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"S" is for Southern Textile Exposition

South Carolina From A to Z
SC Public Radio

"S" is for Southern Textile Exposition. First envisioned by the Southern Textile Association, the Southern Textile Exposition invited local textile representatives to exhibit their machinery, products and services. In 1915, unable to hold the show in Atlanta, Greenville business leaders agreed to sponsor the event. With the exhibition’s overwhelming success, a “Textile Hall” was constructed to house the event. Aided by the influx of northern textile companies, the Southern Textile Exposition became a symbol of South Carolina’s growing industrial economy. With the opening of the spacious new Textile Hall in 1964 and the growth of the Piedmont’s textile industry, Greenville attracted its first international exhibitors. In 1969, the Southern Textile Association joined with the American Textile Machinery Exhibition to sponsor the American Textile Exhibition, the largest textile machinery show ever held in the United States.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.