Peddlers, Merchants, and Manufacturers: How Jewish Entrepreneurs Built Economy and Community in Upcountry South Carolina - Hardcover

by Diane Catherine Vecchio (Author)

A new perspective on Jewish history in the South

Diane Catherine Vecchio examines the diverse economic experiences of Jews who settled in Upcountry (now called Upstate) South Carolina. Like other parts of the so-called New South, the Upcountry was a center of textile manufacturing and new business opportunities that drew entrepreneurial energy to the region. Working with a rich set of oral histories, memoirs, and traditional historical documents, Vecchio provides an important corrective to the history of manufacturing in South Carolina. She explores Jewish community development and describes how Jewish business leaders also became civic leaders and affected social, political, and cultural life. The Jewish community's impact on all facets of life across the Upcountry is vital to understanding the growth of today's Spartanburg-Greenville corridor.

Author Biography

Diane Catherine Vecchio is professor emerita of history, Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina. She is author of Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women: Italian Migrants in Urban America. She is also a contributor to Recovering the Piedmont Past (Vols. 1 and 2), Doing Business in America, and Southern Jewish History, as well as the author of many articles on Italian and Jewish immigrants.