(David Mark, via Pixabay [CC0 1.0])

Crossroads: Change in Rural America is a traveling Smithsonian exhibit that offers small towns a chance to look at their own paths and to highlight the changes that affected their fortunes over the past century. Sponsored by SC Humanities in partnership with local communities, Crossroads: Change in Rural America will tour South Carolina in 2018 – 2019, visiting six communities: Union, Denmark, Newberry, Hopkins, Barnwell, and Dillon. Each host community will host the exhibit for six weeks and will present collateral programming from local exhibits to oral histories to movie screenings.

In 1900, about 40% of Americans lived in rural areas. By 2010, less than 18% of the U.S. population lived in rural areas. Yet, only 10% of the U.S. landmass is considered urban. Despite the massive economic and demographic impacts brought on by these changes, America’s small towns continue to creatively focus on new opportunities for growth and development. Economic innovation and a focus on the cultural facets that make small towns unique, comfortable, and desirable have helped many communities create their own renaissance.

Walter Edgar explores the history, present challenges, and possible futures of rural South Carolina with guests T.J. Wallace, Assistant Director of SC Humanities; Crossroads’ statewide scholar Dr. Ken Robinson and a professor of Sociology at Clemson University; and Marie Adams, Co-Director of the Harriet Barber Historic House in Hopkins, SC.

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