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PFigure 24Timeline1870-1900

After the Civil War, the United States moved from an agricultural economyto an industrial one. Large industries employed millions of workers. Theseindustries included the iron industry, the railroad industry, the meat-pack-ing industry, and the oil industry.

The Iron IndustryThe Civil War brought tremendous growth to the iron industry. After

the war, the iron industry grew even faster as the railroads expanded andother industries needed iron and steel to build factories and machinery. Inthe 1870s, rich iron deposits were found in northeastern Alabama and steelmills developed in and around Birmingham. There were, however, no irondeposits in South Carolina on which to build an iron industry.

An Age of IndustryAs you read, look for:• the rise of industries in the United States,• the effect on South Carolina,• South Carolina’s industries, and• vocabulary terms: laissez-faire policy and textiles.

1897First Boston Marathon

1893Women received the vote in Colorado

1892People’s party formed

1886Statue of Liberty dedicated

1885Washington Monument dedicated

1882First Labor Day celebration held in New York City

1876Baseball’s NationalLeague founded;telephone invented

1871Most of Chicagodestroyed in Great Fire

1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900

1871First Grange chapterestablished in state

1876Wade Hampton III elected governor

1881Eight Box Law passed

1882Dibble Plan adopted

1889Clemson Agricultural and

Mechanical College established

1890Tillman elected governor

1898Spanish-AmericanWar

1895New state constitution written

1893Clemsonopened;

depressionof 1893

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Above: In the period afterthe Civil War, railroadsvirtually monopolizedtransportation. This isthe Glenn Springs Hotelexcursion train. Oppositepage, above: After thedevastation of war, the ironindustry entered a boomperiod that extendedfrom the late 1800s intothe early 1900s.

The RailroadsBut South Carolina contributed to the growth of the iron industry through

development of its railroads. South Carolina had to rebuild its railroad sys-tem since much of it had been destroyed in the war. During the Reconstruc-tion era, railroads finally connected the cities in South Carolina with themajor cities in the North and Midwest. Rail lines connected Charleston andColumbia with Chicago, New York, and Cincinnati. Trunk lines, major raillines that branch off from the main lines, were also built and added about364 miles to South Carolina’s railroad lines by the end of 1877. The majorrailroads in the state included the South Carolina Railroad, the Northeast-ern Railroad, and the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. Railroads grewrapidly elsewhere during and after the Civil War. After the war, there werealmost 50,000 miles of railroads just in the North.

Railroad growth in the United States outside of the South was helpedtremendously by the federal government. In 1862, Congress passed thePacific Railway Act, which made millions of acres of land available to therailroad companies. The act also made loans available to the railroads andauthorized construction of a transcontinental railroad. Two railroad com-panies worked on the project for seven years—the Union Pacific laid track

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westward from Omaha and the CentralPacific built eastward from Sacramento. Fi-nally, on May 10, 1869, the two lines metat Promontory Point, Utah. Soon, othertranscontinental railroads were completed.However, no company offered direct railservice west from South Carolina. SouthCarolinians who wanted to go west first hadto go to Chicago, New Orleans, or St. Louisand change railroad companies.

The Meat-Packing IndustryWith the arrival of the transcontinental

railroads came other industries. The meat-packing industry developed in Chicago dur-ing the war. The Swift Packing Companyand the Armour Packing Company grew

into huge businesses when they introduced refrigeration to the meat-pack-ing industry. Meat packed in Chicago went east to New York, Philadelphia,Pittsburgh, Boston, and all points in between. South Carolina received littleof that meat, however, because most of the demand for meat could still besupplied by the state’s citizens.

The Oil IndustryLikewise, the growing oil industry had little impact in South Carolina at

first. Large oil companies began to develop in the northeast to supply fuelto heat and light homes. In the 1870s, the Standard Oil Company grew tobe the largest and most powerful oil company in the nation. Gasoline wasnot part of the early oil industry because the car had not yet been invented.When the car was developed in the late 1880s and early 1890s, the oil in-dustry was large enough to supply the needs of the country for many yearsto come. South Carolina developed no oil industry of its own. It was notuntil the automobile became popular that the oil industry became a majorpart of the state’s economy.

The tremendous business and industrial growth of this period was duein part to government policy. The Republicans, who controlled the federalgovernment at the time, favored a laissez-faire policy. Laissez faire is a Frenchphrase that means “let (people) do (as they choose).” Thus, the government’slaissez-faire policy was one of “hands off” business affairs. As a result, anumber of businesses developed into monopolies, eliminating their compe-tition. Standard Oil monopolized the oil industry, and United States Steeldeveloped a monopoly in the steel industry. Competition with the railroadsjust did not exist in many parts of the country; there was no other way tocarry the goods.

Map 38South CarolinaRailroads c. 1900

Map Skill: What is thenearest railroad connectionto where you live?

FlorenceCamden

Spartanburg

Charleston

Savannah

Cheraw

Greenville

ColumbiaConway

G E O R G I A

N O R T HC A R O L I N A

A T L A N T I CO C E A N

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Above: Work in the textilemills was dirty, noisy, andhot. While this photographshows men working atthe looms, many womenand children also workedin the mills.

South Carolina IndustriesSouth Carolina was primarily agricultural and did not have oil or iron

deposits. But it did have other resources such as fertile land on which togrow cotton, large forests, many streams and rivers, and a population thatwas looking for work. These resources favored developing other industriessuch as textiles, lumber, and phosphates.

TextilesThe most important South Carolina in-

dustry during this period was the textileindustry. Textiles are woven or machine-knitted fabrics. Textile manufacturing be-gan in South Carolina before the Civil War,but it became important to the economyof the state after the war. By 1880, theindustry was producing almost $3 millionworth of goods a year. For many years,textile manufacturing was measured bythe number of spindles, or rods on whichthread was gathered, in a mill. In 1880,South Carolina had eighteen textile millsoperating with 95,983 spindles. Aboutone-half of those spindles were located inAiken County. Most of the remainingspindles were in the upper Piedmont coun-ties of Anderson, Greenville, Oconee, andSpartanburg.

Much of the money to build the tex-tile mills came from northern investors,who realized that the state had all of theresources needed to make the textile industry successful. The many streamsand rivers in the state provided water power for the mills, and cotton wasthe major agricultural crop in the state. There was also an abundant supplyof labor in the state. Many people were looking for work after the war, andthe mills provided it.

The mill owners set up mill villages similar to the village established byWilliam Gregg in the antebellum period. The mill villages attracted work-ers with the promise of schools, churches, and stores. Mill villages built inthe early twentieth century still stand in many towns and cities, includingUnion and Columbia’s Olympia Village.

Most mills employed more than one worker from a family, and mosthouseholds averaged three family members who were mill workers. Chil-dren were expected to quit school by age twelve to enter the mill and helpearn money for the family.

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Above: The state’s longleafpine forests made SouthCarolina the leadingturpentine-producing statein 1880.

CottonTwo other industries that developed in South

Carolina also revolved around the cotton plant.Few South Carolinians owned their own gins, socotton-ginning companies were built everywhere.Another cotton-related industry was the cotton-seed-oil industry. The cotton seeds removed fromthe cotton plants were crushed to make oil. Theoil was then used in the production of shorten-ing, margarine, and salad oil; leftover productswere used to make explosives and yarn. In 1880,there were no cottonseed-oil mills in South Caro-lina. But in 1881 there were three, and the num-ber increased steadily in subsequent years.

PhosphatesThe phosphates industry in South Carolina

developed after phosphate deposits were discov-ered during Reconstruction in Florence Countyand in the areas south of Charleston. The phos-phates were used as fertilizer to restore worn-outcotton fields. The first shipments were made fromFlorence County in June 1888. After that, theindustry grew rapidly.

LumberSouth Carolina had had a lumber or timber

industry since the colonial period. But the lum-ber industry became much more important after

the Civil War as building materials were needed for the rebuilding and growththe country experienced. The primary trees harvested were the longleaf pineand the cypress. The pine trees were also important for the turpentine in-dustry. In 1880, South Carolina was the leading turpentine-producing state.That ranking, however, lasted only a few years before Georgia began to out-produce South Carolina.

1. What major industries developed in the United States in the1880s and what was their influence in South Carolina?

2. What were South Carolina’s major industries during thesame time period?

It’s Your TurnIt’s Your Turn

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Discovering South CarolinaDiscovering South Carolina

After the Civil War, South Carolinahad two goals—to revive its agricul-ture and to find other economic invest-ments to help the state prosper. Bothof these goals were addressed with thediscovery of phosphate, or lime, de-posits near Charleston.

Interestingly enough, the first SouthCarolinians to find the deposits—Edmund Ruffin, Charles U. Shepard, Sr.,and J. Lawrence Smith—did not reallyunderstand what they had discovered.There were eight principal phosphaterock beds in the state. The best bedswere along the Ashley River, and therewere also good deposits under theCoosaw River.

The phosphates discovered in South Carolinawere sold to farmers as fertilizer. Growing thesame crops over and over again had worn outmany of South Carolina’s fields. The nutrients inthe soil were used up, and the fields would nolonger produce good yields. However, once limewas put on the fields, they became fertile again.After several years of treatment, the land was asstrong as it had been before the introduction ofcotton. With fertile land, farmers grew larger crops. Un-fortunately, as more and more land became fertile andfarmers produced larger yields, the prices farmers re-ceived for their crops decreased. But the importantthing was that the farmers could make money again.

The phosphate industry in South Carolina remainedstrong until the mid-1890s. By then, many of the de-posits had been used up. The remaining phosphate

The Importance of PhosphatesThe Importance of Phosphates

companies were taxed too heavily to remain in busi-ness. But the income the industry brought kept manySouth Carolinians from going hungry when the statewas desperate for cash.

Top and above: The mining of phosphates andtheir use as fertilizer helped South Carolina’s farmsrecover after the Civil War.

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