This important new book charts the economic and social rise and fall of a small, but intriguing part of the American South: Charleston and the surrounding South Carolina low country. Spanning 250 years, Coclanis's study analyzes the interaction of both external and internal forces on the city and countryside, examining the effects of various factors--the environment, the market, economic and political ideology, and social institutions--on the region's economy from its colonial beginnings to its collapse in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Describes the transformation of one of the nation's oldest public institutions of higher learning into a modern research university The history of the modern University of South Carolina (originally chartered as South Carolina College in 1801) describes the significant changes in the state and in the character of higher education in South Carolina. World War II, the civil rights struggle, and the revolution in research and South Carolina's economy transformed USC from a small state university in 1939, with a student body of less than 2,000 and an annual budget of $725,000, to a 1990 population of more than 25,000 and an annual budget of $454 million. Then the University was little more than a small liberal arts college; today the university is at the head of a statewide system of higher education with eight branch campuses. Henry H. Lesesne recounts the historic transformation of USC into a modern research university, grounding that change in the context of the modernization of South Carolina and the South in general. The half century from 1940 to 1990 wrought great changes in South Carolina and its most prominent university. State and national politics, the challenges of funding modern higher educations, and the explosive growth of intercollegiate sports are among other elements of the University that were transformed. Lesesne describes with candor and impressive research how the University of South Carolina and, indeed, all of the state's higher education system emerged from a past limited by racism and poverty and began to measure its aspirations by national educational standards.

JACK IRBY HAYES, JR., revisits the South Carolina of the 1930s to determine the impact of federal programs on the state's economy, politics, culture, and citizenry. He traces the waxing and waning of support for programs such as Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and concludes that the modernization of South Carolina would have been delayed without their intervention. Suggesting that the New Deal hastened the end of one-party political domination, Hayes proposes that it also initiated a new era of modernized agriculture and banking practices, rural electrical service, labor restrictions, relief programs, and cultural resurgence. Hayes finds that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's initiatives enjoyed widespread support among South Carolinians. He documents the welcoming of agricultural and erosion controls, welfare relief, child labor laws, minimum wage requirements, public construction, state parks, and massive hydroelectric projects. He also credits the New Deal with sparking an intellectual reawakening and a restoration of faith in capitalism, democracy, and progress. But Hayes demonstrates that

This vigorous and concise history combines clarity of approach with keen insights on the patterns of South Carolina politics, agriculture, industry, education, transportation, and race relations. Lander's study gathers the manifold developments of the state's last hundred years into specific problem areas with a perceptive eye for contrast and implication. Originally published in 1960. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

With nearly 2,000 entries and 520 illustrations, this comprehensive reference surveys the history and culture of the Palmetto State from A to Z, mountains to coast, and prehistory to the present.