OCCUPATIONS. 5G1 



Although South Carolina has taken no prominent part in the move- 

 ment for the emancipation of the female sex, it is notable that here the 

 proportion of women who enjo}^ the privilege of earning their livelihood 

 in respectable occupations, is more than double that of the country at 

 large. In thus leading in one of the great movements of modern civili- 

 zation, which seeks more and more to make women bread-winners, the 

 State is largely indebted to favorable conditions afforded by its climate. 

 For while the percentage of females engaged in the occupations embraced 

 under trade, transportation and manufactures, occupations pursued 

 under shelter, and in a large measure independent of climatic influences, 

 is almost identical in South Carolina and in the United States, the state 

 of the case is altogether different as regards out of doors occupations, 

 such as agriculture. From the above table it appears that in the tem- 

 perate climate of South Carolina twenty-nine women are capable of per- 

 forming field work, where under the rigors and vicissitudes of the climate 

 to which the population of the country at large is exposed, only eight 

 women are found able to engage in this employment. The crops culti- 

 vated also favor this. Nowhere is female labor more remuneratively 

 employed than in picking cotton, and of the four and one-half millions 

 of dollars annually disbursed as wages in the State in this employment, 

 the larger proportion goes to females. The seeding and hand culture of 

 the crop is also light, but nice work, and employs many women. Since 

 the reverses of fortune following the late w^ar, many delicately reared, 

 and once wealthy ladies, have found themselves able to assist in this re- 

 munerative labor. This state of things is alone sufficient to explain the 

 greater healthfulness and vigor of Southern women, as indicated by the 

 more rapid increase of the Southern populations. Comparing the white 

 population North and South, in this regard, J. Stahl Patterson, (Fop. sci., 

 Vol. XIX, p. 671,) makes the ratio of increase per decade of the Northern 

 whites to be 15.7 per cent., and for the Southern whites, 30.4, or nearly 

 double. 



As regards nativity, it will be observed that while the country at large 

 owes one-fifth of its working population to foreign nations, South Caro- 

 lina is indebted for only nine-tenths of one per cent, of her workers to 

 such assistance from abroad. Comparatively few of the foreign born 

 population engage in agriculture, the leading pursuit in South Carolina. 

 They are chiefly miners, traders, and dealers, and domestic servants, oc- 

 cupations, hitherto, hot largely represented in South Carolina, but which 

 are daily acquiring more importance, and becoming more remunerative 

 here. (See Table E.) 



