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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Interior of a tobacco grading room in a Darlington tobacco factory around 1890. Photo by August Kohn. Courtesy of the South Caroliniana Library.
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The South Carolina Electric and Gas Company steam generator plant at Lake Murray, August 25, 1958. The South Carolina Electric and Gas Company had its origins in the creation of the Columbia Gas Light...
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The Mount Vernon Mill, also known as the Columbia Duck Mill because it manufactured heavy cotton duck cloth, is now the site for South Carolina's State Museum. It was the first electric-powered...
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Co-op hog shipment day at Kingstree, Williamsburg County, in February 1937. Cooperatives were encouraged in the New Deal, through loans from the Farm Security Administration, as a means of helping...
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A cotton press for compressing short-staple cotton. To maximize use of space on the vessels in which cotton was shipped to England, the use of cotton presses to compress the bulky cotton was adopted...
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Drug stores played an important role in the business districts of small towns in South Carolina. This is the interior of the Searson Drug Store in Allendale around 1907. Courtesy of the South...
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Harvesting rice, using modern methods and a tractor. Photo by Stan Lewis, around 1950. Courtesy of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
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A truck coming off of the new assembly line at the Mack Truck plant in Fairfield County. Photo by Doug Gilmore, August 1,1988. Courtesy of "The State" newspaper.
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The Arnold gully, four miles west of Woodruff on Buncombe Road, South Tiger Erosion Project. The gully in the photo was measured at 20 feet deep (before treatment with kudzu, it had been 35 feet deep)...
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The Columbia Hotel, long a landmark for visitors to the city, was torn down in 1972. It appears here in a postcard photograph around 1900. Courtesy of the Howard G. Woody Postcard Collection.
