SC People - Business Leaders

John Gary Anderson

(1861-1937) John Gary Anderson founded the Anderson Motor Company which made automobiles from 1916 to 1926. Fewer than a dozen Anderson automobiles still survive.

Mercer Silas Bailey

(1841-1926) M.S. Bailey was a successful businessman in Clinton, who owned two cotton mills and was active in banking and other local businesses.

(1874-1969) Born in Sumter, SC, Charlotta Bass was a newspaper publisher in Los Angeles, California, and the first African-American woman on a Presidential campaign ticket in a United States presidential election.

Franklin G. Burroughs

(1834-1897) Franklin G. Burroughs was a successful business leader in Horry County who dreamed of the Myrtle Beach area as a coastal resort.

David Robert Coker

(1870-1938) David Robert Coker was a Hartsville businessman and philanthropist who founded the “Coker’s Pedigreed Seed Catalogue” in 1914.

William Gregg

(1800-1867) William Gregg was the founder of the Graniteville Company, an early cotton mill in Aiken County.

Joseph Lane Kirkland

(1922-1999) Joseph Lane Kirkland was a labor union leader who served as president of the AFL-CIO from 1979 to 1995.

Edwin G. Seibels

(1866–1954) Edwin Seibels was a businessman from Edgefield who invented a vertical filing system that revolutionized record-keeping.

James C. Self

(1876-1955) James C. Self owned several textile mills in Greenwood, SC.

Elliott White Springs

(1896-1959) Elliot White Springs owned Springs Cotton Mills, a very profitable textile mill company in the upcountry.