Antebellum in South Carolina 3 rd Grade Social Studies Compare the conditions of daily life for various classes of people in South Carolina, including the elite, the middle class, the lower class, the independent farmers, and the free and the enslaved African Americans. Created by: Jill McCormick

What does Antebellum mean? Antebellum means “before the war”, in this case before the Civil War. During this time in South Carolina, the state was very wealthy. What does this mean?.... Money, Money, Money

Plantation Owners The plantation owners were very wealthy (rich) during this time. Their crops, such as cotton, rice, and indigo were doing very well. They were able to sell their crops to many different places.

What made the plantations so successful? Slaves! The plantation owners had many, many slaves, in the hundreds and thousands of slaves to help work the fields and harvest the crops.

What did the plantation owners do while the slaves were working hard? They would have visitors and would enjoy relaxing and spending time with family and friends. They would have grand parties and take trips.

Let’s look at some pictures of plantations.

Here’s some more pictures of plantations.

What did it look like inside a plantation home?

What did the women and girls wear during the 1800s?

What did men and boys wear during the 1800s?

What was it like to go to school in the 1800s? If you were lucky enough to live on a plantation and have wealthy parents, you were lucky to go to school. Your classroom would be a house with one room. Most of the time the school took place in the church. You would have classmates of all ages and grades in your same class. There was only 1 teacher for everyone.

A One-Room Schoolhouse

Fun in Charleston If you lived in Charleston or lived near Charleston and your parents were wealthy you would get to travel there for fun. Adults would go to Charleston to have parties with dancing and all kinds of food.

Fun in Charleston

King Cotton In the 1800s, cotton was the fastest growing crop. It became known as the “king” of all crops. It was able to grow just about anywhere and it was a very durable plant.

Cotton Plantations

A Cotton Plant’s Life Cycle

Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin Eli Whitney was born in Westboro, Massachusetts in He invented the cotton gin in The cotton gin was a machine used to separate the cotton from the seeds. He was the pioneer inventor for improving how we farmed cotton. He died in 1825.

How do we process cotton today? We use a cotton picker. This is a special machine that goes along each row and “picks” the cotton.

Step 2: Put the cotton into a pile. Once the cotton has been picked, it is then place into another machine. This machine will create a cotton module.

Step 3: Cotton Modules Cotton modules allow the cotton to stay together and it makes it easier to haul to the cotton gin or textile mill.

Step 4: Cotton Gin Once the cotton is at the cotton gin, it gets ready to be shipped to a textile mill.

Step 5: Textile Mill Once at the textile mill, the cotton is put into a machine that will spin it into yarn. This is used to create many different products.

Step 6: Products are sent to the stores and you buy them.