Audio
Grades
- 6
- 7
- 8
“M” is for McSweeney, Miles Benjamin [1855-1909]. Governor. After serving as co-publisher of a newspaper in Ninety Six, McSweeney moved to Hampton and founded the Hampton County Guardian. He became an...
The Tillman Era
1890-1914. Ben Tillman served as governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894, and as United States senator from 1895 to 1918. Tillman introduced experimental agricultural methods to the state and was a founder of Clemson University. In 1895, during his service as a senator, he became known as "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, after becoming the ring leader of the convention that would wipe out the reforms of the 1868 Constitution. African Americans were robbed of the rights that define a true democracy.
Lesson
Grades
- 8
- 11
Students will analyze primary sources to discern the beliefs of Ben Tillman and his “Tillmanites” and how those beliefs and values affected Progressive era reforms.
Photo
Grades
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
Episode
137
Born near Trenton, in Edgefield County, Governor Benjamin R. Tillman (1847-1918) attended a local "field school" and Bethany Academy. During the 1890s, farmers began to organize a national movement to...
Photo
Grades
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
Episode
54
Born in Cokesbury, Governor John Gary Evans (1863-1942) attended Cokesbury Conference School. In 1879, he enrolled at Union College in Schenectady, New York, but withdrew before he graduated to study...
Video
Grades
- 4
- 8
- 11
Episode
1
In this episode, host Alex Sanders, takes a look at a South Carolina Civil War hero, Robert Smalls. Smalls was born as an enslaved person in 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina. In 1851, Smalls was hired...
Photo
Grades
- 4
- 8
Episode
1
The broom of justice sweeps the Coleman Livingston Blease (see Governor Coleman L. Blease) administration out of office in this cartoon from the Columbia "Record" on September 9, 1914, titled "Good...
Photo
Grades
- 8
Episode
10
The Constitution of 1895. This is the present Constitution of the State of South Carolina, which defines state and local governmental power. However, over the last 94 years it has been so amended, or...
Photo
Grades
- 4
- 8
Episode
7
George W. Shell, Benjamin R. Tillman, and John L.M. Irby pose for an 1890 photograph with the caption, "Leaders of the Farmer's Movement in South Carolina." The rise and rule of Tillmanism in South...
Photo
Grades
- 8
Episode
1
Senator Ben Tillman's "cow cartoons." Elected to the United States Senate in 1894, Tillman went to Washington determined to give the business end of a pitchfork to what he considered federal waste of...
Photo
Grades
- 8
Episode
5
This "composite photograph" brings together 63 members of the 1868 Reconstruction legislature of South Carolina. Of that body, 50 were African-American, 30 were white. Colonel James G. Gibbes of...