The profitability of cotton tied the state closer to the institution of slavery; encouraging planters to invest in more land and enslaved laborers to the detriment of economic diversification.

Like many other states, the defense contracts that came with World War II and the New Deal construction policies during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration aided South Carolina's industrialization efforts.

South Carolinian settlers exported rice and naval stores to Great Britain, traded with Native American tribes for deer skins and enslaved people, and continued their commerce with the West Indies.

[16] According to historian Peter A. Coclanis, the study of the southern economy was revolutionized in the 1960s by Eugene Genovese who "went against the grain... that the South was ruled by a class dominated by large scale planters whose worldview was informed by the relationship between master and slave rather than by capitalist logic.

[21][22] In 1822, following the purported Denmark Vesey led slave rebellion, and what South Carolinians perceived to be a rising abolitionist sentiment in the North, attitudes toward slavery began to change.

[31] South Carolina's form of republicanism ideology termed "country-republicanism" by historian Lacy K. Ford Jr. effected how people in the state thought about commerce and the economy.

[33] Furthermore, it made the concept of diligent work bringing about economic mobility incompatible with the distinction between the enslaved labor of black people and the aristocratic rule of the white planters.

The fine, long-staple cotton which was only capable of being grown in South Carolina became the area's dominant crop for a century and further tied the region to slavery.

[44][45] From 1800 to 1820 a series of agricultural insights such as moving planting from highland to lowland fields and the reclamation of suitable salt marches increased the quality and quantity of the crop.

[53][52] The prosperity from 1816 to 1819 with its low interest rates and high inflation encouraged upstate citizens to move investments from the textile manufacturing industry back into cotton which resulted in an economy that in 1819 was "almost entirely based on agriculture" according to historian William Freehling.

[59] As more profit than ever was made from cotton and its cultivation depleted the state's soil,[60] the movement to diversify the economy came to a standstill and the price for enslaved laborers almost tripled.

[65] Toward the latter part of the antebellum period, merchants in the southwestern portion of the state began advocating for and receiving significant concessions from the general assembly such as the incorporation of towns, tax breaks to encourage development, and infrastructure to connect markets.

[67] According to historians Jack Bass and W. Scott Poole, before the Panic of 1819 "dealt South Carolina a blow from which it never recovered" Charleston had trailed only New York in the value of its imports.

[73][j] In 1818, the state created the Board of Internal Improvements and allocated $1 million for the construction of a series of roads and canals connecting towns in the upcountry to Charleston through the fall line.

[98] For the most part, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the state's political leaders, such as John C. Calhoun and Langdon Cheves, believed that enslaved labor was more profitable when used to cultivate cotton rather than when used to weave it.

Just like the other states in the Confederacy, South Carolina was plagued with financial problems ranging from an inability to sell cotton to Britain, depreciated currency, and food shortages (famously resulting in a bread riot in Columbia).

In 1865, not long after the war's end, John Richard Dennett traveled through South Carolina writing a series of articles for The Nation describing the state's condition.

[133][l] South Carolina's industrial base and the per capita income of its citizens expanded significantly in the 1950s as capital and managerial talent migrated to the state, particularly to the Piedmont region.

[134] Due in large part to U.S. Representative Mendal Rivers who helped secure a new coast guard district in Charleston and the construction of a twelve-billion-dollar navy hospital in Beaufort, the post-war military reductions were smaller in South Carolina than most other states in the country.

The University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business estimated that in 2017 the eight military installations in the state had a combined total economic impact of $24.1 billion.

[145] As manufacturing, travel services, and real estate became South Carolina's strongest private sectors, new residents were attracted to the state reversing a 150-year-old trend of population loss due to emigration.

[148][149] The largest industry in the state, tourism, greatly influences the real estate and finance sectors and is located almost entirely on South Carolina's coast.

[159][160] The University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business estimated that the SCPA's annual economic impact in the state was close to $63.4 billion in 2018.

[167] The state's nationally renowned technical schools program created by Governor Fritz Hollings in the 1960s provided a skilled labor force and transportation needs were well-covered due to the Port of Charleston.

[173][m] In the early 1990s, citing the Upstate's access to Charlotte and Atlanta due to the interstate, as well as the state's nationally renowned technical school program, BMW announced it would open its first manufacturing plant outside of Germany in an area of land between Greenville and Spartanburg.

[182] In 2018, South Carolina exported $3.7 billion worth of products to Germany and German companies accounted for one-third of all foreign investments made in the state.

[185] A 2014 economic impact study conducted by the University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business found that since Boeing's arrival the aerospace manufacturing cluster within the state has generated almost the same amount of jobs per year as the BMW plant did in the upstate from 1990 to 2007.

Better roads led to more development in the northern parts of the coastline while a litany of travel periodicals idealized the South making the area more appealing to outsiders.

[198] The Gullah/Geechee Heritage Corridor was established in 2006 to help preserve the cultures unique to the lowcountry of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida that was being erased due to the expansion of tourism development.

[233] Moreover, the federal government provided $25 million in funding to aid the construction of a proposed rail line which will transport vehicles from Volvo's plant to inland distribution points.