Turn of the Century (1890-1913)

Cheap to employ, easily controlled, and with small, nimble fingers, children were well suited to perform the repetitive, minor tasks that the textile industry demanded.

In addition to this major contribution to the Confederate war effort, Chisolm devised a more efficient inhaler for the administration of chloroform, an anesthetic that was in short supply in the Confederate army.

She was a founder of the Bethlehem Center, an educational and community center in one of Spartanburg’s black communities sponsored by Bethel Methodist Church.

Abbie Christensen was a progressive force for women’s rights, black and white education, racial tolerance, and social welfare in South Carolina from the 1890s until her death.

South Carolina heralds the moderation of its leadership during the civil rights era, especially when compared to the actions of leaders in other Deep South states. Moderate leaders put accommodation over confrontation and worked within the legal framework. But these same leaders also did all they could to manipulate the government and the legal system to forestall civil rights.

Clark is credited with the creation in 1957 of the “citizenship school” model, which ultimately engaged thousands of ordinary people in literacy and political education throughout the South.

Georgia Alden Cleveland kept a detailed dairy from 1890 to 1914 in which she chronicled life as an upper-class, married, southern white female.

It was Charles Coker who brought modern industrial and managerial practice to the family-controlled business. He established an industrial research and development program, developed a dedicated sales staff, and emphasized long-range planning.

From the World War I era until his death, Coker became an agricultural evangelist, promoting diversification, improved farming methods, and his seeds through numerous speeches, articles, and personal visits.

In addition to writing novels, Coker reviewed books and published satirical poems in various newspapers, magazines, and anthologies. For some four decades she was deeply engaged in other efforts that defined her era’s literary and cultural life in South Carolina and the region.

Coker's mill and process had a significant influence on the future development of the southern pulp mill industry. In the years following, Coker expanded the firm as it supplied pulp and paper products throughout the country.

Along with his varied business concerns, Coker took a strong interest in promoting education. Largely through his efforts and financing, Coker College, originally a liberal arts college for women (later coeducational), was established in Hartsville in 1908. Coker’s long and successful career provided a human face to the state’s successful transition from the Old South to the New South.

The CMFA was established as a partnership between the government and the community. It was the outgrowth of the late 19th-century Dertheck Music Club, whose members worked closely with government leaders to formalize the relationship between government and the private sector for promoting the arts.

Although revised several times until abandoned in 1698, the Fundamental Constitutions framed the colony as a social hierarchy, encouraging new settlement based on landownership and a provision for religious freedom.

In addition to establishing one of the most important industrial enterprises in Spartanburg County, Converse contributed to the educational institution in Spartanburg that bears his name.

Convict leasing came to an end in South Carolina in the 1890s. Its origins lay in the economic demands of a war-torn region and in whites’ desire to use the state’s criminal justice system to control a newly emancipated black population. Changing economic circumstances in the 1890s robbed leasing of its financial appeal.

Through tireless self-promotion, Coogler and his poetry garnered the attention of readers and reviewers from across the nation, who found his work entertaining if not aesthetic. Facetious reviews and parodies of his work found their way into dozens of newspapers and other periodicals.

In 1907 Cooke took a three-day federal civil service examination in Boston (blacks were not allowed to take the test in Washington, D.C.). He passed and was assigned to the office of the supervising architect at the United States Treasury Department, the first black man to be employed there.

Emulating the progressive policies of his predecessor, Cooper proposed an ambitious reform program, notably statewide compulsory public school attendance.

A man with broad zoological interests, Corrington began working on the then little-known herpetology (study of amphibians and reptiles) of the Columbia region, an area of considerable biological importance as a result of its location on the fall line between the Piedmont and the coastal plain.