At the turn of the twentieth century, the prevailing theory of naval combat was that battles would continue to be fought at relatively close range using many small, fast-firing guns.

This paradigm was soon to be subverted, as American naval theorists proposed that a ship mounting a homogeneous battery of large guns would be more effective in battle.

A solution was found in an ambitious design drawn up by Rear Admiral Washington L. Capps, the chief of the navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair; it traded speed for heavy armament and relatively thick armor, both of which were favored by naval theorists of the time.

With their superfiring main armament, press accounts billed South Carolina and Michigan, along with the British HMS Dreadnought, as heralding a new epoch in warship design.

In 1901, the US Navy's battleship designs reflected the prevailing theory of naval combat: battles would begin at long distances before closing the range for knockout blows.

This paper provoked enough thought that Proceedings published comments on the story from Captain William M. Folger, Professor P. R. Alger, and naval constructor David W. Taylor—the latter an up-and-coming officer and future head of the Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R).

"[2] The suggestion leading directly to the South Carolina class came from Homer Poundstone, a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, who became the principal proponent of an American all-big-gun design.

In a December 1902 paper written for President Theodore Roosevelt, he argued for greatly increasing the size of current battleships, although he also supported retaining mixed main batteries.

[3][C] However, by the March and June 1903 editions of Proceedings, Poundstone began advocating for an all-big-gun arrangement, featuring twelve 11-inch (279 mm) guns mounted on a 19,330 long tons (19,640 t) ship.

In October of the same year, the Italian naval architect Vittorio Cuniberti presented a similar idea in an article for Jane's Fighting Ships entitled "An Ideal Battleship for the British Navy".

Speed calculations were also performed which demonstrated that even a 3 kn (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph) advantage over an enemy fleet would be inconsequential in the final outcome of almost all naval battles because the slower ships could stay within range by turning on a tighter radius.

In mid-to-late 1904, Poundstone continued to lobby the General Board while C&R protested that the final determinant in a naval battle would be the light guns—and in any case such a large uniform battery was not feasible.

With support from Lieutenant Commander William Sims, who was able to cite the increasingly accurate long-gunnery of the Navy, and interest shown in the project by President Roosevelt, the bureaucratic stalling ended.

[9] On 3 March 1905, Congress passed a bill that authorized the Navy to construct two new battleships to be named after the states of South Carolina and Michigan.

The maximum tonnage limit was set at 16,000 long tons, the same weight as the mixed-battery Connecticut class of two years prior, in an attempt to stem the rising displacement—and accompanying costs—of the Navy's new capital ships.

Some, including retired Admiral of the Navy George Dewey, thought the limit should have been set at the minimum standard of foreign battleships, or around 18,000 long tons (18,000 t).

She introduced a superfiring main battery, a design economy which gave her a better-protected broadside equal to that of her British contemporary on about 3000 tons less displacement.

The Constructor of the Navy, Rear Admiral Washington L. Capps, devised an ambitious design that packed powerful armament and thick armor onto the small hull.

[12][E] As the additional main battery turrets with their associated magazines used a great amount of space within each already-limited ship, Capps was forced to economize in other ways to stay within the tonnage limit.

[20] Armor on the South Carolina class was described by naval author Siegfried Breyer as "remarkably progressive", despite deficiencies in horizontal and underwater protection.

The accompanying ceremony took place just after noon and was attended by many notable residents of the state of South Carolina, including Governor Martin Frederick Ansel.

[30] South Carolina's trials were conducted off the Delaware Capes beginning on 24 August 1909, and its standardization runs were slightly faster than Michigan's.

On 2 November, as part of the Second Battleship Division, the ships left the Boston Navy Yard for a training voyage to Europe, where they visited the Isle of Portland in the United Kingdom and Cherbourg in France.

The ship visited Copenhagen (Denmark), Stockholm (Sweden), Kronstadt (Russia), and Kiel (Germany)—the last during Kieler Woche, a large sailing event—before returning in July 1911.

After a three-month overhaul in Norfolk, South Carolina joined Michigan on a cruise to Pensacola, New Orleans, Galveston, and Veracruz in Mexico, as part of the Special Service Squadron.

Both ships continued their previous service of visiting east coast ports before unrest in Mexico and the Caribbean caused the American government to order them away.

South Carolina was refitted in Philadelphia between 14 October and 20 February 1915, and both ships were kept on neutrality patrols on the American side of the Atlantic, even after the US entered the war on 6 April 1917.