Editing Reconstruction era (section)

===The Southern country store===
{{Further|Rural American history#Southern country store}}

Outside the South, there were plenty of small towns where merchants and storekeepers could prosper. In the antebellum South there was no counterpart. The Civil War had devastated the rural South, as cotton prices fell and the vast sums invested in slaves disappeared overnight.<ref>David B. Danbom, ''Born in the Country: A History of Rural America'' (2017) pp. 99–120.</ref> Before the Civil War plantation owners handled the cotton or tobacco matters and met consumer needs of their family and slaves. The dealt directly with wholesalers (called "factors") in far-off cities such as Baltimore, Louisville, and St Louis. In poor white areas there were occasional merchants before 1865. When slavery was abolished the rural South urgently needed merchants. Ambitious men suddenly appeared after 1865 and played a leading role in refashioning the economic and social fabric of the South. These merchants served as crucial intermediaries between rural communities and larger markets. Many if not most were Jewish peddlers and merchants; some had been in the South for decades and others were newly arrived from the North. They had a good rapport with their Black customers.<ref>John Dollard, ''Caste and Class in a Southern Town'' (1949) pp. 4, 128-130.</ref><ref>Hasia R. Diner,  ''A time for gathering : the second migration, 1820-1880'' (1992) pp.60-85. [https://archive.org/details/timeforgathering0000dine online]</ref><ref>Diane C. Vecchio,  "Making their way in the New South: Jewish peddlers and merchants in the South Carolina Up-Country." ''South Carolina Historical Magazine'' 113#2, (2012), pp. 100–24. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/41698099 online]</ref>

Merchants used the newly built railroads to link the rural cotton or tobacco economy to the national economy. They worked with wholesalers in the handful of Southern cities to bring in northern consumer products. Legally they depended on new state laws creating the "[[crop lien system]]". The merchant legally owned the entire commercial crop (usually cotton) from planting to harvest. He sold supplies on credit. When the crop was harvested the farmer brought it all to the merchant who then sold it, paid what the farmer owed the owner of the land, cleared the farmer's debt to the store, and returned the surplus if any. By providing credit to the poor white and black farmers, they exerted more influence every week than the white land owners.<ref>Thomas D. Clark, "The Furnishing and Supply System in Southern Agriculture since 1865," ''Journal of Southern History'' 12#1 (1946), pp. 24-44 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2197729 online]</ref>

The role of the country store extended beyond simple trade. It was a [[general store]] that provided a wide range of goods—pills, petticoats and plows and a hundred other items. The local federal post office was inside and there were benches outside for the bystanders. The farmers produced most of their own food, but they did buy necessities. In one Florida store with a largely Black clientele, the items most often purchased were corn, salt pork, sugar, lard, coffee, syrup, rice, flour, cloth, shoes, shotguns, shells, and patent medicines.   Everything had a price except the one item in greatest demand: gossip was free.<ref>Clifton L. Paisley,  "Van Brunt's Store, Iamonia, Florida, 1902-1911." ''Florida Historical Quarterly'' 48.4 (1969): 3+ [https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3160&context=fhq online]</ref>

Merchants took food and meat in trade and resold it. These merchants were not just shopkeepers but also acted as bankers and brokers, extending credit to poor farmers and hand pressed landowners. The customers needed supplies every week, but had an income only at the end of the harvest season. The merchants gave them credit in terms of the expected size of their cotton or tobacco crops. Sharecroppers had to give half or more of the crop to the landowner. The rest at harvest time went to the merchant who would sell advantageously, and close the credit accounts. Merchants were thus the liaison between rural areas and the few cities in the postwar South. They handled the flow of goods, information, and credit. Merchants depended on credit from urban wholesalers, and like the sharecroppers they paid off their own debts with proceeds from the cotton or tobacco harvests.<ref>The best source is Thomas C. Clark, ''Pills Petticoats and Plows: The Southern Country Store'' (1944) [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.156316/page/n1/mode/1up online]</ref><ref>Jacqueline P. Bull, "The General Merchant in the Economic History of the New South." ''Journal of Southern History'' 18.1 (1952): 37-59. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2954791 in JSTOR]</ref><ref>Lacy K.  Ford, "Rednecks and Merchants: Economic Development and Social Tensions in the South Carolina Upcountry, 1865-1900." ''Journal of American History''  71#2 (1984), pp. 294–318. [https://doi.org/10.2307/1901757 online]</ref>

In the paternalistic mill villages that opened in the South in the late 19th century, the textile mills provided jobs for all family members, rented them cheap housing and paid then −in script they used to buy food and supplies in company stores. Independent merchants were few.<ref>Holland Thompson, "Life in a Southern Mill Town." ''Political Science Quarterly'' 15.1 (1900): 1-13. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2140703.pdf online]</ref><ref>Dale Newman, "Work and community life in a southern textile town." ''Labor History'' 19.2 (1978): 204-225. https://doi.org/10.1080/00236567808584489</ref>