SC Governors – John Gardiner Richards – 1927-1931

Biographical Overview

• Born: September 11, 1864 in Liberty Hill (Kershaw County)
  
• Died: October 9, 1941
• Buried: Liberty Hill, South Carolina
  
• Religion: Presbyterian
• Political Party: Democrat
  

Education

• Bingham Military Institute, North Carolina
  

Occupations

• Lieutenant Colonel, South Carolina Militia
• Farmer

Major Events and Accomplishments, 1927-1931

• 1926 – Governor Richards was the first governor to be elected under the amendment to the state constitution that set the length of the gubernatorial term to four years
  

• 1927-1931 – Enforcement of the state's blue laws was one of Governor Richards' primary concerns
  

• April 19, 1927 – An attempt to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools was defeated in the South Carolina House of Representatives
  

• November 6, 1928 – Mary Gordon Ellis of Jasper County, the first woman to win a seat in the General Assembly, was elected to the South Carolina Senate
  

• 1929 – A special committee appointed by the General Assembly to investigate unrest and strikes in the state's textile industry concluded that textile workers had been mistreated by management
  

• May 14, 1929 – Fort Motte native Julia Peterkin won the Pulitzer Prize for Scarlet Sister Mary
  

• October 24, 1929 – The US stock market crashed
  

• Already suffering under an agricultural depression, South Carolina's agricultural industry was hid harder by the Great Depression than any other sector of the state economy
  

• May 9, 1930 – WCSC in Charleston, the state's first radio station, went on the air
  

Other Government Positions

• South Carolina House of Representatives, 1898-1910
  
• South Carolina Railroad Commissioner, 1910-1918, 1922-1926
  

Web Resources

• Biographical overview
• Listing of records available at SC Archives and History Center
  

Election Results