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Book Review
Canada and the United States
Jack Irby Hayes, Jr. South Carolina and the New Deal. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 2001. Pp. xvi, 290. $34.95.
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In his examination of South Carolina during the Great Depression, Jack Irby Hayes argues that the "New Deal was the last decade of an old era and not thefirst decade of a new one" (p. xii). Franklin Delano Roosevelt's reforms in the Palmetto state had limited success; World War II would usher in greater change. Hayes's book fits current New Deal historiography, which concludes that at the state level Roosevelt encountered significant obstacles that limited reform. |
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Hayes describes the ambiguous results of the programs from Washington. Prosperity did not come to cotton farmers, textile mill owners, or mill workers. The textile industry, vital to the state, suffered greatly during the New Deal, with respites only in mid-decade. "The most that can be said for the New Deal is that it kept workers from starving and manufacturers out of bankruptcy" and positioned them to enjoy better times during and after World War II (p. 195). There was a minimal increase in the number of mills, and wages still remained low. Cotton farmers reduced production but never saw improved prices comparable to those of the 1920s. Farmers continued to support the New Deal, nonetheless, because cash payments resulting from the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) significantly increased their income, and, without the federal intervention, prices, which did improve from the early 1930s, would have been even lower. Hayes concludes that, unlike what happened in some other southern states, the New Deal did not revolutionize agriculture in South Carolina. Politically, the New Deal left the state the same. |
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