South Carolina received little of the great wave of European immigrants between 1880 and 1920, and like other Southern states, South Carolina was not part of the traditional “melting pot.”
Black Population 1900–1940
Page 26 →Black Population, 1930
Early in the twentieth century, many Black communities faced poverty and discrimination in South Carolina’s segregated society. Black people left the state in large numbers between 1900 and 1940, seeking better lives and livelihoods in northern cities. More than half a million Black people migrated out of South Carolina during this period, known as the Great Migration. While the White population increased by nearly 70 percent, outmigration held Black population growth to only 1 percent between 1900 and 1930. This caused a shift from a Black population majority that existed between 1820 and 1920 to a White majority since 1920. Black outmigration was strongest in the rural lower Piedmont and southern Coastal Plain regions.
Black Outmigration, 1930
Tenancy and Tobacco
Page 27 →Tenants As a Percent of Farm Operators, 1935
Between the Civil War and World War II, South Carolina was a rural agricultural state dominated by cotton, tobacco, farm tenancy, and a weak economy. While cotton was important throughout the period, it reached its maximum production in 1920. Tobacco became a significant cash crop around the turn of the century, but it was primarily a regional Pee Dee crop by the 1930s. Both cotton and tobacco crops demanded a great deal of labor. Tenancy replaced slavery as a labor system. Landowners supplied tenants with land, housing, and farming equipment in exchange for their labor. Tenants often paid high rents, became trapped in debt, and had little control over the crops they produced. Tenants operated nearly two-thirds of the state’s farms in the 1930s and over one-half as late as World War II. Because of the state’s agricultural labor system and low cotton prices, per capita income was only about half the national average in 1940.
Tobacco Production, 1930
Wealthy landlords controlled many aspects of their tenant’s daily lives and labor. While sharecroppers could try to move in search of better living and working conditions, it was not easy. Pictured here is a tenant farmer in 1941 moving his belongings out of the Camp Croft area near Pacolet in Spartanburg County.
Tobacco curing barns once dotted the Pee Dee region. This barn in Hartsville, ca. 1938, is typical of early structures. Tobacco leaves were sorted and then hung inside to cure. Here, tobacco is brought in from the field on a small skid. Unlike wheels, the ski-like runners kept the skid from becoming stuck in the mud.
Textiles and Railroads
South Carolina’s textile industry grew from 18 mills in the 1880s to nearly 150 mills by 1910. This growth was fueled by abundant water power for electricity generation, ample raw material (short-staple cotton), inexpensive labor, and the expansion of railroads. Most mills were in the upper Piedmont counties of Oconee, Anderson, Greenville and Spartanburg, but some mills were in the Midlands, including Graniteville in Aiken County. Mill village residents soon represented 10 percent of South Carolina’s total population. By the 1920s, the railroad system expanded to connect South Carolina to Northeastern and Midwestern cities, shifting the focus away from Charleston. The expanded rail system also impacted the development of towns. Like beads on a string radiating from the state’s major cities, numerous commercial towns developed along the new rail lines.
Page 28 →Textile Mill Locations, 1908
Railroads, 1925
Graniteville was William Gregg’s vision of a mill village—an assemblage of houses, schools, churches, and stores. The original mill was constructed of locally quarried granite and completed in 1849. A series of small houses designed in Early Gothic Revival Style dot the hillside. Children were educated at a school run and financed by the mill company. Changes in the global economy resulted in many textile mills closing across the state, which has hurt the economic stability of former mill villages.
Page 29 →Civil Rights Era
Extended Description
Icons represent court cases, historically Black colleges and universities, community sites, and protests.
During the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans across the state used the institutions they had formed to challenge and resist segregation and discrimination. Through sit-ins, marches, boycotts, and court cases, advocates for racial equality and civil rights pushed for social change. They successfully won major changes in South Carolina and across the nation, including an end to legal segregation. They were met, however, with intense resistance from white supremacists that tried to limit these achievements. This map shows notable sites across the state where activists worked to make progress towards racial justice through educational institutions, the legal process, and protests. Places like schools, churches, and even beaches were key locations for both community and civic engagement. Events in South Carolina were important in advancing the national cause of racial justice. For example, the Briggs v. Elliot case, which began in Clarendon County, was an important legal step towards the desegregation of public schools in the Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954.
Barred from the white beaches in Myrtle Beach, African Americans created an enclave within the city where they could enjoy living and vacationing. During the 1940s and 1950s, Atlantic Beach became a booming seaside town. In the face of discrimination, residents and visitors created a vibrant community.