The 'Hoover Scare' in South Carolina, 1887: An Attempt to Organize Black Farm Labor

Abstract

Thirty years ago, economists Herbert Gutman pointed out that without "detailed knowledge of the local world inhabited by white and Negro workers" in the late 19th century South, economists cannot fully understand the early days of organized labor in the South. A close study of the short-lived Cooperative Workers of America (CWA) in several upstate South Carolina counties in 1887 reveals in some detail how racial antagonisms and fears affected the organization and downfall of a labor organization in the region. The CWA might have succeeded: in South Carolina it drew upon earlier models of organizing by black laborers and tapped into a pool of local leadership. Yet, the CWA failed, due partly to inopportune timing. It arose as the Knights of Labor began to decline in the South and just before the Farmers' Alliance, a movement ambivalent if not hostile to black agricultural wage laborers, began its swift ascent in South Carolina. Despite its brief tenure and lack of tangible accomplishments, the CWA and the way in which it was squelched had some immediate effects and provided an early demonstration of the efficacy of force as a response to black or biracial labor organizations in this part of the South.