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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Open air markets have been an important way for farmers to sell their produce to city people. The artist Alfred Hutty (1877-1954) created a vivid etching of the Charleston Market in the 1920s...
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Workers on the Hobcaw Barony plantation around 1900 are "pounding rice the hard way," according to the caption. This pounding system is African in origin. The blows loosen the husks from the rice...
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This interior view of the Mount Vernon Mill, Columbia, shows a beamer at work around 1960. Courtesy of the South Carolina State Museum.
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An Alice Huger Ravenel Smith watercolor of African-American workers loading rice on a ship to send to market. Note the use of "head-toting" as a way of moving the heavy rice sacks. Courtesy of the...
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As important as the growing of cotton was its marketing, and in this the Cotton Exchange played a powerful role in the local economy. All of the members of the Charleston Cotton Exchange were...
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A Native American family near Summerville uses a sorghum cane grinder in their yard. Photograph by Marion Post, January 1939, for the Farm Security Administration. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana...
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A slasher works in the Hickman Mill, one of the Graniteville Mills in Aiken County, in this December 1946, photograph by J.F. Sofge. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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African-American workers thresh rice with a flail around 1910, a technique that is probably African in its origins. Lowcountry planters in colonial South Carolina sought out slaves from the Rice Coast...
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Mrs. Green grinds corn around 1910 using methods "from the old plantation days," according to the caption. From the Penn School Collection. Permission granted by Penn Center, Inc., St. Helena Island...
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One of the final steps of textile manufacture is printing the design on the cloth. Here a worker in Hartsville prints cotton cloth during the 1930s. Works Progress Administration file photo. Courtesy...
