Plight of SC Farmers
Standard Indicator 8-5.6
DESCRIPTION OF POSTWAR AGRICULTURE
IN SOUTH CAROLINA:
• Depressed with falling prices
• Small farms replaced plantations
• Sharecroppers & tenant farmers replaced
slave labor
• Cotton was main cash crop picked by hand
DESCRIPTION OF POSTWAR
AGRICULTURE IN SOUTH CAROLINA:
• Fertilizers increased the crop yield
• Competition with foreign suppliers led to
supply exceeding demand
• Conservatives passed crop lien law allowing
creditors first claim on farmer’s crop
• Crop lien system caused cycle of debt &
poverty
FARMING IN US OUTSIDE OF SOUTH AND ROOTS OF
THE POPULIST MOVEMENT:
• Mechanization of farming raised increased the
supply of farm products
• Fertilizers increased crop yield
• Drought
• Insect invasions
FARMING IN US OUTSIDE OF SOUTH AND
ROOTS OF THE POPULIST MOVEMENT:
•
•
•
•
Competition with foreign suppliers
Worldwide supply exceeded demand
Price for crops fell
Farmers could not pay loans taken out to
purchase land & equipment
ECONOMIC ROOTS OF POPULISM IN SC:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Debt
Sharecropping & tenant farming
Crop lien system
Overproduction of cotton
Competition with foreign countries
Falling prices
Bank foreclosures
Forfeiture of land due to non-payment of taxes
Crop failures due to drought, army worms & boll
weevil
POLITICAL ROOTS OF POPULIST
MOVEMENT IN SC, SOUTH, & MIDWEST:
• Worsening economic conditions
• Framers organized Grange (social organization to
relieve isolation)
• Grange evolved into a political organization
• Regional Farmers’ Alliances formed: White
Farmers’ Alliance & Colored Farmers’ Alliance in
SC
• Alliances unite to form Populist Party
POPULIST PARTY PLATFORM
SUPPORTED:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Regulation of Railroads & Banking
Free & unlimited coinage of silver
A system of federal farm loans
Popular election of Senators
Secret Ballot voting
Graduated Income Tax
POPULIST PARTY PLATFORM
SUPPORTED:
• Tried to attract factory workers with 8 hour
work day & restrictions on immigration
• Party successfully elected senators,
governors, & state legislators in South &
West
• In SC farmers worked within the
Democratic Party
POPULIST PARTY GOALS:
TILLMAN’S SUPPORT FOR THE
FARMERS INCLUDED:
• Fight between Tillmanites and Democratic
Conservatives for control of SC
• Establishment of Clemson Agricultural College
to teach farmers better crop management &
to develop new crops to improve their
economic prosperity
TILLMAN’S SUPPORT FOR THE
FARMERS INCLUDED:
• Clemson built on land left by Thomas
Clemson son-in –law of JC Calhoun & money
provide by the federal Morrill Act
• Opposed USC as elitist
• SC established South Carolina State College
to comply with the “separate-but-equal”
doctrine as did other southern states, SC
State received little money
CHANGES IN CROP PRODUCTION IN SC
DUE TO:
• Clemson & SC State Colleges encouraging crop
diversification
• Natural disasters & entrepreneurship
• Charleston Earthquake of 1886: largest, most
destructive, costliest, & most lethal east of the
Mississippi River
• Charleston’s response to catastrophe
revolutionized and modernized practices in
construction, disaster preparedness/response,
& scientific study to this day
CHANGES IN CROP PRODUCTION IN SC
DUE TO:
• Hurricane of 1893 & others struck Charleston,
wiped out rice fields
• The destruction of the rice fields &
competition from the Far East brought end to
the production of “Carolina Gold”
• Lowcountry farmers turned to truck gardening
of vegetables to local markets
CHANGES IN CROP PRODUCTION IN SC
DUE TO:
• Tobacco was introduced as cash crop to the
Pee Dee region
• Upstate farmers planted peach trees
• Cotton continued to dominate SC’s
agriculture into 20th c.
SCENES OF THE CHARLESTON
EARTHQUAKE OF 1886
SCENES OF
HURRICANES OF
189O’S