The ways in which South Carolinians have earned their livings, enriched themselves and the state, and provided essential goods and services to each other, the region, and the nation have varied over time and place, and are becoming increasingly diverse. The images collected together in this category do not make up the whole story. Users of this collection are urged to look also at the following section on transportation, and to use the search function for additional images that illustrate the agriculture, commerce and industry of South Carolina.
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Water power was an important resource for early industry in South Carolina. This mill south of Columbia created a mill pond where the state fair grounds are now located. The presence of the mill and...
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The Graniteville Mill, built by William Gregg (see William Gregg) in 1846, was one of the first cotton textile mills in the South, and laid the basis for the expansion of South Carolina's textile...
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An important part of South Carolina's economy has been the harvesting of marine life. These shrimp boats belong to an African-American owned cooperative on Hilton Head in the 1970s. Courtesy of the...
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The turpentine industry has been an important part of the forest products industry in South Carolina from its earliest days. The first step in making turpentine is to gather pitch from pine trees; fan...
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Artist Richard Lofton painted this tobacco farmer during the 1930s. Courtesy of the Collection of the Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina. Richard Morrison Lofton, American, 1908-1966....
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Ripened bolls of short-staple cotton in the fields of Calhoun County in September of 1968. Cotton still produced in South Carolina dominated agriculture in the state in the first half of the 19th...
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Workers in the fields harvest the indigo plant during the hot summer months. Engraving from a French book, around 1760. Indigo was a good complement to rice as a crop. Indigo grew well in the high...
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Plowing rice. Engraving from "Harper's New Monthly Magazine," November 1878. Courtesy of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
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Squabs were an important commercial poultry product for Midlands farmers. Here a group of African-American women pick feathers from squabs headed for market in Sumter. Photograph by Bill King, for the...
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An outdoor blacksmith prepares his forge, perhaps to shoe horses or mules, widely used in South Carolina agriculture until very recently as the principle source of power for plowing, harvesting, and...
