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South Carolina Between World Wars: The Impact of the New Deal

A mural entitled "Past and Present Agriculture and Industry of Colleton County" painted by Sheffield Kagy in 1938 as part of the Works Project Administration's public arts intitiative.
Jimmy Emerson [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0] via Flickr
A mural entitled "Past and Present Agriculture and Industry of Colleton County" painted by Sheffield Kagy in 1938 as part of the Works Project Administration's public arts intitiative.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, ushering in the Great Depression, South Carolina was already in dire financial straits. Cotton prices had plummeted, even before the boll weevil had decimated the crop. Years of non-sustainable practices in cotton farming had ruined thousands of acres of farmland. And, the textile industry had crashed.

Then came Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, which altered the physical, social, and economic landscape of South Carolina. In the second of our programs on South Carolina Between the World Wars, Dr. Kerry Taylor, a specialist in twentieth-century US, labor, African American, and oral history at The Citadel, talks with Walter Edgar about the long-lasting impacts of the New Deal on the state.

All Stations: Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Jan 12, 4 pm

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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.