A 1980 census reports that rural residents constituted 46 percent of South Carolinians, while they represented only 27 percent of the population of the nation as a whole. However, the rural population of South Carolina grew at about only one-third the rate of the remainder of the state between 1950 and 1980.
This would account for the impression that the novel's town of Colleton seems to change little over the course of Tom's life.
Tom's father, a lifelong shrimper, has a profession shared by many South Carolinians. In 1982 the commercial seafood industry in South Carolina earned over $24 million, and shellfish accounted for about three-fourths of this total. The shellfish industry, however, is not merely a product of modem times. Both Native Americans and early European settlers used oysters and shrimp as food staples. During the 1930s, the industry exploded with shrimping fleets, docks, and icehouses popping up across South Carolina's Sea Islands. Today shrimping represents one-half the value of South Carolina's seafood catch. While modern shrimpers still rely on oldfashioned instinct and experience, they now also employ such technologically advanced equipment as radar and electronic navigators. Other advances in the shrimping industry involve aquaculture, or the farming of sea creatures.
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