Following a long sociological tradition examining the intersection between social institutions and race, we analyze how South Carolina’s historical state legislation constructed and used racial categories during a period of considerable social upheaval. We identify over 500 statutes between 1850 and 1920 pertaining to Black-White relations, examine the usage of racial labels in these statutes—their content, frequency, and context—and assess how labeling practices responded to changes in state-level power dynamics, demographics, and economic structures. We find that changes in labeling schemes evolved in response to an increasingly complex division of labor in a way that reflects legislators’ efforts to shape race relations in their own interests. Rather than racial classifications eroding, they became more general and flexible over this period, preserving a White-other boundary.
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