The 1920s - Not Roaring in South Carolina

Assignment before the lesson:
1. A week or more before the lesson, the students are given the assignment to interview an older family member or friend who lived during this time period.
    A list of possible questions is given to the students to use in the interview.
2. Invite older members of the community to visit the class and share stories about life during the Depression. This is a great opportunity for students who do not         know an older person to interview the guest speakers.
3. Students write a biographical sketch of the person using information obtained from the interview.

Guiding questions to use with the lesson progression:

• Why did South Carolina experience a decade of hard times before the stock market crash of 1929?
• How did the depression affect the economic and social lives of rural families in South Carolina?

Procedures Outline:
1. Present the guiding questions to the class. Draw from past lessons on the Roaring Twenties, Great Depression, and the guest speakers to generate discussion       on why South Carolina’s hard times began before the crash of the stock market in 1929.
2. Share with the class the reasons for the early depression in South Carolina from the PowerPoint.
3. Divide the students into groups of 3 or 4. Each student receives an Oral History and Photograph Analysis sheet.
4. Each group receives a quote and photograph (see Primary Sources section above) from rural South Carolina to analyze. Students are to find who, what, where,     why, and how of the quotes and pictures to infer the economic and social conditions caused by the depression. Students write their conclusions on the analysis       sheet. The teacher facilitates by moving from group to group asking questions and giving background information to encourage the students to delve deeper into     the photograph and quotes.
5. As each quote and photograph is shown on the PowerPoint, the groups share with the whole class their conclusions about their quotes and photographs. 
6. A list of economic and social effects of the depression is written on the poster paper during this sharing. Encourage students to include information gained from       the guest speaker and their interviews.
 

Historical Background Notes
By the time of the stock market crash in 1929, South Carolina had already experienced almost a decade of hard times. During World War I, farming in South Carolina boomed to feed war-torn Europe. After the Great War, Europeans resumed farming; therefore, not needing to import. Overproduction of cotton and tobacco and the loss of overseas markets caused farm prices to plunge. Cotton prices in the spring of 1920 were 40 cents per pound, but by December the price had dropped to 13 ½ cents. Prices improved a little in 1922, but never reached prewar levels. (Walker, pg xxii)

As if things were not bad enough for the farmers in the 1920s, the boll weevil migration to the cotton fields of South Carolina from Mexico was felt. In 1921, the sea island cotton crop was wiped out. In some years, the boll weevil destroyed one half of the cotton crop. Years of drought compounded the economic crisis for the farmers. In 1922, South Carolina farmers produced less than one third the number of bales produced just two years earlier. By 1930, South Carolina agriculture was about to go under. Farmlands and buildings had lost half their value. One third of the state’s farms were mortgaged, and seventy per cent of state farmers survived on borrowed money. The land was in bad shape because of improper farming methods. (Edger, pg 485)

When cotton and tobacco prices were high, farmers borrowed money from banks to buy land, seed, chemicals to kill boll weevils, fertilizer to revitalize the poor soil, and necessities for families. Farmers were unable to meet their installment payments as the farm incomes declined.  Because of the decreased value of agricultural lands that served as loan collateral during the 1920s, roughly half of the 447 banks in South Carolina failed between 1921 and 1929. By 1932, retail merchants began to fail because South Carolinians bought little from stores. There was little or no income to spend, and no one had ready cash. (Schulz, pg. 3)

The depression of the 1920s and 1930s affected the economic and social lives of rural families in South Carolina. Farmers had to pay most of the taxes, but they were the ones with the least amount of money. Farmers lost land because they couldn’t pay taxes. Collapse of agriculture due to crop destruction, low prices, and mortgage foreclosures led to mass exodus by both blacks and whites. By 1929, a quarter of a million South Carolinians, three fourths of them black, had moved out of the state looking for job opportunities. Black Carolinians went north, while whites moved south and west. (Edger, pg. 486) Others who lost their land became renters or sharecroppers. Many white sharecroppers in the Piedmont moved to a growing number of textile mill villages. Wages were low, but better than what was made by farming. (Schulz, pg 3)

Rural women helped the family economy by stretching the scarce resources as far as possible. Women “made-do” by intensifying their traditional coping skills. They sewed the family clothing and knitted socks and winter hats.  Old coats and dresses were turned inside out to make them last longer. The colorful chicken feed and flour sacks were reused to make children’s clothing. Women grew bigger gardens, canned more vegetables, and preserved more sausage. They saved extra eggs and butter for sale at crossroad stores. Many women took jobs off the farm or took in boarders to supplement the family income. Families depended on the help of neighbors and kin to survive financial or health crises and to cope with excess labor demands of the harvest. Many moved in with extended family members to save expenses. (Walker, pg. xxvii)

Because farmers grew or raised their own food, they had enough to eat, but they couldn’t sell their products on the market. No one had money to purchase these products; therefore, the barter system was used in rural South Carolina. Many services of doctors, lawyers, and ministers were paid in pigs, vegetables, and chickens. Merchants had to accept the barter system or see his goods rot on the shelf from lack of sales potential. (Hughes, pg. 31)

Although times were hard, rural South Carolina did survive the depression years of the 1920s and 1930s. From oral histories and interviews with people who lived during this time period, one can conclude that times were hard, money was scarce, but most people were in the same predicament. Mr. Ross Horton summed up the depression when he said, “We lived off the land, and because all the families of the community looked after each other, we didn’t suffer that much. The drop in cotton and corn prices created a cutback in the purchase of store-bought items, but we endured.” (Hughes, pg. 34)

Teacher Reflections
In the past, my eighty-five year old dad has told me about his early childhood in Lexington, South Carolina during the 1920’s. I knew that his family had lost all their land. His mother took him, his older brothers, and sisters and moved in with his grandparents and old-maid aunts. I became curious about why South Carolina experienced hard times before the crash of the stock market. I also wanted to know how the depression affected other rural families economically and socially. Thus, these are the essential questions for my lesson, “The 1920s - Not Roaring in South Carolina.” When we began the chapter on the Roaring Twenties, I gave the students the assignment to interview someone in his/her late seventies or older about what life was like for them as a child. I also invited two octogenarians, Mrs. Lib Seigler from Walhalla and Mr. Elmer Littleton from Salem, to share their oral histories with my 5th graders. This was a great experience for everyone. Many of the students interviewed these visitors as the subject for their assignment. The students later wrote a biographical sketch on the person they interviewed. These were interesting to read and find out what the students had learned about the childhood of our guests. I would not change anything about this part of the lesson, but I realize that in future years it will be very difficult to find guests who remember this time period and are able to come to share their early childhood memories with 5th graders.
Inferring information from photographs and oral histories was difficult for my students. Many students were uncomfortable with this higher- level thinking skill. I teach two social studies classes so I was able to make some changes before the second class. For the first class, I told the students to look for who, what, where, when, and how in the pictures and oral histories. Some of the students only saw what was on the surface and were not able to delve deep enough to deduct how people coped during the depression. For the second class, I created a cause and effect worksheet for them to use while analyzing the primary sources. I also modeled how to analyze a photograph and a quote for the students. These changes, along with more direct questions as I monitored the groups, did improve the outcome of the lesson. The students did draw from all sources, including information from their interviews, to create a list of economic and social effects of the depression on rural families in South Carolina. 
Learning a variety of techniques to use primary sources in my social studies classes has certainly improved my teaching. The students are more focused and engaged in the lessons. They are curious and ask higher-level thinking questions about the topics we are studying. Their enthusiasm is contagious. Teaching American History in South Carolina has given me valuable resources, tools, and confidence to ensure that my students succeed.

The students write a biographical sketch using the information gathered from the interviews of people who lived during this time period. Informal assessment is also taken by the teacher while moderating the groups during the lesson.

This would depend on how the lesson is presented:

• Informal assessment during the lesson
• Photo Analysis worksheet
• List of social and economic changes
• Cause and effect worksheet
• Picture analysis – look at background for clues
• Quote analysis
• Mini-drama matching quotes to photographs
• Photo Story
• Finding the who, what, where, why, and how of pictures and quotes
• Reenactment of photographs (see Primary Sources listed with resources)
• List the social and economic changes in the families caused by the depression.
• First person experiences through interviews of people who lived during this time period.
• Possibly having a guest speaker