Seeds of Change:
South Carolina and the Great War 1917-1918
South Carolina’s strong tradition of patriotism is examined in a new exhibit at the State Museum that looks at the state’s role on the homefront during World War I.
Beginning May 19, Seeds of Change: South Carolina and the Great War 1917-1918 will examine a number of topics to show both how South Carolina contributed to the war effort and how the war changed the Palmetto State, bringing it fully into the 20th century after its virtual isolation in the decades following the Civil War.
In the exhibit, guests will learn of the establishment of military installations in the state and the building up of ones already here, such as Camp (now Fort) Jackson in Columbia, CampWadsworth in Spartanburg and Charleston’s Navy yard.
Seeds of Change also will look at the establishment of war bonds and the publicity around the campaigns; the changing roles of blacks and women in the war effort; and something most people don’t know or don’t associate with the war: the great flu epidemic of 1918.
An estimated 200,000 South Carolinians contracted the flu and between 4,000 and 10,000 died from it, according to Chief Curator of History Fritz Hamer. “Nationwide, 675,000 Americans died, far more than were killed in the trenches on the western front.”
Museum guests will see many visible reminders of the war effort, including striking photographs; uniforms of soldiers and nurses; weapons; a horse-drawn ambulance wagon; a hand-drawn ammunition cart, or “Gullah wagon,” used on Parris Island; and more.
Several pieces of art - small etchings done by Emmett Conniff, a South Carolinian and member of the Rainbow Division - can also be seen in the exhibit. “Conniff returned from the war and did them to show people the war’s destruction and what life was like on the front,” says Hamer.
The postwar period and the impact of demobilization on the state also is included. An interesting side of the exhibit, and perhaps an unexpected one, is a discussion of dissenting opinions on the war, Hamer says. Prominent dissenters were Cole Blease and John P. Grace, editor of the Charleston American who also was the sometime mayor of Charleston.
Seeds of Change is part of a unique collaboration of South Carolina museums, including the State Museum, McKissick Museum, S.C. Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, Historic Columbia Foundation and the South Caroliniana Library. Each institution will examine a different part of the war from a South Carolina perspective.
The war had a profound impact on the cities and towns of the state, adds the curator. “This was the first time South Carolinians were exposed to lots of outsiders in a short time. The isolation the state had experienced started to break down as new ideas came in.”
For instance, the Jim Crow laws broke down — for a while because blacks were needed to fill spots they couldn’t have before.
“We’ll also look at the prosperity the war brought to agriculture, which had been depressed since the Civil War,” says Hamer. The Allies’ need of food and cotton led to a huge agriculture boom during the war.
Programs including curatorial presentations, a Woodrow Wilson one-man show by historian Ed Beardsley and an academic conference at the University of South Carolina will accompany the exhibit, with support from the Humanities Council SC.
Seeds of Change: South Carolina and the Great War 1917-1918 is funded in part by a grant from the Partnership for a Nation of Learners, a leadership initiative by the Corporation of Public Broadcasting and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The exhibit can be seen through June 29, 2008 in the 401 Gallery on the museum’s fourth floor.