SCL HIST 112 (Rutledge)

Study on eight department stores and six dime stores located on three blocks in downtown Columbia (S.C.) and how they fared during the prosperous 1920s and the challenges of the Great Depression years. Businesses represented include Tapp's, Belk, Bon Marche, Sears Roebuck, Effird's, J. C. Penney, Kress & Co. and others. Several of these establishments survived in part thanks to New Deal programs such as the National Recovery Act and coordinated efforts by local organizations, such as the Columbia Merchant's Association.

Transcribed interviews discussing the Great Depression and life in South Carolina during the 1930s; interviews compiled by students at Coker College (Hartsville, S.C.) enrolled in two of Simpson's history classes (History 399 or 411).

The National Emergency Countil's 1938 Report on Economic Conditions of the South caused Franklin Roosevelt to view the south as "the Nation's #1 economic problem" and quickly became a standard part of modern Southern history. This important and out-of-print document is reprinted here, along with primary accounts of the Depression-era South, statistical data, and contemporary reactions to the Report.

Bound volumes, ca. 1882-1966, include daybooks; account books; and ledgers documenting operations of the store and the cotton gin during the late 19th through the mid-20th centuries during financial panics, the arrival of the boll weevil, the Great Depression, the first and second World Wars, and other events.

Speeches and Writings, 1962-1996, are arranged by title. These files (bulk 1970s-1980s) consist of speeches, writings, notes, outlines, and reference material developed and kept by McDonald. Topics range from campaign speeches to teenage pregnancy, education, local and state government, crime, capital punishment, Christianity, drug use, veterans, healthcare, and persons with disabilities. Of particular interest are the speeches and notes related to teenage pregnancy in South Carolina.

Chiefly business and personal correspondence relating to Coker and the management of Coker's Pedigreed Seed Company and other family businesses including Coker's Experimental Farms, J. L. Coker & Company, Sonoco Products Company, and Hartsville Oil Mill.

Coker was actively involved in the National Cotton Council; through this organization he worked tirelessly to find a way to eradicate the destructive boll weevil. His knowledge and expertise also
led him to assume important duties for the United States Department of Agriculture (he participated in the United States Agricultural Trade Mission of 1954), as well as the United States and South Carolina Farm Bureaus.

Coker was also active in several organizations within the financial world including the Bank of Hartsville, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and the Gulf Life Insurance Company.