Long Green: The Rise and Fall of Tobacco in South Carolina

by Eldred E. Prince Jr., Robert R. Simpson

The first comprehensive history of Bright Leaf tobacco culture of any state to appear in fifty years, this book explores tobacco's influence in South Carolina from its beginnings in the colonial period to its heyday at the turn of the century, the impact of the Depression, the New Deal, and World War II, and on to present-day controversies about health risks due to smoking.

The book examines the tobacco growers' struggle against the monopolistic practices of manufacturers, explains the failures of the cooperative reform movement and the Hoover administration's farm policies, and describes how Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal rescued southern agriculture from the Depression and forged a lasting and successful partnership between tobacco farmers and government. The technological revolutions of the post-World War II era and subsequent tobacco economy hardships due to increasingly negative public perception of tobacco use are also highlighted.The book details the roles and motives of key individuals in the development of tobacco culture, including firsthand experiences related by farmers and warehousemen, and offers informed speculations on the future of tobacco culture. Long Green allows readers to better understand the full significance of this cash crop in the history and economy of South Carolina and the American South.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written over fifteen years ago and was the result of the collaboration between two men who shared an interest in the history of tobacco in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Its subject is of particular interest to me because I was raised in the heart of the Pee Dee tobacco region, Marion County, in the 70s and 80s. The influence of the tobacco industry, although on the decline, was still evident during those years. In searching for a brief but informative history of farming in the Pee Dee, I found very few sources beyond general guides at the regional level and archived magazine articles that we difficult to access. This book hit the mark, though. It chronicles the boom and bust periods, the role of the Big Four tobacco companies on prices in local markets, the creation of co-ops that fought to level the playing field, and the New Deal price stabilization policies that helped save the struggling industry into the 21st century. In summary, its a relatively short but very informative overview of the tobacco history in the Pee Dee. Side note: As I read, it was impossible not to intersperse memories of my childhood as well as conflicting contemporary images of the empty town lots in Marion County that were once home to active tobacco warehouses or related businesses. In most places, there are few reminders of what this area once represented, and that's disappointing.