The South Carolina State Museum, located in Columbia, South Carolina, is the largest museum in the Southeastern United States. Positioned on an old shipping canal on the Congaree River that dates back to pre-Civil War times, the museum is widely recognized throughout South Carolina as an icon of Southern heritage and unity. The museum is housed in what was once a booming textile mill. On certain levels of the museum, the original flooring has been kept intact, distinguisable by hundreds of textile brads and staples that became embedded in the floor while it was still being used as a mill. The museum is notable for its larger-than-life recreation of a Great White Shark suspended mid-air on the second floor just around a corner, which has scared countless groups of young children.

The State Museum has been the subject of controversy among South Carolinians on several occasions, usually as a result of what some see as superfluous allocation of public funds. One such controversial endeavor on the grounds of the State Museum, a hands-on children's museum named EdVenture after a statewide program to promote active education in young children, opened to the public in 2003.