Buying, Selling, and Trading in Antebellum South Carolina

Guiding questions to aid in the lesson progression:
1. How do general stores, especially in rural areas of South Carolina, flourish and sustain a community?
2. Why are the stores in Society Hill and Horatio successful even though they lack a major railroad?
 

• Engage the students in a brief discussion about general stores in the United States, especially in the early 1800’s as the nation began to move away from homemade goods to depending on manufactured goods as a result of the Industrial revolution. (4 min) 
•  Begin the PowerPoint entitled “Buying, Selling and Trading in Antebellum SC” and give another brief description of the role that these stores had during the time period to further the discussion. Use the PowerPoint to detail the contents of a typical store as displayed by the State Museum in Columbia (summer 2008). (4 min) 
•  Introduce to the students the two stores featured in the lesson and describe their proximity to their hometown in the Pee Dee region. Note their location in small towns and relation to rivers while lacking a major railroad. (4 min)
• Continue showing them modern day images of both stores and discussing their usefulness. At this point, pass out the secondary document that contains the brief histories, see A Brief History of the Coker and Rogers Store and A Brief History of the Lenoir Store, of the two stores. Allow the students to read these to themselves for 4 minutes. Then pass out the primary document from the Coker & Rogers Store bill from 1948 and discuss its contents. Ask the students to study it for a few minutes and lead them in a discussion of its contents. (8 min)
• Allow the students a few minutes to copy four questions from the PowerPoint and allow them to answer them in class, if time permits. They are as follows 1) What is the importance of these stores to the rural towns and areas they survived? 2) Why are these stores called “general” stores? 3) How is their location important to their success or failures? 4) How are stores like these similar to mega-stores of today and how are they different? These too can be answered in class and discussed in either small groups or with the entire class.
• Assign the essay that is described on the last slide. This needs to be typed and turned in the following day. (Make accommodations for students who may not have access to a computer and/or printer.)
• Extension: When teaching this lesson, it would be good to incorporate the inventions on the late 1800’s that would have been available at these kinds of stores. These include safety pins, balloons, kaleidoscopes, tin cans, and so on. I have my students draw advertisements for each of these and post them in the room. This can be part of the assignment or done for extra credit. Either way, they gain an understanding of how and when some of these common items came into use.

Historical Background Notes
All throughout the United Sates the general store was important to the development of communities, towns and cities. This could not be more evident in the state of South Carolina where towns flourished or withered because of their dependence on such stores. Two stores in the Darlington and Sumter Districts during the early 1800’s are excellent examples; the Coker & Rogers Store in Society Hill and the Lenoir Store in Horatio. Both flourished for over one hundred and fifty years and the Lenoir Store is still open, dating back to before 1808 (South Carolina Postcards: Volume X). The Coker & Rogers store opened in 1839 and closed its doors in 1963 (Public Document from Darlington Historical Society).
These two stores flourished for several reasons. Each store is located near a major river thus allowing goods to be delivered for sale via barges and steamboats. The Lenoir Store in the Horatio community is near the Wateree River that flows past the all-important city of Camden. Watercrafts laden with goods from Charleston and the Low Country made their way northward and a stop was made to stock this store. The Coker & Rogers Store in Society Hill is also adjacent to another major river, the Great Pee Dee. Here, commerce flourished as Society Hill was the first settlement in the Darlington District and Pee Dee region. The town is near the border of three counties: Darlington, Marlboro and Chesterfield thus adding to its importance. Each location lacks direct access to major railroads and therefore depends on the river. 
The two stores are very similar in that they both provided their customers with just about every kind of consumer product available at the time. Everything from boots, food stuffs of all kinds, tools, farm equipment and household items were available to its customers. These items sustained a substantial population to keep the areas inhabited and contributed to their growth over a period of time. For example, a bill dating back to 1948, the Coker and Rogers Store includes oatmeal, cheese, rice, sugar, oranges, grits and Juicy Fruit gum were offered (C & R Receipt Document). It can be inferred that other items besides food were still available at the time as the store advertises themselves as “dealers in general merchandise”. One can still walk into the Lenoir Store and find candy, bottled water, farm tools such as shovels, hoes, as well as canned fruits and vegetables. The appearance of the store has changed little and walking in immediately gives a person the feeling of “stepping back in time”. 
While there are other stores in each region, these two stores prospered longer and became important because they served very rural areas. Both are relatively far from “major” cities and became centers of communities. They were not just a place to purchase goods in an ever growing consumer society that evolved during the nineteenth century, but were also a place for socializing and entertainment. Whether in the state of Maine or South Carolina, these stores brought people together just as the mega-stores of today do. Lost though, is the personal attention that so many people crave with the old fashioned general stores such as the afore mentioned. Mrs. Lenoir, the sixth generation owner can still sit for hours and chat with a visitor and revel in the grand history that is both hers and the communities.

Teacher Reflections
The students’ responses from the lesson were pretty good. I received some good essays and they were able to recount things I said in the lesson as well as make some of the “connections” that I was hoping for. The students kind of noticed that the lesson was special to me and of course having two visitors during the first teaching of the lesson made the experience a little different. 
I do feel that I have not covered “every angle” of the lesson and would love to add more to it in the future. I kind on limited myself on the number of stores and examples but still like what I came up with. If I had “lots of time on my hands”, I could see myself expanding upon the scope of the lesson. I would love to find out about stores from the different regions of the state and compare and contrast them. I am sure that about every town in South Carolina has a store or establishment that shares the same important characteristics as the two I researched. Maybe when my kids are “all grown” I will be able to do more research. 

Examples of Students Work
Student Essay

• http://teachingushistory.org/pdfs/StudentEssay.pdf
• http://teachingushistory.org/pdfs/StudentEssay2.pdf

Student Advertisement

• http://teachingushistory.org/pdfs/StudentAdvertisement.pdf
• http://teachingushistory.org/pdfs/StudentAdvertisement2.pdf

Grade the student’s essay based on the following:

• Typed=10 points
• Addresses each of the questions=20 points
• Covers the histories of each store and their importance of their locations=20 points