Lowcountry Agricultural and Convivial Societies: Where Planters Came Together in Antebellum Georgetown, South Carolina

Throughout the first century of South Carolina's settlement, rice was an important crop but the rice industry did not experience its first boom until the 1720s and 1730s. This book explores the purpose of the social organizations as well as the moral, economic, cultural, and political challenges of the Antebellum Georgetown rice planters. Within the protected confines of their organizations, planters felt safe discussing local and national politics, advancements to their educational system, agricultural and livestock improvements to better compete with the Industrial North. The alliance of brothers of the soil, both farmer and planter, helped solidify South Carolina's Lowcountry politically. The agricultural alliances of the region promoted Southern Nationalism and provided one pillar for Southerners to mount the American Civil War.