Unit 5: Post Reconstruction

1. Unit 5: Post Reconstruction South Carolina History

2. Wade Hampton & the Bourbons • Gov. Wade Hampton’s supporters were known as the Redeemers (because they “redeemed” the state from the Republicans, and placed the antebellum elite back in political power) or the Bourbons (from the French royal family that was restored to the throne after the French Revolution). • They wanted to restore the government as closely as possible to the its prewar state

3. Wade Hampton & the Bourbons • During this time, plantations were being replaced by small farmers, share croppers, and tenant farmers • Even though the elite were back in power, they did nothing to help the struggling poor farmers • When cotton prices were decreasing and farmers couldn’t pay their debts, the Bourbons passed a crop lien law that allowed creditors to have first claim on a farmer’s crop. This practice kept the farmers in continual debt.

4. Wade Hampton & the Bourbons • Wade Hampton was willing to support the rights of African Americans to vote and hold office • Other Democrats were not supportive and moved to take away the African American’s right to vote • The Bourbons prevented freedmen from voting by using the Eight Box Law (which required a freedmen to be able to read in order to put the ballot in the right box) and the poll tax (which kept poor people from voting) • These regulations not only affected African Americans, but also poor whites

5. Wade Hampton & the Bourbons • In order to offer a little assistance to poor, illiterate white voters, “grandfather clause” legislation was passed that allowed them to vote if their grandfathers had been able to vote in 1860 • The South Carolina legislature also redrew Congressional districts so that only one district had an African American majority, which limited the number of African Americans elected to the United States Congress

6. South Carolina Economy • The Conservative Democrats were more interested in restoring the state to pre-war times and did little to encourage the growth of industrial development • The rest of the country was benefiting from the oil and steel industries, • SC benefited from the production of cottonseed oil, phosphates for fertilizers, the lumber industry, and the textile industry • These industries gained importance as the state was able to lure northern mills south by offering a source of cheap and non-union labor

7. South Carolina Economy • Other regions of the Unites States were increasing crop production through mechanization (using tractors and harvesters) • South Carolina used phosphate fertilizers to increase cotton yields • After the war, farmers planted more and more cotton in an effort to make a profit. • This, along with using phosphate fertilizer, created a surplus (extra amount) of cotton in the state. • When the supply of the cotton exceeded (was more than) the demand for it, the price of cotton fell.

8. South Carolina Economy • Cotton was still the main crop of SC, but it did not bring the state wealth the way it once had • European buyers had found new sources of supply during the war years, which lowered the demand • Farmers were unable to make payments on the loans that they had taken out to purchase land and equipment and were stuck in debt by the Bourbon’s crop lien law. • Farmers also faced bank foreclosures, losing their land for non payment of taxes, as well as drought and pests such as the army worm and the boll weevil that led to periodic crop failures

9. Populists • A social organization, known as the Grange, started to ease the isolation of farm life • The Grange was later replaced by Farmers’ Alliances in the 1880s • The Farmers Alliance pushed for a change in the money supply to help with continuing economic problems • Reflecting the social views of the time, the Farmers Alliance was segregated with African Americans being in the Colored Farmer’s Alliance

10. Populists • In the 1890s, Farmers Alliances around the country united to form the Populist Party • It supported: • the regulation of railroads and banking • the free and unlimited coinage of silver • a system of federal farm loans • Democratic reforms such as the popular election of Senators, the secret ballot, and a graduated income tax.

11. Populists • Farmers tried to unite with industrial workers by encouraging an eight-hour day and restrictions on immigration • The Populist Party was successful in electing senators, governors and state legislators in the South and West • One of these men was Benjamin Ryan Tillman

12. Ben Tillman • Ben Tillman was popular because he was a great speaker and had good political skills • He had Populists beliefs (protect the small farmer against the elitist Bourbons), but wasn’t a true Populist and wanted to gain control of the Democratic party in SC • Tillman had racist views and didn’t like the Southern Populists’ attempt to get the African Americans’ votes

13. Ben Tillman • He blamed the Conservatives (Bourbons) for the small farmers economic problems and didn’t support the elitist ideas of the University of South Carolina • He wanted to have a college that would teach small farmers better crop management and to develop new crops to increase their economic prosperity • Thomas G Clemson, son-in-law of John C. Calhoun, died and left land to help create such a school, which later became Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical School

14. Ben Tillman • Clemson was a land grant college, which means that the federal Morrill Act used money gained from the sale of lands in the west to support agricultural improvements in each of the established states.

15. Ben Tillman • Tillman opposed the Conservative Bourbons because • they had done little or nothing to address the needs of the states’ farmers • they generally accepted the rights of some African Americans to vote and hold office

16. Ben Tillman • Tillman ran for governor on a platform of white superiority and later led the movement to further disenfranchise the African-American voter • His bigotry and racist speeches led to increased violence and lynchings and African Americans who dared to protest were intimidated into silence

17. Ben Tillman • Tillman won the Democratic nomination for governor and was almost guaranteed a victory • A Conservative opponent ran as an independent and openly sought the support of the remaining black voters • Whites united against any chance of African-Americans regaining political power and Tillman won the governorship in 1890 and again in 1892

18. Ben Tillman • As governor he: • established a railroad commission to regulate rates • passed legislation that limited the hours for textile workers to 66 hours and 6 days a week.

19. Ben Tillman • Governor Tillman amended a state prohibition act • Instead, he substituted the State Dispensary system • The state would control the distribution of alcohol • This worked for awhile, but eventually became corrupt.

20. Ben Tillman • In 1894 Tillman was elected to the U.S. senate from South Carolina • He urged his followers to call for a new state constitution to replace the Reconstruction constitution of 1868 and to cement his control of the Democratic Party • He wanted to be sure that the black majority did not provide political support to his Conservative opposition

21. Ben Tillman • The new 1895 state constitution: • required that there be separate schools for black and white children • It effectively kept blacks from voting by making voters pay a poll tax six months before the election • It established a literacy test for voting by requiring that voters be able to read and interpret the United States Constitution

22. Jim Crow Laws • The state also passed Jim Crow Laws, which set social segregation into law • In 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that such laws were constitutional • The Court ruled that separate-but-equal facilities satisfied the 14th Amendment’s requirement for equal protection under the law in the case of Plessy v Ferguson

23. Jim Crow Laws • Although African-American South Carolinians protested their exclusion from public life, violence, intimidation and lynchings by white terrorists effectively silenced them

24. Women’s Suffrage • The women’s suffrage (the right to vote) movement continued in South Carolina • Women’s organizations that formed in South Carolina to support women’s right to vote were disappointed when in 1920 the state of South Carolina refused to ratify the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution that allowed women to vote

25. Natural Disasters • In 1886, an earthquake devastated Charleston • Measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale, it was the largest earthquake in the United States at that time and was felt by two-thirds of all Americans • Because of building construction that relied on masonry rather than wood frames, which would move better with the earth, over 2,000 buildings were destroyed

26. Natural Disasters • Racism prevented an accurate count of the number of people who were killed, some estimates place the number as high as 500 • The city didn’t get state and federal assistance, but the people of Charleston were able to form the most rapid, humane and financially responsible recovery from the destruction of a large scale disaster in American history up to that time

27. Natural Disasters • Outpourings of sympathy and assistance came from all over the country that had recently been divided by the Civil War • Much of what is generally now known about earthquakes was a result of the scientific study of the Charleston quake

28. Natural Disasters • Hurricane of 1893 was one of a series of seven that stuck the South Carolina coast in a 20 year period • Rice fields were wiped and competition from the Far East brought an end to the production of ‘Carolina Gold • Tobacco, peaches, and cotton continued to be grown

29. Textile Mills • The surplus of cotton in South Carolina drove the prices down, but led growth of the textile industry in the Upcountry • Local investors soon provided most of the capital for the building of textile mills, located close to the cotton fields and along rivers that would supply power

30. Textile Mills • South Carolina also had a ready supply of workers • Poor farmers who could no longer make a living from the land were attracted to mill villages that provided homes, schools, churches, and stores in addition to jobs • The first mills were started in the Upstate, within 15 years there were mills in the Midlands and the Low Country • By 1910, South Carolina was the second largest textile producing state in the nation

31. Textile Mills • Life for mill workers was not ideal • The conditions in the mill village depended upon the generosity of the mill owners and the economic conditions of the times • When depression struck, workers were laid off • Some mill children were able to go to school • Others worked in the mill where their small fingers made them better able to retie broken threads but they were more susceptible to workplace accidents

32. Textile Mills • Men, women and children worked long hours for low pay and were often looked down upon as “lint heads.” • Workers in South Carolina were paid less than half of what mill workers in other parts of the United States • They worked from 6 am until 6 pm until Governor Tillman’s law reduced hours to 66 per week

33. Textile Mills • Workers often suffered from diseases of the lung including tuberculosis from breathing in the cotton fiber and from the crowded conditions of their workplace • Accidents in the mill could end a worker’s career • Workers were unable to organize into unions to improve their conditions since union organizers were immediately fired and the organized labor movement consistently crushed by the mill owners

34. Population Migration • Mill villages in South Carolina drew much of the white population from rural areas to urban areas within South Carolina • Prior to the Civil War, Southerners were moving west in search of new land as their cotton crops depleted (removed nutrients from) the soil • After the Civil War, many people moved west from other areas in the US and from overseas

35. Population Migration • Free land and the transcontinental railroad used aggressive advertising and land sales to bring settlers to the West through but also provided farmers access to new markets • African Americans were drawn to the urban areas in the Northeast and the Midwest for job opportunities in factories that were not open to them in the mills of South Carolina (such as such as weaving or dying fabric)

36. Population Migration • African Americans were also pushed out of the state by: • the continued agricultural depression • the ravages of the boll weevil • the social discrimination of Jim Crow laws • increasing violence

37. Population Migration • Large numbers of immigrants stayed away from South Carolina because of the depressed economic conditions, lack of available land, and the lack of industrial jobs • The mills had plenty of transplanted farmers from the rural areas of the state and had little need for immigrants • Immigration had a much greater impact on the cities of the Northeast and Midwest

38. Population Migration • Many immigrants established businesses including the founder and editor of The State newspaper, who was an immigrant from Cuba • some immigrants moved to the plains and established farms • many immigrants were too poor to move beyond the port cities where they landed • Ethnic neighborhoods grew as immigrants looked for the familiar in a strange new land • South Carolina city neighborhoods were divided into black and white sections

39. Population Migration • African American communities reflected those of the immigrant communities as sources of support against the white political machine • Northern resentment against the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe can be seen as a Northern reflection of the anti-African American prejudices in South Carolina

40. Population Migration • Some people who helped immigrants had hidden agenda in politics • Immigrants voted for ward bosses and politicians who found them jobs and helped them through hard times • Many political bosses were corrupt and routinely used bribery in awarding city contracts, but they did serve an important role in helping new immigrants to adapt to their new country.

41. Population Migration • The prejudice against immigrants led to literacy tests proposed in Congress in the 1890s, and immigration restrictions in the form of a quota system passed in the 1920s • Whites felt that their race was better than all the others, so they had a right to rule over the other races • They tried to establish their superiority and felt that that competition between races was a form of Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) and gave them an excuse for white supremacy.

42. Spanish American War • There were many causes of the US involvement in the Spanish American War: • Political and economic pressure from within the US • The US’s desire to support the rights of Cubans against an oppressive Spanish regime • Yellow journalism (propaganda) • Exacerbated by the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana’s harbor

43. Spanish American War • Victory in Cuba came quickly and established the United States as a world power • The United States expanded in the South Pacific with the annexation of Hawaii and the capture of Manila harbor in the Philippines

44. Spanish American War • The war had little direct impact on our state; the two regiments of soldiers organized in South Carolina never even saw battle. • It did • create unity in the state and opened up greater worldwide trade and markets for South Carolina goods • Reconciled the SC Democratic Party that had been split into the Tillmanites and the Conservatives • Revived national patriotism, as Americans united against a common enemy.

45. Spanish American War • The creation of Camp Jackson had a dramatic impact on the economic health of the state • The war showed that many South Carolinians suffered from poor health and illiteracy • Almost one out of three South Carolina volunteers were found to be medically unfit for military service, a trend echoed across the country in World War I.