Atlanta History

A Journal of Georgia and the South

Auburn Avenue

Sweet Auburn

Harrison Berry

1816-ca. 1882

Elias Boudinot

ca. 1804-1839

Brims

d. 1733

John Brown

ca. 1810-1876

Civil War

Atlanta Home Front

John Clark

1766-1832

William and Ellen Craft

1824-1900; 1826-1891

Kate Cumming

ca. 1830-1909

Austin Dabney

ca. 1765-1830

David Emanuel

ca. 1744-1808

William Ewen

ca. 1720-1776/1777

George Galphin

ca. 1700-1780

Lyman Hall

1724-1790

Nancy Hart

ca. 1735-1830

Jesse Hill

1927-2012

Hopkins Holsey

ca. 1799-1859

John Houstoun

ca. 1747-1796

Joel Hurt

1850-1926

Noble W. Jones

ca. 1723-1805

C. B. King

1923-1988

W. W. Law

1923-2002

Malatchi

ca. 1720-1756

John Martin

ca. 1730-1786

Benjamin Mays

ca. 1894-1984

Charles McCartney

"Goat Man," 1901-1998

William McIntosh

ca. 1778-1825

Mary Musgrove

ca. 1700-ca. 1763

Samuel Nunes

ca. 1667-ca. 1741

John Reynolds

ca. 1713-1788

Major Ridge

ca. 1771-1839

John Ross

1790-1866

Sequoyah

ca. 1770-ca. 1840

Henry Tift

1841-1922

Tomochichi

ca. 1644-1739

Peter Tondee

ca. 1723-1775

George Walton

ca. 1749-1804

John Wereat

ca. 1733-1799

Updated Recently

A More Perfect Union

The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

A black and white drawing of the Chattahoochee Brick Company site, with a caption reading, "Works at Chattahoochee Brick Company on Southern Railway. Capacity 200,000 per day."

Chattahoochee Brick Company

The Chattahoochee Brick Company was among the largest and most notorious employers of convict labor in Georgia. Under the terms of the convict lease system, Chattahoochee Brick forced thousands of Black Georgians to labor under conditions that have been described as industrial slavery.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Thomas Ruger

Thomas Ruger

Thomas Ruger, a Union officer, was appointed military provisional governor of Georgia in 1868, during Reconstruction. During his six-month tenure, Ruger instituted the state's convict lease system.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

First National Bank Building

First National Bank Building

Formed as the result of several mergers, First National Bank of Atlanta (or First Atlanta) was the largest U.S. bank south of Philadelphia in 1929. The First National Bank Building served as First Atlanta's headquarters.

Courtesy of Wachovia Corporation

Hoke Smith

Hoke Smith

Hoke Smith poses for a portrait in 1912, the year after his second term as Georgia's governor had ended. Smith served as governor first from 1907 to 1909 and then again in 1911, until he was selected to fill the empty U.S. Senate seat of Joseph M. Terrell. He remained in this seat until 1921.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

John C. Inscoe

John C. Inscoe is University Professor Emeritus and the Albert B. Saye Professor of History, Emeritus, in the Department of History at the University of Georgia. He has authored several books on Appalachian and southern history and is the founding editor of the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

From the Department of History at the University of Georgia

Movie-Made Appalachia

Movie-Made Appalachia

John C. Inscoe, Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, taught popular courses including American Lives, Multicultural Georgia, and Appalachia on Film. Those courses later influenced his scholarly works, including Movie-Made Appalachia: History, Hollywood, and the Highland South (2020).

Southern Comfort Pin

Southern Comfort Pin

The Southern Comfort Conference was one of the most well-known transgender conferences in the United States. Originally held in Atlanta, it created a space where members of the transgender community could gather, learn about medical resources, and organize politically.

From the Digital Transgender Archive, Joseph A Labadie Collection, University of Michigan.

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Southern Conference

Southern Comfort

The 2001 documentary Southern Comfort brought unprecedented attention and visibility to the Southern Comfort Conference. Directed by Kate Davis, the film follows the final months of long-time conference regular Robert Eads, a Georgian transgender man dying of ovarian cancer.

Sharecroppers, Greene County

Sharecroppers, Greene County

Cotton sharecroppers in Greene County, 1937. The sociologist Arthur F. Raper studied the county in the 1930s and found that soil depletion, low cotton prices, and boll weevil attacks were causing a massive outmigration of farmers.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photograph by Dorothea Lange, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34-T01-017335-C.

Robert S. Abbott

Robert S. Abbott

Robert S. Abbott, a Georgia native, was a prominent journalist who founded the Chicago Defender in 1905. He is pictured (second row, fifth from right) in June 1918 at a meeting of Black leaders in Washington, D.C. Prominent historian and educator W. E. B. Du Bois stands in the first row, fourth from the right.

Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

Chicago Migrants

Over the course six decades, roughly 6 million Black southerners moved from the South to the North, Midwest, and West. Driven by the availability of jobs outside the South, as well as the desire to escape racial violence within it, migrants moved primarily from rural, agricultural areas like Georgia’s Black Belt to cities such as Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

From The New York Public Library, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot, by the Chicago Commission on Race Relations.

Housing in Chicago’s Black Belt

Black southerners left rural, agricultural areas like Georgia’s Black Belt for cities such as Detroit, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Migrants found their new settings to be an improvement but also full of obstacles. White flight and discriminatory housing policies funneled African Americans into poorer neighborhoods and public housing complexes.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives.

Black and white photograph of Leonard Matlovich receiving a Bronze Star in Vietnam.

Leonard Matlovich

Leonard Matlovich received a Bronze Star in 1966 for his service in the Vietnam War. Born in Savannah, he was one of the earliest activists to challenge the status of gays and lesbians in the U.S. military.

Courtesy of Hormel LGBTQIA Center, San Francisco Public Library, Cliff Anchor Papers (GLC 49), #GLC-0013.

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Rally Before the Augusta Riot

Rally Before the Augusta Riot

On May 11, 1970 protestors massed outside an Augusta municipal building to protest the killing of Charles Oatman, a developmentally disabled Black teenager, in the Richmond County Jail. In 2021 the Department of Justice, through its Cold Case initiative, reopened its investigation into the deaths of Oatman and six other Black Augustans killed in the ensuing protests.

From Reese Library Augusta University

Protestors set a laundromat on fire at during the Augusta Riot

Augusta Riot

On May 11, 1970 thousands of Black Augustans participated in a major uprising against police violence. Known thereafter as the Augusta Riot, the event resulted in $1 million in property damage and was the largest Black rebellion in the civil rights South.

From the Augusta Chronicle

National Student Moratorium

National Student Moratorium Poster

On May 5, 1971 students held a national moratorium to remember the deaths of protestors at Kent State University, Jackson State University, and in Augusta the previous spring. In the years that followed, Kent State remained a national touchstone for repressive violence, while Black rebellions in Augusta, Jackson, and elsewhere receded from national memory.

From the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam

Joshua Hill House

Joshua Hill House

The Joshua Hill House, one of the many antebellum homes in Madison, was built around 1840 for U.S. congressman Joshua Hill, who may have convinced Union general William T. Sherman to spare the town during his March to the Sea. Today it is part of the Madison Historic District.

The Negro Motorist Green-Book, 1940 edition

The Negro Motorist Green-Book

The Negro Motorist Green-Book, also known as the Negro Traveller's Green-Book, was an essential guide for Black travelers between 1936 and 1966. This yearly publication, created by postal employee Victor Hugo Green, helped readers avoid sundown towns and locate safe lodging, gas stops, and eateries.

From Wikimedia

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Ku Klux Klan Cartoon

Ku Klux Klan Cartoon

Most Ku Klux Klan action was designed to intimidate Black voters and white supporters of the Republican Party. Founded in Tennessee in 1866, the Klan was particularly active in Georgia from 1868 to the early 1870s.

From Harper's Weekly

Brotherhood March, 1987

Brotherhood March

White supremacists picketing at the first Brotherhood March on January 17, 1987, in Forsyth County.

Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive, #AJCNS1987-01-17l.

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Webster County Jail

Webster County Jail

Prior to her execution, Susan Eberhart was held in the old Webster County jail, shown here in 2019. Built in 1856, the jail is among the oldest wooden jails in Georgia.

Courtesy of Fay S. Burnett

Susan Eberhart

Susan Eberhart

In 1873 twenty-year-old Susan Eberhart was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging in Preston. Eberhart's highly publicized execution had a significant influence on the administration of capital punishment in Georgia.

From The Atlanta Daily Sun

Susan Eberhart's Headstone

Susan Eberhart’s Headstone

In 1873 Susan Eberhart was executed for the murder of Sarah Spann despite objections from a sympathetic public. Her gravestone, seen here in 2019, sits in Preston Cemetery in Webster County.

Courtesy of Fay S. Burnett

Adella Hunt Logan

Adella Hunt Logan

Educator and suffragist Adella Hunt Logan received an honorary master's degree from Atlanta University in 1901. The degree was "honorary" because the school was not yet accredited to grant graduate degrees.

From Adele Logan Alexander's personal collection

Adella Hunt Logan

Adella Hunt Logan

Adella Hunt Logan is pictured in her wedding dress in Atlanta. She married Tuskegee Institute treasurer Warren Logan in 1888.

From Wikimedia

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Adella Hunt Logan

After accepting a teaching position at the Tuskegee Institute in 1883, Adella Hunt Logan forged enduring relationships with fellow educators and civil rights leaders. Among her new acquaintances was NAACP cofounder W. E. B. Du Bois, with whom she shared a lifelong correspondence.

Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

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Warren Logan and Booker T. Washington

Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington and school treasurer Warren Logan are featured in the Lincoln Jubilee Album, shortly after Washington's death in 1915.

Image from Wikimedia, Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection.

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Brotherhood March

Organized by civil rights activists Dean Carter, Charles Blackburn, and Hosea Williams, the Brotherhood March brought nationwide attention to Forsyth County's long history of racial violence and discrimination.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Southline Press, Inc. Photographs, #VIS 158.18.05.

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Forsyth County Protest

Forsyth County Protest

Marchers demonstrate for fair housing in Forsyth County in 1987. The march, led by Hosea Williams, ended in a confrontation with Ku Klux Klansmen throwing rocks and bottles at the demonstrators. The incident brought national attention to Forsyth County and resulted in the indictment of two Klan organizations.

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams led two demonstration marches in Forsyth County in 1987. The first march, held in celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, was attacked by several hundred members of the Ku Klux Klan. The second march, attended by Coretta Scott King, was held in protest of Klan activities in the county.

Slave Hold

Slave Hold

Africans captured to be sold into slavery crossed the Atlantic Ocean lying pressed together in crowded ships' holds. The city of Savannah served as a major port for the Atlantic slave trade from 1750, when the Georgia colony repealed its ban on slavery, until 1798, when the state outlawed the importation of enslaved people.

From The History of Rise, Progress & Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-trade by the British Parliament, by Thomas Clarkson

Scripto Factory Employees

Scripto Factory Employees

Between 1931 and 1977, Black female employees at the Scripto factory in Atlanta organized against unfair wages and a discriminatory work environment. Their activism was a precursor to the civil rights movement.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, #LBCB095-022a.

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Scripto Inc. Pen Advertisement

Scripto Inc. Advertisement

Black women made up more than 80 percent of the workforce at Scripto's factory in Atlanta. This 1958 advertisement depicts ballpoint pens, one of the company's most popular products.

Image from James Vaughan

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Scripto Inc. Lighter

Scripto Inc. Lighter

Cigarette lighters, such as the popular Compact Vu-Lighter shown here, were one of Scripto Inc.'s defining products, along with pens and mechanical pencils.

Image from Joe Haupt

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Scripto Employee Strikes

Scripto Employee Strikes

Operation Breadbasket was created in 1962 as a branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). A minister-led program, Operation Breadbasket worked to improve economic conditions in the Black community through boycotts and organized support.

Courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Southern Christian Leadership Records.

Elizabeth Church Robb, letter to James Robb, dated June 24, 1859

Elizabeth Church Robb Letter

This letter, dated June 24, 1859, shows a correspondence between Elizabeth Craig and her soon-to-be husband, James Robb. The couple married in 1860 and relocated to Chicago before the outbreak of the Civil War.

The Historic New Orleans Collection (Williams Research Center), James Robb Collection , #MSS 265.

Camp Douglas POW Camp in Chicago, Illinois

Camp Douglas POW Camp

Camp Douglas, depicted in this etching from Harper's Weekly, served as a prisoner of war camp during the Civil War. Elizabeth Church Robb frequently visited the camp to assist Confederate prisoners—a fact that was later used to sensationalize her legacy as a Lost Cause heroine.

From Harper's Weekly, Wikimedia Commons

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Elizabeth Church Robb's headstone at Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens, Georgia.

Elizabeth Church Robb’s Headstone

Elizabeth Church Robb died in 1868 and was buried in a family plot at the Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens. Though Robb died from ovarian cancer, her obituary was embellished and reprinted to bolster Lost Cause mythology.

From the Willson Center Digital Humanities Lab, Death and Human History in Athens.

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H. Rap Brown

H. Rap Brown

H. Rap Brown, the final leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, speaks at a press conference in 1967. In 1968 he changed the name of the organization to the Student National Coordinating Committee, marking the group's new willingness to use violence as a means of self-defense.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

H. Rap Brown

H. Rap Brown

H. Rap Brown was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and an honorary officer of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s.

H. Rap Brown on page nine of the May, 1968 Atlanta Clark University's Newspaper, The Panther.

H. Rap Brown

Civil rights activist H. Rap Brown was elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1967. Brown's radical vision and aggressive rhetoric marked a shift from the nonviolent civil disobedience prescribed by Martin Luther King Jr.

SNCC Newsletter 1967

SNCC Newsletter 1967

H. Rap Brown's leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) was characterized by radical discourse, as seen in SNCC's newsletters from the late 1960s.

Image from Washington Area Spark

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Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown)

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown)

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown) is pictured in 1990 in front of his grocery store in Atlanta's West End. Al-Amin was arrested in 1999 for his involvement in the fatal shooting of a police officer and later sentenced to life in prison.

James and Robert Paschal

James and Robert Paschal

James and Robert Paschal opened Paschal Brothers Soda, a thirty-seat luncheonette at 837 West Hunter Street, in 1947. They are pictured here in 1978.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Paschal’s Restaurant

Paschal’s Restaurant

In 1967 Paschal’s underwent a major expansion with the addition of a six-story, 120-room motel. Paschal’s Motor Hotel was the first Black-owned hotel in Atlanta.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Robert Paschal

Robert Paschal

Robert Paschal prepares the restaurant's famous fried chicken, the recipe for which remains a secret to this day.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

John Lewis at Paschal’s

John Lewis at Paschal’s

Representative John Lewis speaks for Atlanta' Concerned Black Clergy at Paschal's Restaurant in 1988. The relationships that James and Robert Paschal built within the city’s Black community made Paschal’s a central meeting spot during the civil rights movement and helped earn the restaurant its reputation as Atlanta’s “Black City Hall.”

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Maynard Jackson at Paschal’s

Maynard Jackson at Paschal’s

Reverend Joseph E. Lowery (right) and mayoral candidate Maynard Jackson at a 1989 campaign event at Paschal's Motor Hotel. Paschal’s was a hotbed of political activity for Atlanta’s African American community.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Prohibition Parade Float

Prohibition Parade Float

Young women and children ride on a parade float promoting prohibition in Hawkinsville (Pulaski County), circa 1919.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
pul097a.

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Black and white photograph of WTCU parade float in Bainbridge, Georgia

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union

Women's Christian Temperance Movement (WTCU) members participate in the Decatur County centennial parade in Bainbridge, 1923. The WCTU formed its first Georgia chapter in 1880. Largely due to their efforts, Georgia passed a local option law in 1885.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
dec014.

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Black and white photograph of crowd gathered in Valdosta for 1907 prohibition vote

Prohibition Vote

A crowd gathered in front of the Lowndes County courthouse in Valdosta for a prohibition vote in 1907. That year, Georgia became the first state in the South to pass a statewide ban on the production, transportation, and sale of alcohol.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
low104.

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Black and white photograph of crowd celebrating the end of prohibition in Marietta, Georgia, 1935

End of Prohibition

A crowd in Marietta celebrates the end of prohibition. In 1935 the Georgia legislature approved the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, which called for a statewide referendum on the issue of repeal and tasked the State Revenue Commission with drafting new regulations to govern the sale and distribution of alcohol.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Depot Soldiers Support Vietnam

Depot Soldiers Support Vietnam

Soldiers at the Atlanta Army General Depot in 1967 show their support of the troops in Vietnam.

Courtesy of Garrison Public Affairs Office, Fort McPherson

Russell and Johnson

Russell and Johnson

U.S. senator Richard B. Russell Jr. (left) converses with U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. Russell, an early supporter of and mentor to Johnson, criticized the Johnson administration's escalation of the war in Vietnam during the 1960s.

Dean Rusk

Dean Rusk

Dean Rusk served as U.S. secretary of state from 1961 to 1969. During that period of service under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, he was a primary architect of U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War on the side of the South Vietnamese.

Julian Bond

Julian Bond

Pictured in 1966, Julian Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965, but the legislature refused to seat him because of his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War. In December 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the actions of the house unconstitutional, and Bond was finally sworn in on January 9, 1967.

UGA Military Building

UGA Military Building

Graffiti left by antiwar protestors marks the military building at the University of Georgia in Athens during the Vietnam War (1964-73). Student activists at UGA attempted to burn down the building five times between 1968 and 1972. The slogan "Che Lives" is a reference to Che Guevara, a leader of the socialist revolution in Cuba and an icon of the American New Left. He was captured and executed in Bolivia in 1967.

Vietnam War Protest

Vietnam War Protest

In 1970 demonstrators in downtown Atlanta protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War (1964-73). Most antiwar marches in the city, which took place from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, followed a route down Peachtree Street to Piedmont Park.

Photograph by Carter Tomassi

Calley Court-Martial

Calley Court-Martial

William Calley Jr., depicted here in an artist rendering of his 1971 court-martial, was the only U.S. soldier convincted for his role in the My Lai Massacre.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Sketch by Howard Brodie.

Max Cleland

Max Cleland

In 1968, during the Vietnam War, Max Cleland (far right) was injured in an accident, in which he lost both his legs and his right hand. He was awarded the Silver Star and the Soldier's Medal.

Black and white photograph of Eldrin Bell during a press conference about the Atlanta Youth Murders

Police Press Conference

At a press conference, Assistant Police Chief Eldrin Bell holds up a photo of one of the victims of the Atlanta youth murders. From 1979 through 1981, at least twenty-nine Atlantans between the ages of seven and twenty-seven were abducted and slain.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Black and white photograph of Techwood Homes community "Bat Patrol"

Community Bat Patrol

During the Atlanta youth murders, Techwood Homes community members formed a neighborhood "Bat Patrol." By the time city officials established a formal task force to investigate the killings, eleven young Atlantas had already been added to the list of missing and murdered.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Black and white photograph shows remains of the Gate City Day Nursery after explosion

Gate City Day Nursery

The remains of the Gate City Day Nursery after an explosion on October 29, 1980, that claimed the lives of five people, including four Black children. Though the blast was attributed to an overheated boiler, many community members and observers remained unconvinced that it was an accident.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Maynard Jackson and a Cash Reward

Maynard Jackson and a Cash Reward

From July 1979 through May 1981 the Atlanta child murders took place. With leads in the case dwindling and no arrest in sight, Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson imposed a 7:00 p.m. curfew on the city's children and offered a $10,000 reward (pictured) for information about the perpetrator of the crimes.

Black and white photograph of Wayne Williams being escorted back to jail

Wayne Williams

Atlanta youth murders suspect Wayne Williams is escorted back to Fulton County Jail after a hearing in 1981. Williams would eventually be convicted of two murders and implicated in virtually all of the others.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

1893 Hurricane

1893 Hurricane

Damaged homes along the beach after the 1893 hurricane hit Tybee. One of the deadliest hurricanes in American history, the storm was the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane on the modern-day Saffir-Simpson scale.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Elizabeth B. Pittman Collection on Nichols, Baker, and Mongin Families., #GHS 2536-01-07-11.

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1893 Hurricane

1893 Hurricane

Men along a flooded road after the 1893 hurricane hit Tybee. The storm devastated the barrier islands of Georgia and South Carolina, killing over 2,000 people and leaving more than 30,000 homeless.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Elizabeth B. Pittman Collection on Nichols, Baker, and Mongin Families., #GHS 2536-01-07-03.

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1893 Hurricane

1893 Hurricane

Damaged railroad tracks and homes on the beach after 1893 hurricane hit Tybee. Buildings, bridges, and other infrastructure were demolished up and down the Georgia and South Carolina coasts. 

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Elizabeth B. Pittman Collection on Nichols, Baker, and Mongin Families., #GHS 2536-01-07-06.

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Black and white photograph of Milledgeville State Hospital circa 1940

Milledgeville State Hospital

A sleeping ward at Milledgeville State Hospital for the Insane, circa 1940. Authorities at the hospital practiced compulsory sterilization of patients throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Following an award-winning 1959 report by Atlanta Constitution Jack Nelson, the number of operations dropped dramatically before finally ceasing in 1963.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive .

Black and white photo of Francis Galton

Francis Galton

Francis Galton was an English statistician whose theories on heredity lead him to develop the field of eugenics. During the early twentieth century, Galton's ideas gained support among scientific and medical professionals, politicians, and Progressive-era reform groups.

Image from Eveleen Myers

Georgia State Sanitarium

Georgia State Sanitarium

This tinted postcard of the Georgia State Sanitarium (later Central State Hospital) depicts the grounds of the institution circa 1905. During this time the hospital was under the leadership of Theophilus O. Powell, who implemented more precise methods of diagnosis.

Courtesy of Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Color photograph of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta.

National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR)

Located in downtown Atlanta, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR) is a museum that explores the connections between the U.S. civil rights movement and the global struggle for human rights.

Photograph by Bradley Huchteman

Color photograph of a two-story lobby in the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

NCCHR Main Lobby

The NCCHR's 42,000 square-foot facility opened in 2014 and receives approximately 200,000 visitors each year.

Photograph by Marco Correa

Color photograph of the American civil rights movement exhibit at Atlanta's National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

NCCHR Exhibit

The center's primary exhibit, "Rolls Down Like Water: The American Civil Rights Movement," incorporates historical images, oral histories, and film footage alongside interactive features.

Photograph from the National Center for Civil and Human Rights

Black and white photo of USS Savannah

USS Savannah (CL-42)

The fourth USS Savannah (CL-42) engaged in Atlantic and Meditteranean operations during World War II (1941-45), most notably Operation Torch, the allied invasion of North Africa.

Photograph by Naval History and Heritage Command

Black and white drawing of the USS Savannah

USS Savannah

The second USS Savannah completed naval operations in the Mexican and Civil Wars.  

From Old Naval Days: Sketches From the Life of Rear Admiral William Radford, U. S. N. by Sophie Radford De Meissner, Wikimedia

Black and white photo of USS Savannah (AS-8)

USS Savannah (AS-8)

The third USS Savannah (AS-8) served as a submarine tender during World War I (1917-18).

Photograph by Naval History and Heritage Command

books

books

Black and white photograph of Howard Moore Jr. seated at desk.

Howard Moore Jr.

Howard Moore Jr., a civil rights attorney from Atlanta, handled a number of precedent-setting cases in the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for serving as lead counsel on the Angela Davis trial.

Black and white photograph of Howard Moore Jr. seated at desk.

Howard Moore Jr.

Howard Moore Jr. grew up near the Auburn Avenue neighborhood in Atlanta. After attending law school in Boston, he returned to Atlanta and soon developed a reputation as the go-to defense attorney for political activists.

Courtroom sketch of Angela Davis and Howard Moore Jr.

Davis Trial Court Sketch

Howard Moore Jr., depicted here in a court-rendering alongside Angela Davis, relocated to California in 1971 to serve as lead counsel for Davis's trial. The jury found Davis not guilty in June 1972.

Photograph from Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

Court sketch of Howard Moore Jr. during the Angela Davis trial

Davis Trial Court Sketch

Noted civil rights attorney Howard Moore Jr., depicted in this courtroom sketch, speaks in defense of his client Angela Davis. Moore served as lead counsel on a number of high-profile cases.

Photograph from Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

The duel in which Button Gwinnett was killed by Lachlan McIntosh

Gwinnett McIntosh Duel

This 1777 engraving depicts the fatal duel between Button Gwinnett and Lachlan McIntosh. 

Courtesy of New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division

Button Gwinnett

Button Gwinnett

Button Gwinnett served in Georgia's colonial legislature, in the Second Continental Congress, and as president of Georgia's Revolutionary Council of Safety. He was one of three Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Lachlan McIntosh

Lachlan McIntosh

Lachlan McIntosh distinguished himself in a career that evolved over three critical eras in the state's early history, from the colonial period to the Revolutionary War to statehood.

David B. Mitchell

David B. Mitchell

David B. Mitchell served three terms as governor of Georgia early in the nineteenth century. Before his election to the governor's office, he served as mayor as Savannah. Mitchell resigned in 1817 from his third gubernatorial term to accept the post of U.S. Agent to the Creek Indians.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

Moina Michael plants Poppies on the University of Georgia campus

Moina Michael Poppies

Moina Michael plants poppies on the University of Georgia campus. As a result of her efforts, red poppies became a symbol for military sacrifice around the world.

Photograph from UGA Today

Postage Stamp Featuring Moina Michael

Moina Michael Stamp

A commemorative stamp honoring Moina Belle Michael, a Walton County native and originator of the red memorial poppy, was first issued in November 1948. After World War I, paper poppies were sold and worn on Remembrance Day (Armistice Day), held on the second Sunday in November in Britain, to fund soldier rehabilitation.

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Moina Michael Envelope and Stamps

Moina Michael Envelope and Stamps

This envelope commemorates Moina Belle Michael, longtime Georgia educator and World War I remembrance advocate.

Courtesy of Digital Library of Georgia, Athens-Clarke County Library Collection.

Moina Michael

Moina Michael

Moina Belle Michael first proposed that silk or paper red field poppies be worn as a memorial symbol for soldiers who died during World War I (1917-18). Through her advocacy, Michael earned the nickname the "Poppy Lady."

Moina Michael in Athens

Moina Michael in Athens

Born in Good Hope in Walton County, Michael had a long career as a rural schoolteacher, administrator, and college professor. She is pictured at the State Normal School in Athens, where she served as social director after World War I.

Courtesy of Digital Library of Georgia, Athens-Clarke County Library Collection.

Moina Michael with Veterans

Moina Michael with Veterans

In the years following World War I, the memorial poppy was adopted by the American Legion, its Auxiliary, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Since then, poppy sales have raised millions for veterans' groups. Here, Moina Michael meets with veterans after the release of her book, The Miracle Flower: The Story of the Flanders Field Memorial Poppy (1941). 

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection.

Cover of The Miracle Flower by Moina Michael

The Miracle Flower by Moina Michael

Moina Michael's biography The Miracle Flower: The Story of the Flanders Field Memorial Poppy (1941) details her inspiration to make the red field poppy a symbol of remembrance.

Rosa Lee Ingram Postcard

Rosa Lee Ingram Postcard

The National Committee to Free the Ingram Family worked to promote public interest in Rosa Lee Ingram's case. Their efforts included this Mother's Day postcard campaign addressed to President Truman.

Image by the National Committee to Free the Ingram Family, Wikimedia

Rosa Lee Ingram and Sons

Rosa Lee Ingram and Sons

Rosa Lee Ingram and two of her adolescent sons were sentenced to death for their role in the death of a white landowner in 1948. Their conviction raised considerable doubt about the integrity of Georgia's judicial system and prompted a nationwide campaign to secure their release from prison.

Photograph from BlackPast.org

Rosa Lee Ingram parole

Rosa lee Ingram Parole

Supporters of Rosa Lee Ingram wait outside the offices of the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles during her 1953 parole hearing. The Ingrams were denied parole several times before their release from prison in 1959.

Photograph by Norma Holt, from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, New York Public Library

Calley Court-Martial

Calley Court-Martial

Captain Ernest L. Medina testifies during the 1971 trial of Lieutenant William Calley Jr. The army Peers Commission concluded that Calley's platoon was responsible for roughly one-third of the deaths at My Lai, and Calley was found guilty on twenty-two counts of premeditated murder. . troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in a small coastal village inQiang Ngai province, South Vietnam

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Sketch by Howard Brodie.

Augustin Verot

Augustin Verot

Augustin Verot, known as the "Rebel Bishop" for his support of the Confederacy during the Civil War, became bishop of the Diocese of Savannah in 1861 and led the Catholic community through the turbulent years of war and Reconstruction.

Courtesy of Catholic Diocese of Savannah Archives

Slavery & Abolitionism

Slavery & Abolitionism

On January 4, 1861 Augustin Verot delivered a sermon defending the practice of slavery and condemning abolitionism. It was later reprinted as a Confederate tract and circulated throughout the region, earning Verot wide acclaim in southern states.   

Augustin Verot

Augustin Verot

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Augustin Verot called for Catholic bishops to support the construction of schools and churches for freedmen. 

Hugh McCall

Hugh McCall

Hugh McCall is generally regarded as Georgia's first historian. The first volume of his History of Georgia was published in 1811, and the second in 1816. The two books cover the history of the state from the events leading up to the founding of the colony in 1732 through the state's constitutional convention of 1784.

William Grimes

William Grimes

This portrait was published with the Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave. The book, the first slave narrative printed in the U.S., was first published in New York City in 1825.

Photograph from Dwight C. Kilbourne, The Bench and Bar of Litchfield County, Connecticut, 1709-1909: Biographical Sketches of Members, History and Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School Historical Notes

Savannah Rice Plantations, 1825

Savannah Rice Plantations, 1825

This map of Savannah River-area rice plantations was created in 1825, the same year William Grimes first published his narrative in New York City. Grimes served six enslavers in Savannah between 1811 and 1815 before escaping to freedom in New England.

Chatham County Map Portfolio, compiled by workers of the Writers program of the Works Projects Administration in the State of Georgia. Sponsored by the Georgia Society of the Colonial Dames of America.

Disability Day 2016

Disability Day 2016

Crowds gather in Liberty Plaza near the Georgia Capitol for the eighteenth Annual Disability Day on February 18, 2016.

Courtesy of Ryan Johnson

Disability Day 2014

Disability Day 2014

Governor Nathan Deal, with First Lady Sandra Deal, addresses the Disability Day crowd on February 20, 2014. 

Courtesy of Ryan Johnson

Olmstead Litigants

Olmstead Litigants

From left to right:  Sue Jamieson (Atlanta Legal Aid Society) and Olmstead case plaintiffs Elaine Watson and Lois Curtis in 2003.

Photograph used by permission of Institute on Human Development and Disability (UCEDD), College of Family and Consumer Sciences, the University of Georgia

Military Training at Camp Gordon

Military Training at Camp Gordon

During World War I General John Pershing insisted that U.S. troops, pictured here in 1917 near Camp Gordon in DeKalb County, learn open warfare techniques as well as European-style trench warfare.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Photograph by Kenneth Rogers.

Camp Hancock Formation

Camp Hancock Formation

This military formation, shown from an aerial view circa 1918, included 22,500 soldiers and 600 machine guns to replicate the insignia of the Machine Gun Training Center at Camp Hancock, near Augusta.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Souther Field Hangar

Souther Field Hangar

Soldiers pose in an airplane hangar at Souther Field, near Americus, in 1918. During World War I Souther Field, with 16 hangars, 150 aircraft, and 2,000 pilots, was essential to meeting the Allied forces' aerial warfare needs.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
sum042.

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Oglethorpe University SATC

Oglethorpe University SATC

Oglethorpe University cadets in the Student Army Training Corps (SATC) during World War I rally around the flag. "It makes Oglethorpe look like West Point," said university president Thornwell Jacobs.

Camp Gordon YMCA

Camp Gordon YMCA

The YMCA, present at all military camps, was vital to army morale during World War I (1917-18). This building at Camp Gordon housed the first telephone exchange in Chamblee. 

Courtesy of Paul Stephen Hudson and Lora Pond Mirza

E. D. Rivers

E. D. Rivers

E. D. Rivers speaks in 1939, during his second gubernatorial term, at a gathering in Union County, located in the north Georgia mountains. During his first term, Rivers secured federal funding to support public housing and rural electrification in the state.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #uni005.

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Dixie Highway Arch

Dixie Highway Arch

A concrete arch stretches over the Dixie Highway in Waycross, circa 1925.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Dixie Highway Map, 1922

Dixie Highway Map, 1922

Divisions of the Dixie Highway in Georgia and Dates Authorized: (1) Western Division (1915)—between Chattanooga and Cassville, divided into a Rome branch and a Dalton branch; (2) Eastern Division (1916)—also known as "Old State Capital Route"; (3) Eastern Division (1916)—formerly known as the "Atlantic Coastal Highway," "Atlantic Highway," and "Quebec-Miami Highway"; (4) Central Division (1916)—commonly known as the "Central Dixie Highway"; (5) Carolina Division (1918); and (6) Untitled Division (1922)—consisting of that portion of what was then known as the "National Highway" from Perry to Florida and sometimes referred to as the "Dixie-National Highway."See full-size map.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Schillings Auto Camp Advertisement, 1917

Schillings Auto Camp Advertisement, 1917

To save lodging costs, many Dixie Highway motorists spent the night sleeping on a cot in a waterproof canvas tent that attached to the side of their car.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Future Dixie Highway, circa 1915

Future Dixie Highway, circa 1915

For years, many portions of the Dixie Highway in Georgia remained dirt roads. After heavy rains, many cars became stuck in the mud. Rural residents living along these dirt roads often earned extra money by using a team of horses to pull cars through the muddy sections.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Dixie Highway Map, 1919

Dixie Highway Map, 1919

The Dixie Highway stretched from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, south to Miami, Florida.See full-size map.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Roadside Camping

Roadside Camping

As evening approached, many Dixie Highway tourists would pull off the road and set up one or more tents, often spending the night along the road or in a grove of trees.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Roadside Stand, Adairsville

Roadside Stand, Adairsville

Chenille bedspreads and other souvenirs are sold at a roadside stand on the Dixie Highway in Adairsville, circa 1930. The chenille industry first developed in Dalton, and roadside stands selling bedspreads, bathrobes, throw rugs, and other items became popular along the Dixie Highway from Michigan to Florida.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
brt126.

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Eulonia Post Office

Eulonia Post Office

Entrepreneurs along the Dixie Highway opened up all types of businesses to serve the traveling motorist—including tourist camps, lodges, garages, restaurants, and souvenir shops. This Eulonia businessman opened a combination gas station, grocery store, restaurant, post office, bus station, and public telephone.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Ford Model T and Trailer

Ford Model T and Trailer

A Ford Model T and attached trailer are pictured circa 1925. Because early automobiles did not have trunks for storage of suitcases, tents, portable stoves, food, extra gas, and other traveling necessities, many tourists used a two-wheel utility trailer to carry supplies.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Old Dixie Highway Sign

Old Dixie Highway Sign

An exit sign on I-75 south of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is one of the few remaining markers of old Dixie Highway routes in Georgia.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Calhoun Tourist Lodge

Calhoun Tourist Lodge

A tourist lodge in Calhoun is pictured circa 1925. Entrepreneurs developed rustic lodges, inns, and courts for Dixie Highway tourists. The early lodges were primitive, often without heat, running water, or a private bathroom. By the early 1930s motels dotted the Dixie Highway, spelling the beginning of the end for small-town hotels.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Wilson’s Tourist Camp

Wilson’s Tourist Camp

Wilson's Tourist Camp, which was located along the Dixie Higway in Lakewood, south of Atlanta, is pictured circa 1925. 

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Wilson’s Tourist Camp

Wilson’s Tourist Camp

A section of Wilson's Tourist Camp, pictured circa 1925, was reserved for early motor homes. The camp was located along the Dixie Highway in Lakewood, south of Atlanta.

Courtesy of Edwin L. Jackson

Soybeans

Soybeans

The soybean plant, first introduced to Georgia in 1765, originated in China. The plant was brought to the Georgia colony by Samuel Bowen, who planted it after settling in Savannah. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture encouraged the cultivation of soybeans in the state.

Photograph by Carl Dennis, Auburn University. Courtesy of IPM Images

Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Little White House

Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Little White House

In 1924, three years after Roosevelt contracted polio, he began visiting Warm Springs in Georgia. The springs were thought to be beneficial for polio victims. Roosevelt, who became the U.S. president in 1932, is pictured in front of the Little White House in Warm Springs.

Cotton Farmers

Cotton Farmers

Members of a Heard County family pose in front of their cotton crop, circa 1900. Residents of the county began raising cotton in the nineteenth century, but many were forced to abandon the crop during the first decades of the twentieth century, in the wake of the boll weevil devastations and the Great Depression.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
hrd005.

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Soybean Pod

Soybean Pod

Soybeans were introduced to the United States by Samuel Bowen, a seaman who brought the seeds from China. At Bowen's request, Henry Yonge planted the first soybean crop on his farm in Thunderbolt, a few miles east of Savannah, in 1765.

Photograph by the United Soybean Board

Roosevelt Signs Social Security Act

Roosevelt Signs Social Security Act

U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935. He read this statement upon signing the act: "We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age."

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Map of Georgia, 1851

Map of Georgia, 1851

William G. Bonner's Pocket Map of the State of Georgia was published in Milledgeville in 1851. Bonner was a civil engineer who published a series of pocket maps in the mid-nineteenth century.

Amy Mallard

Amy Mallard

Amy Mallard (far left) is pictured in January 1949 outside the Toombs County Courthouse, where she testified at the trial of William Howell, one of several men accused of killing her husband in a racially motivated attack. Mallard was accompainied by Joseph Goldwasser, a member of the NAACP in Cleveland, Ohio, along with her son, John Mallard, and her daughter, Doris Byron.

Courtesy of Getty Images, Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection.

Mallard Murder Trial

Mallard Murder Trial

A crowd gathered in the Toombs County Courthouse on January 11, 1949, for the trial of William Howell, a white man accused of killing his Black neighbor Robert Mallard. Mallard's wife, Amy, witnessed the murder and testified at the trial, after she was falsely accused of committing the crime herself.

Courtesy of Getty Images, Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection.

General William T. Sherman

General William T. Sherman

In this photograph, taken by George N. Barnard, Union general William T. Sherman sits astride his horse at Federal Fort No. 7 in Atlanta. Sherman's Atlanta campaign, which lasted through the spring and summer of 1864, resulted in the fall of the city on September 2.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photograph by George N. Barnard, #LC-DIG-cwpb-03628.

Turnwold Plantation

Turnwold Plantation

Five enslaved people are pictured at Turnwold Plantation, the Eatonton estate of Joseph Addison Turner. Writer Joel Chandler Harris, who lived at Turnwold during the Civil War, drew upon his experiences there to write his Uncle Remus tales, as well as his autobiographical novel On the Plantation.

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell's epic Civil War love story, Gone With the Wind, was published in June 1936. Mitchell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel in May 1937.

A Distant Flame

A Distant Flame

Philip Lee Williams, a native of Madison, won the 2004 Michael Shaara Prize for Civil War Fiction for his novel A Distant Flame (2004). The novel chronicles the experiences of protagonist Charlie Merrill before, during, and after the Atlanta campaign of 1864.

Atlanta Motor Speedway

Atlanta Motor Speedway

Atlanta Motor Speedway fans stand for a restart during the Bass ProShops MBNA 500. The speedway holds a total number of 124,000 permanent seats and 141 luxury suites.

Courtesy of Atlanta Motor Speedway

Souther Field, ca. 1920

Souther Field, ca. 1920

Souther Field would have looked identical to this composite aerial photograph when Charles Lindbergh arrived in 1923. Running horizontally along the top is Souther Road; the structure on the left is the train depot. Lining Souther Road are administrative buildings and barracks for army personnel. Fourteen hangars and two additional structures border the administrative buildings and the grassy field where Lindbergh practiced his take-offs and landings. Lindbergh slept in one of these hangars during his three weeks at the field, and his JN-4 Jenny biplane would have been assembled in one. During World War I Souther Field was home to 1,400 army personnel.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives.

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

A handwritten copy of Martin Luther King Jr.'s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize is included in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection. King delivered the speech in Oslo, Norway, in 1964.

Crypt of Civilization

Crypt of Civilization

The interior of the swimming pool-sized time capsule is filled with contents intended to represent an encyclopedic record of life and customs up until 1940, when the crypt was sealed. The crypt's interior resembles a pyramid chamber, and pictographs decorate the walls.

Courtesy of Oglethorpe University Archives

Parade Vehicle

Parade Vehicle

Riding in a car decorated as a float, representatives of the Georgia Young People Suffrage Association participate in a 1920 parade.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
geo088.

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Savannah City Plan, 1734

Savannah City Plan, 1734

The original caption of this print by Paul Fourdrinier reads: "A View of Savannah as it stood on the 29th of March 1734. To the Hon[orable] Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America. This View of the Town of Savannah is humbly dedicated by their Honours Obliged and most Obedient Servant, Peter Gordon."

Theodore Vail

Theodore Vail

AT&T president Theodore Vail (with telephone, far right) joined the opening ceremony for the first transcontinental telephone line from his home on Jekyll Island. With Vail are (left to right) architects Welles Bosworth and Samuel Trowbridge, banker J. P. Morgan, and businessman William Rockefeller.

Courtesy of Jekyll Island Museum

Painted Bunting

Painted Bunting

As a result of changes in the landscape, the number of painted buntings (Passerina ciris), the most colorful songbirds in the state, declined by more than 50 percent in Georgia from 1966 to 2000.

Photograph by Amanda Heffron Morgan

Inauguration of Rebecca Latimer Felton

Inauguration of Rebecca Latimer Felton

Rebecca Latimer Felton (seated) was the first woman to be sworn into the U.S. Senate on November 21, 1922, as a replacement for Thomas E. Watson, who died while in office. Her term lasted for twenty-four hours before the inauguration of Walter F. George, who won the special election for the seat.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Jekyll Island

Jekyll Island

The western side of Jekyll Island is fronted by Jekyll Creek and salt marsh, and the eastern edge of the island is defined by its beach and the Atlantic Ocean.

Courtesy of Jekyll Island Museum

Trustees’ Charter Boundaries, 1732

Trustees’ Charter Boundaries, 1732

King George II granted James Oglethorpe and the Trustees a charter in 1732 to establish the colony of Georgia. This charter provided, among other things, that the new colony would consist of all the land between the headwaters of the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, with its eastern boundary formed by the Atlantic Ocean and its western boundary by the "south seas," a reference to the Pacific Ocean.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Colony of East Florida, 1763

Colony of East Florida, 1763

In 1763 the British divided what had been Spanish Florida into the two new colonies of West Florida and East Florida, with the Apalachicola River serving as the dividing line between them. East Florida was all the land east of the Apalachicola River, with St. Augustine as its capital.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Colony of West Florida, 1763

Colony of West Florida, 1763

In 1763 the British divided what had been Spanish Florida into the two new colonies of West Florida and East Florida, with the Apalachicola River serving as the dividing line between them. West Florida, with Pensacola as its capital, extended west to the Mississippi River.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia Colony Boundaries, 1764

Georgia Colony Boundaries, 1764

The appointment of James Wright in 1760 as governor of Georgia coincided with a period of expansion. By 1764 the boundaries of the colony had expanded to include those territories between the Mississippi and Chattahoochee rivers that had not been granted to the Florida colonies.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia Colony Boundaries, 1767

Georgia Colony Boundaries, 1767

In 1767 the governor of West Florida received permission from the king of England to advance the colony's northern border along the Mississippi and Chattahoochee rivers, where royal trading posts were located. Georgia's land holdings significantly decreased as a result.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia State Boundaries, 1783

Georgia State Boundaries, 1783

The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War (1775-83), fixed the 31st latitude north as the southern boundary of the new United States. The line extended from the Mississippi River eastward to the Chattahoochee River, moved down that river to its junction with the Flint River, and then followed a direct line east to the headwaters of the St. Marys River. 

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Orr-Whitner Line, 1861

Orr-Whitner Line, 1861

The Orr-Whitner line was accepted by Florida in 1861 and Georgia in 1866 as their official boundary, although the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-65) delayed the line's approval by the U.S. Congress until 1872.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Placement of Ellicott’s Rock, 1811

Placement of Ellicott’s Rock, 1811

In 1811 Georgia hired Andrew Ellicott to survey and mark the location of the 35th latitude north, which formed the boundary between Georgia and North Carolina. In an 1812 letter to North Carolina governor William Hawkins, Ellicott states: "In the parallel of 35 degree N. latitude, on the west side of the Chatoga river, a stone is set up marked on the South side (G. lat 35 N.) and on the north side, (N.C.) for North Carolina." This map locates what is currently and erroneously called Ellicott's Rock on the east side of the Chattooga River.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia’s Northern and Western Boundaries, 1826

Georgia’s Northern and Western Boundaries, 1826

This map shows the surveyed line as marked by James Camak, which set Georgia's northern boundary line south of the 35th latitude north, including the offset known as Montgomery's Corner.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Georgia’s Northern and Western Boundaries, 1802

Georgia’s Northern and Western Boundaries, 1802

Following the 1802 Article of Agreement and Cession, Georgia's new western boundary began with the juncture of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers in southwest Georgia and proceeded north to the great bend of the river (at present-day West Point, Georgia). From there it stretched for 160 miles to the Indian village of Nickajack on the Tennessee River and continued from there up to the 35th latitude north.

Map by John Nelson. Reprinted by permission of William J. Morton

Siege of Savannah

Siege of Savannah

This drawing by a British officer details the failed attempt by American and French forces to recapture Savannah from British troops on October 9, 1779.

Hessian Third Guard Regiment

Hessian Third Guard Regiment

This depiction of the Hessian Third Guard Regiment was engraved by J. C. Muller after a drawing by J. H. Carl, circa 1784. American soldiers during the Revolutionary War occasionally fought against Black Georgians, recruited by the British and their allies in exchange for freedom. The active participation of these Black residents contributed to the British success during the Siege of Savannah.

From The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, by S. K. and E. N. Kaplan

Henri Christophe

Henri Christophe

Henri Christophe was a leader in the war for Haitian independence (1791-1804), and from 1807 to 1820 he served as the ruler of northern Haiti. Some historical sources credit him with serving in a French unit during the Siege of Savannah. Painting by Richard Evans, circa 1818.

From The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, by S. Kaplan and E. N. Kaplan

Jesse O. Thomas

Jesse O. Thomas

Jesse O. Thomas, a Mississippi native, moved to Atlanta in 1919 and opened the Field Secretary Office of the National Urban League. During his tenure, he hired the first two Black public school nurses in Atlanta and organized the school of social work at Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University). During the 1940s the American Red Cross recruited him as its first African American employee, and he led the racial integration efforts of that organization until 1950. 

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Jesse O. Thomas

Jesse O. Thomas

Jesse O. Thomas, as head of the National Urban League's field office in Atlanta, played a prominent role in the city for nearly two decades. During World War II he created a highly successful program with the U.S. Treasury to sell war bonds to the African American community.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington in his office at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama.

From 'The Succesful Training of the Negro' (1903), by B. T. Washington.

Union Officers in Rome

Union Officers in Rome

Union officers assemble in Rome during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #flo075.

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Waffle House

Waffle House

The first Waffle House opened in 1955 in Avondale Estates, an eastern suburb of Atlanta. Since its founding, the company has expanded to occupy more than 1,400 locations, most of which are located in the Southeast.

Courtesy of Waffle House

Larry Holmes

Larry Holmes

Heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes trains at the Larry Holmes Training Center in Easton, Pennsylvania, for his September 21, 1985, title fight against Michael Spinks.

Mei Lan

Mei Lan

Baby giant panda Mei Lan ("Atlanta Beauty"), pictured in 2007, was born at Zoo Atlanta in September 2006. Her parents, female Lun Lun and male Yang Yang, were on loan to the zoo from Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.

Westville

Westville

A basket weaver demonstrates his craft at Historic Westville, a living history museum in west Georgia.

Courtesy of Historic Westville

Oat Harvesting

Oat Harvesting

Alonzo Fields (far right), the farm supervisor at the Flint River Farms Resettlement Community in Macon County, directs the harvesting of oats in 1939. Flint River Farms was an experimental planned community established in 1937 for African American sharecroppers.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF33- 030402-M1 [P&P].

School Campus

School Campus

The school building at the Flint River Farms Resettlement Community, an experimental farm established in Macon County for African American sharecroppers, included a schoolhouse, teacher's residence, and related buildings.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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Health Clinic

Health Clinic

Dr. Thomas M. Adams and project nurse Lillie Mae McCormick, pictured in 1937, administer a typhoid shot in the health clinic at the Flint River Farms Resettlement Community in Macon County.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34- 051634-D [P&P] LOT 1541.

Wheat Field

Wheat Field

Project manager Amos Ward (left?) and Farm Security Administration borrower Simon Joiner inspect wheat in 1939 at the Flint River Farms Resettlement Community in Macon County. A variety of crops, including wheat, oats, cotton, pecans, and peaches were grown at the farms.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF33- 030398-M4 [P&P] LOT 1541.

Flint River Farms School

Flint River Farms School

Students, pictured in 1939, gather outside the schoolhouse at the Flint River Farms Resettlement Community in Macon County. A field of oats grows in front of the school.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34- 051647-D [P&P] LOT 1541.

Elementary Schoolchildren

Elementary Schoolchildren

A classroom of first graders is pictured in 1939 at the Flint River Farms Resettlement Community in Macon County. The school opened to elementary-age children in 1938, and by 1946 it offered classes in all twelve grades.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34- 051617-D [P&P] LOT 1541.

Home Economics Class

Home Economics Class

Evelyn M. Driver (center) instructs students in home economics and management in 1939 at the Flint River Farms Resettlement Community in Macon County.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF33- 030379-M3 [P&P] LOT 1541.

Sidney Root

Sidney Root

Sidney Root, a prominent Atlanta businessman, was an integral part of the Confederate war effort during the Civil War. He later served as the director of the International Cotton Exposition of 1881 in Atlanta and, as park commissioner for the city, was instrumental in the building of Grant Park.

Fulton County Voters

Fulton County Voters

Voters in Fulton County line up at the polls in the early 1970s.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Voter Education Project Organizational Records.

Register and Vote Flyer

Register and Vote Flyer

A flyer produced by the Voter Education Project in the early 1970s refers to the protests in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. The VEP, formed in 1962 as a program of the Southern Regional Council, was a voting rights and voter education organization based in Atlanta for thirty years.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Voter Education Project Organizational Records.

Register and Vote Flyer

Register and Vote Flyer

A flyer produced by the Voter Education Project in the early 1970s encouraged African Americans to exercise their right to vote. Based in Atlanta, the VEP promoted voter registration and education, and became known as an authoritative source on southern elections in general.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Voter Education Project Organizational Records.

John Lewis and Julian Bond

John Lewis and Julian Bond

John Lewis (left), who served as executive director of the Voter Education Project from 1971 to 1977, is pictured with Julian Bond in the Mississippi Delta during a Voter Mobilization Tour in 1971.

Fulton County Voter

Fulton County Voter

A voter casts his ballot in Fulton County, circa 1972.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Voter Education Project Organizational Records.

Fort Daniel Trench

Fort Daniel Trench

The east wall trench of Fort Daniel, constructed in Gwinnett County in 1814, was discovered by researchers with the Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society in 2009. Other intact buried features at the site include the entire stockade wall trench and evidence of two corner blockhouses.

Courtesy of The Fort Daniel Foundation, Inc.

Frontier Fort Plan

Frontier Fort Plan

U.S. secretary of war Henry Knox sent this sketch of a proposed frontier fort to Georgia governor George Mathews in 1794. The drawing closely resembles the archaeological remains at the site of Fort Daniel, a stockade constructed in 1814 at Hog Mountain, in Gwinnett County.

Courtesy of James D'Angelo

U-123

U-123

The German submarine U-123, under the command of Reinhard Hardegen, is pictured in February 1942 at its home base in Lorient, France. In early April the vessel entered Georgia's waters and sank three ships.

Photograph from German Federal Archive

Glynco Naval Air Station

Glynco Naval Air Station

Airships are pictured circa 1942 outside a hangar at Glynco Naval Air Station in Glynn County. The station's fixed-wing and antisubmarine aircraft were integral to defending Georgia's coast from German U-boat attacks during World War II.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # gly109.

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Airship Squadron in Brunswick, 1942

Airship Squadron in Brunswick, 1942

An airship Squadron at Glynco Naval Air Station near Brunswick, in Glynn County, circa 1942. These blimps were used to protect the Georgia coast from the threat of German U-boats during World War II.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # gly106.

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Jean Childs Young and Rosalynn Carter

Jean Childs Young and Rosalynn Carter

Jean Childs Young (left), pictured with Rosalynn Carter in 1979, was appointed by U.S. president Jimmy Carter as chair of the 1979 International Year of the Child, a program celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The program also worked to raise awareness of children's rights and issues.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System. Photograph by Rick Reinhard

Jean Childs Young

Jean Childs Young

Jean Childs Young, pictured circa 1985, was the wife of Georgia politician and civil rights leader Andrew Young. She was renowned nationally and internationally for her work as an educator and advocate for children's rights.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Jean Childs

Jean Childs

In 1953, the year before she married civil rights leader Andrew Young, Jean Childs became the first African American to be elected "May Queen" at Manchester College in Indiana. She graduated from Manchester with a bachelor's degree in elementary education and later earned her master's degree in education from Queens College in New York City.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Andrew and Jean Childs Young

Andrew and Jean Childs Young

Jean Childs Young is pictured with her husband, Andrew Young, during his tenure as mayor of Atlanta in the 1980s. During those years, Jean Childs Young founded and chaired the Mayor's Task Force on Public Education and was active in other educational endeavors, including the Georgia Alliance for Public Education.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Campaign Flier, 1981

Campaign Flier, 1981

A 1981 flier from the group "Women for Andrew Young," founded by Jean Childs Young, promotes Andrew Young during his campaign to be elected mayor of Atlanta. The group supported Young through four U.S. congressional campaigns, two mayoral campaigns, and one Georgia gubernatorial campaign.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Bread Riots

Bread Riots

Hunger on the Georgia home front became so serious during the Civil War that food riots, with women as the main participants, broke out all across the state beginning in 1863.

From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper

Nancy Hill Morgan

Nancy Hill Morgan

During the Civil War, Nancy Hill Morgan cofounded the Nancy Harts Militia, a female military unit organized in LaGrange to protect the home front. Morgan, the wife of a Confederate soldier, served as captain of the militia.

Courtesy of Troup County Archives

Nancy Harts Historical Marker

Nancy Harts Historical Marker

In 1957 the Georgia Historical Commission erected a marker in LaGrange commemorating the Nancy Harts Militia, a female military unit named for Revolutionary War heroine Nancy Hart and organized to guard the city during the Civil War.

UCV Conference

UCV Conference

A conference of the United Confederate Veterans is pictured in Marietta, circa 1900. The UCV was founded in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1889 to unify the numerous Confederate veteran organizations across the South.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cob017.

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Oglethorpe Infantry 1st Georgia Regiment

Oglethorpe Infantry 1st Georgia Regiment

Company D of the 1st Regiment Georgia Volunteer Infantry, known as the Oglethorpe Infantry, are pictured in Augusta in April 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War. This unit was among the first to form a veterans' organization, the Oglethorpe Light Infantry Association in Savannah, at the war's end in 1865.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ric051.

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Charles C. Jones Jr.

Charles C. Jones Jr.

Charles C. Jones Jr. was the foremost Georgia historian of the nineteenth century. Beginning after the Civil War and continuing into the 1880s, Jones collected Confederate service records and reminiscences of former soliders.

Confederate Soldiers’ Home

Confederate Soldiers’ Home

Confederate Soldiers' Home, located at 410 Confederate Avenue in Atlanta, was built in 1902 to house aging Confederate veterans of the Civil War. The Inman family provided a portion of the funds necessary for the home's completion.

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon rose to prominence during the Civil War, entering as a captain and emerging as a major general. He later served as a U.S. senator and as the governor of Georgia.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin

Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin

Lumpkin is best known for her autobiographical novel, The Making of a Southerner (1947), which describes her transition from passive inheritance of white supremacy to conscious rejection of the racial values of a segregated South.

From The Making of a Southerner, by K. D. Lumpkin

UCV Reunion, 1912

UCV Reunion, 1912

Attendees of the 1912 national United Confederate Veterans reunion are pictured in Macon, which hosted the event that year. Macon was the only Georgia city besides Atlanta to host the general reunion of the UCV.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
bib028.

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Confederate Veterans

Confederate Veterans

Four Confederate veterans attend a reunion in Thomasville in October 1924.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
tho064.

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Battle of Jonesboro Reenactment

Battle of Jonesboro Reenactment

The Battle of Jonesboro reenactment at Stately Oaks Plantation takes place every second weekend in October.

Courtesy of Clayton County Convention and Visitor's Bureau

Civil War Reenacting

Civil War Reenacting

Reenactors portray a Confederate unit during a reenactment of the Battle of Chickamauga in Walker County in September 1999.

Courtesy of Gordon L. Jones

Civil War Reenacting

Civil War Reenacting

Confederate reenactors crew a half-scale cannon at the Civil War centennial reenactment of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June 1964.

From Centennial Commemoration, Battle of Kennesaw Mountain--June 27, 1864-1964: Official Souvenir Program

Civil War Reenacting

Civil War Reenacting

A reenactor portrays a Union soldier in General William T. Sherman's army at an encampment at the Atlanta History Center in 2005.

Courtesy of Gordon L. Jones

Civil War Reenacting

Civil War Reenacting

A woman portrays a local refugee during a reenactment of the Battle of Chickamauga in Walker County in September 1999.

Courtesy of Gordon L. Jones

Kennesaw Mountain

Kennesaw Mountain

Kennesaw Mountain, pictured after Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston's retreat from the area in July 1864, was the site of an important battle on June 27, 1864. Although Johnston's troops won the battle, they continued to retreat as Union general William T. Sherman advanced toward Atlanta, located about twenty miles to the southeast.

From Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by G. N. Barnard

Old Stone Church

Old Stone Church

The Old Stone Church in Ringgold was built in 1849 and served as a hospital during the Civil War for troops on both sides of the conflict. The original altar and pews of the church, which today houses a Civil War museum, are still intact.

Courtesy of Catoosa County News

Macon City Hall

Macon City Hall

Macon City Hall, constructed in 1837, was used as a field hospital during the Civil War and served as the temporary state capitol during the final months of the war. This photograph of the building was taken in 1894.

First Presbyterian Church, Augusta

First Presbyterian Church, Augusta

In 1857 Joseph Ruggles Wilson, father of Woodrow Wilson, accepted the pastorate of First Presbyterian Church, located at 642 Telfair Street in Augusta. The church was used as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War.

Pickett’s Mill Cannon

Pickett’s Mill Cannon

A cannon stands at the Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site in Paulding County, the site of a battle in May 1864 in which Confederate forces prevented Union general William T. Sherman's troops from moving on Atlanta.

Courtesy of Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site

Pickett’s Mill Reenactors

Pickett’s Mill Reenactors

Reenactors of the Battle of Pickett's Mill examine weaponry. The battle, which prevented the Union advance on Atlanta during the Civil War, took place in Paulding County in May 1864.

Courtesy of Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site

Pickett’s Mill Battlefield Area

Pickett’s Mill Battlefield Area

The site of the Battle of Pickett's Mill, covering 765 acres in Paulding County, was gradually acquired by the state from 1973 until 1981. In 1990 the park opened to the public as the Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site, commemorating the Civil War battle that took place there in May 1864.

Courtesy of Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site

Pickett’s Mill Earthworks

Pickett’s Mill Earthworks

Earthworks built during the Battle of Pickett's Mill, a Civil War engagement that occurred in May 1864, are still evident at the Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site in Paulding County.

Courtesy of Pickett's Mill Battlefield Historic Site

Oakland Cemetery

Oakland Cemetery

Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta is the final resting place for 6,900 Confederate soliders, including 5 generals, as well as 16 Union soldiers.

Ren and Helen Davis

Stonewall Confederate Cemetery

Stonewall Confederate Cemetery

Around 500 Confederate soldiers and 1 Union soldier are buried at the Stonewall Confederate Cemetery in Griffin.

Photograph by Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Linwood Cemetery

Linwood Cemetery

The Confederate section of Linwood Cemetery in Columbus holds around 200 Confederate soldiers killed during the Civil War.

Courtesy of Historic Linwood Foundation, Inc.

Marietta National Cemetery

Marietta National Cemetery

The Marietta National Cemetery is located at 500 Washington Avenue in Marietta. There are more than 10,000 Union soldiers buried here, with approximately 3,000 of them unknown. Confederate soldiers were interred at a separate Confederate cemetery in Marietta.

Image from Ron Zanoni

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Andersonville National Cemetery

Andersonville National Cemetery

Andersonville National Cemetery in Macon County holds approximately 13,000 Union soldiers who died while imprisoned at Andersonville Prison in 1864-65. It was designated a national cemetery in 1866 and is managed today by the National Park Service.

Image from Bubba73 (talk), Jud McCranie

River Plantation

River Plantation

British artist Thomas Addison Richards painted River Plantation (1855-60) from sketches made in Georgia during his travels through the South in the 1840s. Oil on canvas (20 1/4" x 30").

Courtesy of Morris Museum of Art

Cedar Grove

Cedar Grove

DeKalb County resident John Brandon Morris (far left) is pictured at his home, Cedar Grove, around the time of the Civil War.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
dek223-85.

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Lumpkin County Residents

Lumpkin County Residents

Eligea and Hanna Ricketts of Porter Springs, in Lumpkin County, are pictured circa 1860. In that year nearly a third of Georgia's populace lived in the state's upcountry and mountain counties.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
lum164.

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Enslaved Family

Enslaved Family

An enslaved family picking cotton outside Savannah in the 1850s.

Courtesy of New York Historical Society, Photograph by Pierre Havens..

Hofwyl Plantation

Hofwyl Plantation

The Hofwyl Plantation (later the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation) in Glynn County, a state historic site, is pictured circa 1910. The plantation, established in 1801, produced rice until shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
gly189.

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Tenant Homes

Tenant Homes

The homes of tenant farmers stand alongside a cotton field in Georgia. Landless whites, many of whom were farm tenants, made up nearly half the white populace in the state by 1860.

From Plantation Slavery in Georgia, by R. B. Flanders

Carrying Cotton to the Gin

Carrying Cotton to the Gin

Enslaved workers are pictured carrying cotton to the gin at twilight in an 1854 drawing. Beginning in late July and continuing through December, enslaved workers would each pick between 250 and 300 pounds of cotton per day. The cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney on a Georgia plantation in 1793, led to dramatically increased cotton yields and a greater dependence on slavery.

From Harper's New Monthly, March 1854

Rice Culture

Rice Culture

A. R. Waud's sketch Rice Culture on the Ogeechee, Near Savannah, Georgia depicts enslaved African Americans working in the rice fields.

From Harper's Weekly

Healan’s Mill

Healan’s Mill

Healan's Mill in Hall County was a gristmill built prior to the Civil War. Most industry in antebellum Georgia was related to agriculture, which formed the base of the state's economy at that time.

Image from Neal Wellons

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St. Simons Lumber Mills

St. Simons Lumber Mills

Timber from St. Simons Lumber Mills on St. Simons Island was shipped to market from this dock in Brunswick. After coming to a halt during the Civil War, the timber industry on the island was revived during the 1870s.

Blue and Gray Days

Blue and Gray Days

Grandsons of Union and Confederate Civil War veterans are pictured in 1965 at the "Blue and Gray Days" event in Fitzgerald during the Civil War Centennial. Centennial events, held from 1961 to 1965, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Civil War.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ben312.

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Peter Zack Geer

Peter Zack Geer

Peter Zack Geer served as the first chairman of the Georgia Civil War Centennial Commission, beginning in 1959. In 1963 he was elected lieutenant governor of Georgia.

Centennial’s Grand Finale

Centennial’s Grand Finale

The Civil War Centennial in Georgia ended in 1965 with the mayor of Fitzgerald stamping a letter with a cancellation stamp reading "Georgia's Grand Finale Civil War Centennial."

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ben353.

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Reminiscences of My Life in Camp

Reminiscences of My Life in Camp

Originally published in 1902, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp, by Susie King Taylor, is the only surviving description of the Civil War written by an African American woman.

Sam Richards’s Civil War Diary

Sam Richards’s Civil War Diary

Samuel Pearce Richards, a prominent nineteenth-century merchant in Atlanta, kept a diary for sixty-seven years. In 2009 the University of Georgia Press published the portions of his diary covering the Civil War as Sam Richards's Civil War Diary.

On the Plantation

On the Plantation

On the Plantation: A Story of a Georgia Boy's Adventures during the War (1892) is a fictionalized account of author Joel Chandler Harris's experiences of the Civil War at Turnwold, the Putnam County plantation of Joseph Addison Turner.

William T. Sherman

William T. Sherman

Ohio native and Union general William T. Sherman lost the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June 1864. In September of that same year his army captured Atlanta before embarking on its March to the Sea, from Atlanta to Savannah, in November. Sherman later chronicled his wartime experiences in a memoir, published in 1875.

Journal of a Landlady

Journal of a Landlady

Unionist Louisa Fletcher ran a hotel with her husband in Marietta during the Civil War. During that time she kept a diary, which was published in 1995 as Journal of a Landlady.

Andersonville Prison as seen by John L. Ransom

Andersonville Prison as seen by John L. Ransom

John Ransom, a Union prisoner at Andersonville Prison during the Civil War, first published his journal, Andersonville Diary, in 1881. One of the best-known Civil War narratives, the diary includes graphic descriptions of the camp's deplorable conditions.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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Railroad Destruction

Railroad Destruction

A drawing published in October 1863 depicts Confederate guerrillas destroying rail lines used to supply Union forces during the Civil War. In Georgia, Confederate guerrillas worked to dismantle the Western and Atlantic Railroad, vital to supplying Union general William T. Sherman's troops.

From Harper's Weekly

Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla Warfare

The rescue of a wounded Union officer from an attack by Confederate guerrillas is depicted in a Harper's Weekly drawing from December 1863. Guerrilla warfare in Georgia during the Civil War occurred primarily in the northern mountains and the southern swamp and wiregrass regions.

From Harper's Weekly

Joseph E. Brown

Joseph E. Brown

Joseph E. Brown served as governor of Georgia during the Civil War. After the war, Brown left the Democratic Party for a time to join the Republican Party, which was in power throughout the Reconstruction era. In 1868 he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia by Republican governor Rufus Bullock.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Joseph Wheeler

Joseph Wheeler

General Joseph Wheeler, born near Augusta, commanded U.S. volunteers in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Wheeler also served during the Civil War and the Philippine Insurrection, and authored several books on military and civil subjects. Wheeler County, in central Georgia, is named in his honor.

From The Conflict with Spain and Conquest of the Philippines, by H. F. Keenan

Sherman’s March to the Sea

Sherman’s March to the Sea

Union general William T. Sherman devastated the Georgia countryside during his march to the sea. His men destroyed all sources of food and forage, often in retaliation for the activities of local Confederate guerrillas.

From Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol 4., edited by R. U. Johnson and C. C. Clough Buel

W. T. Wofford

W. T. Wofford

W. T. Wofford, pictured on a postcard distributed in 1881 during the International Cotton Exposition in Atlanta, was a military leader and state legislator. A native of Habersham County, Wofford served in both the Mexican War and Civil War.

Henry M. Judah

Henry M. Judah

Union general Henry M. Judah negotiated the surrender of Confederate forces in north Georgia with Confederate general W. T. Wofford on May 12, 1865.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Secession Ordinance

Secession Ordinance

On January 21, 1861, the ordinance of secession was publicly signed in a ceremony by Georgia politicians. Two days earlier, delegates to a convention in Milledgeville voted 208 to 89 for the state to secede from the Union.

Robert Toombs

Robert Toombs

Wilkes County native Robert Toombs, pictured circa 1865, served briefly as the Confederate government's secretary of state and as a brigadier general during the Civil War.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Refugees on March to the Sea

Refugees on March to the Sea

A sketch, published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on March 18, 1865, depicts newly emancipated African Americans following Union general William T. Sherman's march to the sea at the end of 1864. As many as 7,000 freedmen and freedwomen may have joined in the march.

From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper

Marching through Georgia

Marching through Georgia

Marching through Georgia, one of the best-known songs of the Civil War, was composed in 1865 by Henry Clay Work. The song celebrates the success of Union general William T. Sherman's march to the sea in 1864.

United Daughters of the Confederacy

United Daughters of the Confederacy

Members of the Margaret Jones Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy are pictured in Waynesboro, circa 1900. Lillian W. Neely (center of top row in white dress) was president of the chapter at this time. The Georgia Division of the UDC was formed in 1895.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
bur013.

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Mildred Lewis Rutherford

Mildred Lewis Rutherford

Mildred Lewis Rutherford taught at the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens from 1880 to 1928, serving as principal of the school for twenty-two of those years. A prominent member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and an advocate for the "Lost Cause" interpretation of the Civil War, Rutherford also published a number of books on southern history.

United Daughters of the Confederacy

United Daughters of the Confederacy

Members of the Lanier of Glynn Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, pictured in 1979, decorate a monument in Brantley County dedicated to Confederate soldiers who died of yellow fever during the Civil War.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
bra001.

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Stone Mountain Carving

Stone Mountain Carving

The carving on Stone Mountain depicts the Confederate icons Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. Commissioned by the president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the sculptor Gutzon Borglum began work on the relief in 1915. He was fired in 1925, and Augustus Lukeman completed the carving.

Photograph by Mark Griffin, Wikimedia

Cross of Honor Recipients

Cross of Honor Recipients

Descendants of Confederate veterans who served in World War I received the Cross of Honor from the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Thomasville, circa 1920.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
tho253.

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Augusta Confederate Monument

Augusta Confederate Monument

The Confederate monument in downtown Augusta, erected in 1878, honors generals Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, William H. T. Walker, and Thomas R. R. Cobb, whose figures surround the base. A statue of Augusta native Berry Benson, who served in the Confederate army, is perched atop the monument to represent an anonymous soldier.

Photograph by Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Rome Confederate Monument

Rome Confederate Monument

A soldier stands atop the Confederate monument at Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome. The original monument, dedicated in 1887, featured a large funeral urn on top of the monument. In 1910 the soldier replaced the urn, and the monument was rededicated. Its pedestal, shaft, and soldier configuration is representative of the most common type of Confederate monument in Georgia.

Photograph by David N. Wiggins

Chickamauga Confederate Monument

Chickamauga Confederate Monument

The Confederate monument at Chickamauga National Park, the first military park in the country, was dedicated on May 4, 1899. The eighty-six-foot-tall granite monument features four large bronze figures and honors the men from Georgia who fought at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. The monument has the only figure of an artilleryman in the state.

Photograph by David N. Wiggins

Savannah Confederate Monument

Savannah Confederate Monument

The original Confederate monument in Savannah, pictured circa 1875, was dedicated in 1875 and located in Forsyth Park. The ornate sandstone monument featured two Greek goddesses, Judgement and Silence. In 1879 the goddesses were removed, and a soldier was added to the top.

Courtesy of David N. Wiggins

LaFayette Confederate Monument

LaFayette Confederate Monument

The dedication ceremony for a new Confederate monument in LaFayette took place in April 2002. The monument features a twelve-foot-wide tablet listing the names of Walker County citizens who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Photograph by David N. Wiggins

Fort McAllister

Fort McAllister

Fort McAllister, situated on the Ogeechee River in Bryan County, played a key role in the defense of Savannah from Union forces during the Civil War. The fort is pictured circa 1864, the year in which it was captured by Union general William T. Sherman's forces.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Atlanta

Atlanta

The Fingal was employed in November 1861 by blockade-runner Edward C. Anderson to bring much-needed supplies for the Confederacy into Savannah during the Civil War. The Fingal's success in breaking the blockade alerted Union forces to secure waters off the Georgia coast. While built as a British merchant ship, the blockade-running Fingal was converted to an ironclad in 1862 and renamed the Atlanta.

Courtesy of U.S. Naval Historical Center

Siege of Fort Pulaski

Siege of Fort Pulaski

Union captain Quincy Gillmore of the Engineer Corps, in charge of preparing the siege on Fort Pulaski, ordered his engineers to construct a series of eleven artillery batteries along the north shore of Tybee Island.

Fort McAllister

Fort McAllister

During 1862 and 1863, Fort McAllister repelled seven Union naval attacks. Fort McAllister never fell to Union naval forces because of its unique earthen construction. In 1864 Union general William T. Sherman's army captured the fort from the landward side.

Photograph from Wikimedia

Fort McAllister

Fort McAllister

A signal station on the Ogeechee River, at Fort McAllister. After General William T. Sherman's Union troops occupied Fort McAllister on December 13, 1864, personnel were ordered to dismantle the stronghold in preparation for Sherman's march northward.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

USS Water Witch

USS Water Witch

The USS Water Witch, a wooden-hulled side-wheel gunboat, was used by the Union navy during the Civil War to blockade the Georgia coast. In June 1864 the ship was captured by Confederate raiders, who burned it six months later to prevent its recapture by Union general William T. Sherman's troops.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Renactment Crew on Water Witch

Renactment Crew on Water Witch

Naval reenactors are pictured on board the replica of the USS during its commissioning in 2009 at the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus.

Courtesy of National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus

Water Witch Replica

Water Witch Replica

A replica of the USS Water Witch, completed in 2009, sits outside the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus.

Courtesy of the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus

Howell Cobb

Howell Cobb

Georgia native Howell Cobb served as congressman (1843-51; 1855-57), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1849-51), governor of Georgia (1851-53), and secretary of the treasury (1857-60).

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens, a native of Taliaferro County, was a prominent member of the Whig Party during the sectional crisis that arose in the wake of the Mexican War (1846-48). He later joined the ranks of the Democratic party and served as vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War (1861-65).

Zachary Taylor’s Cabinet

Zachary Taylor’s Cabinet

In 1849 George W. Crawford, a former governor of Georgia, joined U.S. president Zachary Taylor's cabinet as secretary of war. From left, Reverdy Johnson, William M. Meredith, William B. Preston, Zachary Taylor, Crawford, Jacob Collamer, Thomas Ewing, and John M. Clayton.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

George W. Towns

George W. Towns

George W. Towns served as the governor of Georgia from 1847 to 1851. Earlier in his career, Towns served as both a state legislator and a U.S. congressman. Although he entered politics as a Unionist, Towns was known as an ardent states' rights secessionist during his governorship.

Union

Union

Painter Tompkins H. Matteson's Union, engraved by Henry S. Sadd, is a symbolic portrait celebrating the legislators responsible for brokering the Compromise of 1850. Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster appear in the center, from left to right. Georgian Howell Cobb is portrayed in the far left background.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Robert Toombs

Robert Toombs

Robert Toombs helped to lead Georgia out of the Union on the eve of the Civil War, though his support for the Georgia Platform in 1850 had demonstrated his commitment to preserving the Union.

Charles Jones Jenkins

Charles Jones Jenkins

The Georgia Platform established Georgia's conditional acceptance of the Compromise of 1850. Much of the document followed a draft written by Charles Jones Jenkins, who later served as Georgia's governor from 1865 to 1868.

Democratic Platform Illustrated

Democratic Platform Illustrated

An 1856 political cartoon attacks the proslavery platform of the Democratic Party. In the lower right corner, an enslaved man and woman kneel before an overseer. One asks, "Is this democracy?" The overseer responds, "We will subdue you." In the left background a Kansas settlement burns, representing the violent response to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This act, endorsed by Democrats, allowed for popular sovereignty to decide the slavery question in the western territories.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Joseph E. Brown

Joseph E. Brown

In 1857 Joseph E. Brown edged aside better-known politicians to become the Democrats' gubernatorial candidate. He won decisively, and from then on he was unbeatable in statewide elections.

Raid on Harpers Ferry

Raid on Harpers Ferry

This 1859 sketch of the abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and depicts an attack on the raiders at the railroad bridge. News of the raid intensified the call for secession by many southern slaveowners.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Herschel Johnson

Herschel Johnson

Herschel Johnson, a nineteenth-century Georgia politician, is pictured in an 1860 Currier and Ives portrait. That same year, Johnson was the vice-presidential running mate for Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas, who lost the election to Abraham Lincoln.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

John Fremont Stamp

John Fremont Stamp

This 1990s postage stamp features Savannah native John C. Fremont, the first Republican US presidential candidate.

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Battle of Chickamauga

Battle of Chickamauga

The Battle of Chickamauga, the largest battle fought in Georgia during the Civil War, took place in Walker County on September 18-20, 1863. Confederate troops under Braxton Bragg prevented Union troops under William S. Rosecrans from entering Georgia, but each side sustained heavy casualties; around 16,000 Union and 18,000 Confederate.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Union Soldiers

Union Soldiers

Union general William T. Sherman's troops remove ammunition in wheelbarrows from Fort McAllister (Bryan County) in 1864, following their successful March to the Sea.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Selected Civil War photographs, 1861-1865, #LC-B8171-3503.

Fort Pulaski

Fort Pulaski

Fort Pulaski, situated on Cockspur Island at the mouth of the Savannah River, was built in the 1830s and 1840s to defend Savannah. During the Civil War, Union forces captured the fort on April 11, 1862, and controlled it for the remainder of the war.

Photograph by Brooke Novak

Georgia Generals

Georgia Generals

Generals from Georgia who served in Virginia during the Civil War include (left to right, top to bottom): James Longstreet, Howell Cobb, Ambrose R. Wright, A. H. Colquitt, T. R. R. Cobb, Robert Toombs, William D. Smith, Paul J. Semmes, and Alfred Iverson Jr.

Confederate Currency

Confederate Currency

A $100 bill issued by the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. The printing of paper money during the war resulted in massive inflation throughout the South.

Photograph by Wikimedia

African American “Contrabands”

African American “Contrabands”

As Union troops entered the state during the Civil War, enslaved Georgians took the opportunity to escape under their protection. The Union army established "contraband" camps to provide food and shelter for the newly freed African Americans.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Georgia Generals

Georgia Generals

Generals from Georgia who served in Virginia during the Civil War include (left to right, top to bottom): G. T. Anderson, W. T. Wofford, E. L. Thomas, Henry L. Benning, John B. Gordon, George Doles, Edward Willis, Goode Bryan, and William M. Browne.

Capture of Jefferson Davis

Capture of Jefferson Davis

Confederate president Jefferson Davis tried to flee as Union soldiers surrounded his camp in Irwinville on May 10, 1865. He had thrown his wife's raglan, or overcoat, on his shoulders, which led to the persistent rumor that he attempted to flee in women's clothes.

Photograph from Wikimedia

Confederate Earthworks

Confederate Earthworks

From such fortifications as this earthwork in front of Atlanta, Confederate general John B. Hood defended the city from Sherman's attack. Sherman bombarded the city for five weeks, but Hood did not order an evacuation of Atlanta until all rail lines leading into the city had been destroyed.

From Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by G. N. Barnard

Civil War Soldier

Civil War Soldier

Photo of an unidentified Civil War bugler; buglers were necessary for the telling of time and duties in the camps as well as guiding the actions of troops in battle.

Confederate Earthwork

Confederate Earthwork

The remains of a Confederate earthwork, used during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June 1864. In the1930s archaeologist Charles Fairbanks, in one of the earliest Civil War excavations, documented the earthworks on top of Kennesaw Mountain in Cobb County.

Courtesy of Garrett W. Silliman

Schofield’s Iron Works

Schofield’s Iron Works

Schofield's Iron Works in Macon, founded around 1859 and pictured in 1876, was an active foundry during the Civil War.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
bib078.

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New Manchester Mill Ruins

New Manchester Mill Ruins

The ruins of New Manchester Mill at Sweetwater Creek State Park in Douglas County are pictured in 2017. One of the largest factories in Georgia during the Civil War, the mill was burned in 1864 by Union general William T. Sherman's troops during their march to the sea.

Confederate Powder Works

Confederate Powder Works

The Confederate Powder Works in Augusta sits along the Augusta Canal. The canal, which opened in 1846, provided transportation and waterpower during the Civil War for the powder works, as well as for a Confederate firearms plant, ordnance foundry, and bakery.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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George W. Rains

George W. Rains

In 1861 Colonel George W. Rains selected Augusta as the site for the Confederate Powder Works and oversaw its construction on the Augusta Canal. Completed in 1862, the factory produced 3 million pounds of gunpowder by the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Image from Lewis Historical Pub. Co., New York

Pistol Factory

Pistol Factory

Pictured circa 1880, this facility in Greensboro was the site of a Confederate pistol factory, owned by the manufactuer Leech and Rigdon of Memphis, Tennessee, during the Civil War.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
grn254.

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Parrott Gun

Parrott Gun

Parrott rifled cannons, used by both Confederate and Union armies during the Civil War, were produced for the Confederate army at the Macon Armory in Bibb County. African Americans and white women comprised a substantial portion of the workforce at the armory during the war.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Confederate Soldier in Uniform

Confederate Soldier in Uniform

Confederate solider Theophalus Rumble, of Monroe County, is pictured in his uniform during the Civil War. Textile mills in Georgia struggled during the war years to produce adequate amounts of cloth for uniforms, blankets, and tents.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
mnr069.

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Sherman’s Troops

Sherman’s Troops

Union army troops under General William T. Sherman destroy railroad tracks in Atlanta during the Atlanta campaign of 1864. Railroads, an integral component of Civil War industry, were a major target for Sherman's forces.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Veterans’ Gun Drill

Veterans’ Gun Drill

Confederate veterans, pictured in the 1880s, perform a mock gun drill with twelve-pound Napoleon howitzer in front of the Macon Volunteers Armory building in Macon.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # bib258-88.

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Wanderer

Wanderer

The Wanderer is pictured during the Civil War (1861-65). Prior to its service in the Union navy, the Wanderer was the last ship to transport African captives to Georgia as part of the slave trade. Commissioned as a yacht in 1857, the ship was converted into a slave ship the following year, and was seized by the Union navy in 1861.

Courtesy of U.S. Naval Historical Center

William G. “Parson” Brownlow

William G. “Parson” Brownlow

William G. "Parson" Brownlow, a future Tennessee governor and U.S. senator, was a prominent Southern Unionist during the Civil War. He defined a true Unionist as one who held both an "uncompromising devotion" to the Union and "unmitigated hostility" to the Confederacy, as well as a willingness to risk life and property "in defense of the Glorious Stars and Stripes."

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas kept an extensive journal chronicling her life as the daughter and wife of Augusta planters from 1848 to 1889. An edited version of the journal was published in 1990 under the title The Secret Eye.

Battle of Resaca

Battle of Resaca

The Battle of Resaca was fought during the Civil War on May 14-15, 1864, in Gordon County. Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston's troops were able to slow, but not halt, the progress of Union general William T. Sherman's forces into Georgia.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Joseph E. Johnston

Joseph E. Johnston

Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston attempted to counter Union general William T. Sherman's drive toward Atlanta in 1864, beginning with the Battle of Resaca in May, by defensive tactics alone. Frustrated by Johnston's unwillingness to attack, Confederate president Jefferson Davis replaced him with General John B. Hood on July 17.

From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery

Battle of Resaca

Battle of Resaca

The Battle of Resaca, which took place on May 14-15, 1864, in Gordon County, represented the first major engagement of Union general William T. Sherman's Atlanta campaign. The Union army suffered around 2,800 casualities, as did Confederate forces led by General Joseph E. Johnston.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Resaca Battlefield

Resaca Battlefield

The first major engagement of Union general William T. Sherman's Atlanta campaign occurred in 1864 at Resaca, near Dalton. Through the efforts of the Georgia Civil War Commission, which seeks to preserve sites associated with the war, the state purchased 508 acres of the battlefield in 2000.

Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison

Union colonel (and future U.S. president) Benjamin Harrison, leading the 70th Indiana Regiment, overtook a four-gun Confederate battery on May 15, 1864, during the Battle of Resaca.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Resaca Confederate Cemetery

Resaca Confederate Cemetery

The entrance to Resaca Confederate Cemetery in Gordon County is pictured in 1908. Approximately 2,800 men from each side died during the Battle of Resaca, in May 1864 during the Civil War. The graves of more than 450 Confederate soldiers are buried in the cemetery, which was dedicated in 1866.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # gor326.

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CSS Jackson

CSS Jackson

The CSS Jackson, a Confederate ironclad built during the Civil War, is pictured in 1864 on the Chattahoochee River at Columbus.

Courtesy of U.S. Naval Historical Center

CSS Chattahoochee Remains

CSS Chattahoochee Remains

The engines and lower hull of the CSS Chattahoochee, a steam-powered gunship built by the Confederate navy during the Civil War, are pictured circa 1964. In 1865 Confederate forces burned the ship on the Chattahoochee River to prevent it from falling into Union hands. The remains of the were raised from the riverbed in the mid-1960s.

Courtesy of U.S. Naval Historical Center

CSS Savannah Explodes

CSS Savannah Explodes

On December 21, 1864, Confederate troops under Josiah Tattnall exploded the CSS Savannah on the South Carolina coast to prevent its falling into Union hands.

From Harper's Weekly

Mirabeau Lamar

Mirabeau Lamar

During the 1820s Mirabeau Lamar, a Georgia native, established the Columbus Enquirer newspaper and served in the state senate. In 1835 he left Georgia for Texas, where he became president of the republic in 1838.

Reprinted by permission of Institute of Texan Cultures, # 068-0069, source unknown

David Emanuel Twiggs

David Emanuel Twiggs

David Emanuel Twiggs, a U.S. Army general, surrendered U.S. forces to Confederate authorities in Texas when that state seceded from the Union in 1861. He was the son of prominent Revolutionary War general John Twiggs and nephew of Georgia governor David Emanuel.

Lugenia Burns Hope

Lugenia Burns Hope

Lugenia Burns Hope was a prominent community organizer and civil rights activist, at both local and national levels, in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1908 she founded the Neighborhood Union to provide assistance to Atlanta's impoverished Black neighborhoods, and in 1932 she became the first vice president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Neighborhood Union Collection..

Hope Family

Hope Family

John and Lugenia Burns Hope, pictured with their sons, John and Edward, were leaders in Atlanta's Black community during the early 1900s. John Hope served as president of both Morehouse College and Atlanta University, and Lugenia Burns Hope founded Atlanta's Neighborhood Union.

Neighborhood House

Neighborhood House

The Neighborhood Union was formed in 1908 by Lugenia Burns Hope and other community organizers to combat social decay in Atlanta's Black neighborhoods. The Neighborhood Union offered assistance with housing, education, and medical care, and provided recreational opportunities.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Neighborhood Union Collection..

Mississippi Flood, 1927

Mississippi Flood, 1927

The Great Flood of 1927 devastated portions of Mississippi (pictured), Arkansas, and Louisiana. Atlanta activist Lugenia Burns Hope was appointed to U.S. president Herbert Hoover's Colored Advisory Commission, which investigated acts of racial discrimination during flood relief efforts.

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Neighborhood Union Collection..

International Council of Women of the Darker Races

International Council of Women of the Darker Races

Lugenia Burns Hope (back row, far right) is pictured with members of the International Council of Women of the Darker Races, circa 1930. Hope later served as assistant to Mary McLeod Bethune (front row, far right), director of Negro Affairs for the National Youth Administration. Also pictured are Marion Wilkinson (front row, far left) and Mrs. Moton (back row, middle).

Courtesy of Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library Archives, Neighborhood Union Collection..

Thomas G. Woolfolk

Thomas G. Woolfolk

Thomas G. Woolfolk was convicted and hanged for murdering nine members of his family in their Bibb County home on August 6, 1887. This drawing, adapted from a photograph taken of Woolfolk in the jail at Macon, appeared in the Oglethorpe Echo newspaper on November 7, 1890, about a week after his execution.

Drawing from Oglethorpe Echo

Woolfolk Family Marker

Woolfolk Family Marker

Nine members of the Woolfolk family were murdered in their Bibb County home on August 6, 1887, by relative Thomas G. Woolfolk. The victims are buried together at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon.

Photograph by amanderson2

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Voter Registration

Voter Registration

Freedmen, pictured in September 1867, registered to vote during Congressional Reconstruction in drives conducted by the U.S. military. Between 1867 and 1872, sixty-nine African Americans from Georgia served either as delegates to the 1867 constitutional convention or as members of the state legislature.

From Harper's Weekly

James M. Smith

James M. Smith

James M. Smith, a Confederate veteran and native of Twiggs County, served as the governor of Georgia from 1872 to 1877. Smith's election marked the end of Reconstruction in the state.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

Rufus Bullock

Rufus Bullock

Republican candidate Rufus Bullock defeated his Democratic opponent John B. Gordon in Georgia's 1868 gubernatorial election. Bullock's term in office was marked by allegations of fraud and corruption, and in 1871 he fled the state to avoid impeachment by the newly elected Democratic majorities in both state houses.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Sixtieth Regiment of Foot

Sixtieth Regiment of Foot

Three companies of the British Sixtieth Regiment of Foot were sent to the Georgia colony in 1763 by King George III to strengthen the defense of colonial garrisons against attack by the French and Spanish.

Courtesy of The Company of Military Historians

Parade Queens

Parade Queens

Latina women from the Mexican, El Salvadoran, and Guatemalan communities in Dalton participate in the city's annual Mexican Independence Day parade.

Courtesy of Thomas Deaton

Latino Workers

Latino Workers

Latino workers plant loblolly pine seedlings in 1999 near Bremen, in Haralson County. Latino immigrants came to Georgia in large numbers during the 1980s and 1990s to work in the agriculture, construction, carpet, and poultry processing industries.

Hernando de Soto and Crew

Hernando de Soto and Crew

An 1866 tobacco label depicts Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his crew being welcomed ashore by Native Americans. De Soto entered Georgia twice in 1540, encountering the Altamaha, Capachequi, Coosa, Ichisi, Ocute, Patofa, Toa, and Ulibahali chiefdoms during his travels in the area.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Centennial Olympic Park

Centennial Olympic Park

Centennial Olympic Park, one of the most enduring legacies of the 1996 Olympic Games, was carved out of a blighted area in downtown Atlanta. The twenty-one-acre swath of greenspace and bricks was closed after the games, redesigned for permanent use, then reopened in 1998. 

Photograph by Wikimedia

Supermercado

Supermercado

Los Compadres, a supermercado (grocery store) located in Athens, is one of many Latino-owned businesses that have opened around the state since the wave of Latino immigration in the 1980s and 1990s.

Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Mitchell and Students

Mitchell and Students

Erwin Mitchell visits elementary students in 2000 at Roan Street School in Dalton. In 1997 Mitchell founded the Georgia Project, an innovative teacher exchange program that provided training opportunities for Dalton educators working in bilingual classrooms until 2007.Reprinted by permission of Christopher Lancette.

Etowah Mounds

Etowah Mounds

The Etowah Mounds in Bartow County include one of the largest Indian mounds in North America. The mounds, constructed during the Mississippian Period, served as platforms for public buildings in a town that occupied the site from around 1100 until the 1600s.

Rock Eagle

Rock Eagle

Rock Eagle, a stone effigy built by Native Americans during the Woodland Period, circa A.D. 200, is located in Putnam County. The structure, made of quartz cobbles, measures 102 feet across the wings.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

De Soto Crossing the Chattahoochee

De Soto Crossing the Chattahoochee

A drawing from Lambert A. Wilmer's Life, Travels and Adventures of Ferdinand de Soto, Discoverer of the Mississippi (1859) depicts Hernando de Soto and his men crossing the Chattahoochee River. The accidental introduction of European diseases by explorers destroyed many of the civilizations along the river's banks.

Courtesy of Florida State Archives, Photographic Collection.

Georgia Trustees

Georgia Trustees

This oil painting by William Verelst shows the founders of Georgia, the Georgia Trustees, and a delegation of Georgia Indians in July 1734. One year later the Trustees persuaded the British government to support a ban on slavery in Georgia.

Battle of Kettle Creek

Battle of Kettle Creek

This sketch, likely a small portion of a larger work, depicts the Battle of Kettle Creek, which took place in Wilkes County on February 14, 1779, during the Revolutionary War. The original caption reads: "Engagement between the Whigs and Tories."

Courtesy of Kettle Creek Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution

Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney

The inventor of the cotton gin, Eli Whitney lived in Georgia for just a year, on Catharine Greene's Mulberry Grove plantation near Savannah. After learning of the difficulty planters had with separating seeds from fibers in upland, or "short-staple," cotton, he set out to create a machine that could perform such a task more efficiently. His invention, the cotton gin, revolutionized the southern economy.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Cherokee Trail of Tears

Cherokee Trail of Tears

In his 1942 painting Cherokee Trail of Tears, Robert Lindneux depicts the forced journey of the Cherokees in 1838 to present-day Oklahoma.

Courtesy of Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Prison

Union prisoners of war are pictured at the Andersonville Prison in Macon County on August 17, 1864. Malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions at the camp led to the deaths of nearly 13,000 of Andersonville's 45,000 prisoners, the highest mortality rate of any Civil War prison.

Courtesy of Civil War Treasures, New-York Historical Society

Freedmen’s Bureau

Freedmen’s Bureau

An 1868 sketch by A. R. Waud illustrates the difficulties faced by the Freedmen's Bureau, caught between white planters on one side (left) and formerly enslaved African Americans on the other (right). The bureau was established in 1865 after Union general William T. Sherman issued his Field Order No. 15, which called for the resettlement of freedpeople on confiscated lands.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Henry W. Grady

Henry W. Grady

With his New South platform, Henry W. Grady advocated unity and trust between the North and South and helped to spur northern investment in Atlanta industries.

Sharecroppers

Sharecroppers

Sharecroppers, pictured in 1910, harvest cotton in Randolph County. Theoretically beneficial to both laborers and landowners, the sharecropping system typically left workers in deep debt to their landlords and creditors from one harvest season to the next.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #ran218-82.

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Thomas E. Watson

Thomas E. Watson

In 1892 Georgia politics was shaken by the arrival of the Populist Party. Led by Thomas E. Watson of McDuffie County, this new party mainly appealed to white farmers, many of whom had been impoverished by debt and low cotton prices in the 1880s and 1890s. The Populists also attempted to win the support of Black farmers away from the Republican Party.

Roosevelts in Atlanta

Roosevelts in Atlanta

U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, visit Atlanta in 1935, during the Great Depression. From left: Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, U.S. senator Walter F. George, and U.S. senator Richard B. Russell Jr.

Ben Epps

Ben Epps

Georgia aviation pioneer Ben Epps is pictured with his first airplane outside his garage in Athens, 1907.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
clr176-83.

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Fort Benning

Fort Benning

U.S. soldiers, pictured in the spring of 1942, undergo training at Fort Benning in Columbus. During World War II Fort Benning was the largest infantry training post in the world.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Segregation Protest

Segregation Protest

Students protest segregation at the state capitol building in Atlanta on February 1, 1962. The passage of the federal Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 ended legal segregation across the nation.

Integration of Atlanta Schools

Integration of Atlanta Schools

Reporters gather at Atlanta's city hall on August 30, 1961, the day that the city's schools were officially integrated. The recommendations of the Sibley Commission to the state legislature in 1960 contributed to the desegregation of schools across Georgia.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection.

Hunter and Holmes, UGA

Hunter and Holmes, UGA

Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, the first Black students to enroll at the University of Georgia, are pictured here at the end of their first day on campus in January 1961.

Albany Movement

Albany Movement

Martin Luther King Jr. (second from right) and Ralph David Abernathy (third from right) pray during their arrest in Albany on July 27, 1962. William G. Anderson, the president of the Albany Movement, asked King and Abernathy to help with efforts to desegregate the city.

Carl Sanders

Carl Sanders

Augusta native Carl Sanders, elected governor of Georgia in 1962, brought the state into compliance with federal civil rights law during his single term in office.

Lester Maddox, 1964

Lester Maddox, 1964

In 1966 Lester Maddox defeated former governor Ellis Arnall in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in a major political upset. Subsequently, as a result of a close race between Maddox and Republican Bo Callaway, the General Assembly chose Maddox as governor.

Hamilton Jordan and Jimmy Carter

Hamilton Jordan and Jimmy Carter

U.S. president Jimmy Carter (right) meets with Hamilton Jordan in the Oval Office of the White House in 1977. Jordan served as Carter's chief of staff from 1977 to 1980.

Peanut Farming

Peanut Farming

Georgia farmers lead the United States in peanut production, raising approximately 45 percent of the nation's total harvest. Grown in most south Georgia counties, peanuts are the official state crop.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

St. Simons Tourists

St. Simons Tourists

Tourists on St. Simons Island gather outside one of the island's many shops. The island suffered an economic depression at the end of the cotton era in the 1830s, but its fortunes reversed with the arrival of the timber industry in the 1870s. Today St. Simons enjoys a strong tourist industry.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia.

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe, a leader in the British movement to found a new colony in America, set sail for the new world on November 17, 1732, accompanied by Georgia's first settlers.

Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House

Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House

The Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House in Fayetteville, designed in the Greek revival style, was built in 1855 by John Stiles Holliday, the uncle of "Doc" Holliday. The city bought the home in 1999, and following renovations, the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House Museum opened to the public in 2003.

Image from Cdrcody

Henry Burroughs Holliday

Henry Burroughs Holliday

Henry Burroughs Holliday, the father of Old West icon John Henry "Doc" Holliday, is pictured circa 1840. Henry Holliday served as a major in the Twenty-seventh Georgia Infantry during the Civil War.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0690-82.

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Roller Gin

Roller Gin

This roller gin, built by William Van Houten in Turner County, won first place at the Savannah State Fair in 1901. Farmers have continued to modify and improve Eli Whitney's original cotton gin since its invention in 1793.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
tur001.

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Cotton Gin

Cotton Gin

An original model of an Eli Whitney cotton gin (circa 1800) is on display in Washington, D.C., at the National Museum of American History.

Image from National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

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Catharine Greene

Catharine Greene

Catharine Greene was the noted wife of Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene and later a supporter of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin. This painting of Greene (oil on panel, 32 3/4" x 25 3/4"), dated circa 1809, is attributed to James Frothingham.

Courtesy of Telfair Museums.

Dykes Creek Cotton Gin

Dykes Creek Cotton Gin

The Dykes Creek Cotton Gin, pictured circa 1890, was located on Kingston Road in Rome. In the decades after the Civil War, cotton farmers brought their cotton to a community gin, rather than installing cotton gins on their own property.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #flo136.

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Cotton Gin Proprietor

Cotton Gin Proprietor

James Marion Prance, the proprietor of a cotton gin in Cobb County, is pictured sitting in front of bales of cotton in the early 1900s.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cob575.

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Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps members assigned to Camp Meriwether, in Meriwether County, are pictured in 1934. The camp was located near Warm Springs, where U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who instituted the CCC, came for polio treatments.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ccc071.

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Work Detail, Civilian Conservation Corps

Work Detail, Civilian Conservation Corps

A Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) work detail group is shown in Reidsville (Tattnall County) in 1935. During the Great Depression, New Deal programs like the CCC helped put thousands of Georgians back to work.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ccc048.

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Lake Rutledge

Lake Rutledge

The spillway and dam at Lake Rutledge in Morgan County, pictured in 1935, was constructed by a Civilian Conservation Corps company.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #ccc019.

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CCC Barracks

CCC Barracks

Civilian Conservation Corps barracks are pictured circa 1935 at Vogel State Park, near Blairsville in Union County. During the 1930s the CCC built cabins and trails at state parks around Georgia that are still in use today.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ccc060.

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CCC at Kennesaw Mountain

CCC at Kennesaw Mountain

A Civilian Conservation Corps camp is pictured in 1939 from the top of Kennesaw Mountain, in Cobb County. The CCC performed historic preservation work at both the Kennesaw Mountain and Chickamauga battlefields during the 1930s.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ccc051b.

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Angelo Herndon

Angelo Herndon

Angelo Herndon, an Ohio native and member of the Communist Party, became an international figure upon his arrest in 1932, when he was charged with attempting to incite insurrection while organizing workers in Atlanta. His case moved through the Georgia judicial system and appeared twice before the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted Herndon his freedom in 1937.

From Let Me Live, by Angelo Herndon

Let Me Live

Let Me Live

In 2007 the University of Michigan Press reprinted Angelo Herndon's 1937 memoir, Let Me Live, which chronicles his experiences with the Georgia judicial and penal systems during his incarceration as a Communist insurrectionist from 1932 to 1937.

Don West

Don West

Georgia native and poet Don West briefly headed the Provisional Committee for the Defense of Angelo Herndon, an organization dedicated to exonerating Herndon, who was arrested as a Communist insurrectionist in Atlanta in 1932.

From In a Land of Plenty, by Don West

Let Me Live

Let Me Live

Angelo Herndon, arrested in 1932 as a Communist insurrectionist while organizing workers in Atlanta, spent five years in the Georgia penal system before the U.S. Supreme Court granted his freedom in 1937. Herndon chronicled his experiences in Let Me Live, which was published by Random House in 1937.

Benjamin J. Davis Jr.

Benjamin J. Davis Jr.

Benjamin J. Davis Jr., along with John H. Geer, served as the attorney contracted by the International Labor Defense party to defend Angelo Herndon. Herndon, arrested as a Communist insurrectionist in 1932, was acquitted in 1937.

From Let Me Live, by Angelo Herndon

On the Chain Gang

On the Chain Gang

Radical journalist John Spivak wrote the pamphlet "On the Chain Gang" for International Pamphlets, a series of propaganda tracts published by the Communist Party. Spivak's investigations into Georgia's chain gangs provided the basis for his novel Georgia Nigger (1932), which exposed the system's abuses and contributed to its reform.

Grace Lumpkin

Grace Lumpkin

Grace Lumpkin published four novels in her lifetime. She is best known for her radical novels of the 1930s, To Make My Bread and A Sign for Cain, which address the economic and social turmoil of the Great Depression.

Courtesy of the University of South Carolina

Wallingford Riegger

Wallingford Riegger

The composer Wallingford Riegger is pictured circa 1909 as a student in Berlin, Germany, where he studied the cello and composition for three years. A native of Albany, Riegger was summoned to testify before the Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1957, but he refused to answer their questions about suspected Communists.

From Wallingford Riegger: Two Essays in Musical Biography, by S. Spackman

Callaway Mills Strike

Callaway Mills Strike

Mill workers went on strike at Callaway Mills in LaGrange during the General Textile Strike of ’34, along with approximately 44,000 others in Georgia.

Courtesy of Troup County Archives

Stetson Kennedy

Stetson Kennedy

Stetson Kennedy, pictured circa 1939 in Miami, Florida, collected oral histories with the Federal Writers Project in Florida from 1937 until 1941. In 1942 Kennedy moved to Atlanta, and during World War II he infiltrated and reported on the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the city.

Courtesy of Stetson Kennedy. Photograph by Edith Kennedy. Photograph restored by C. Ivy Bigbee

Palmetto Country

Palmetto Country

Originally published in 1942, Palmetto Country by Stetson Kennedy is a compilation of the history and folklore of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. The book was reissued in 1989 by the University Press of Florida, and again in 2009 by the Florida Historical Society.

The Klan Unmasked

The Klan Unmasked

Stetson Kennedy, who spent 1946-47 infiltrating the Columbians, a neo-Nazi group, and the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta, published his experiences in 1954 as I Rode with the Ku Klux Klan. The book was reissued in 1990 by the University Press of Florida as The Klan Unmasked.

Oliver O. Howard

Oliver O. Howard

Major General Oliver O. Howard served as director of the Freedmen's Bureau, an agency that provided social welfare to formerly enslaved African Americans from 1865 until 1872. Operations of the bureau ceased in Georgia in 1870.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Rufus Saxton

Rufus Saxton

Brigadier General Rufus Saxton served as the first assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau assigned to Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. During his four-month tenure in 1865, Saxton advocated free labor and land acquisitions for freedpeople.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

St. Catherines Island

St. Catherines Island

A family, pictured in the 1880s, stands outside old slave quarters on St. Catherines Island. The island served as the headquarters for Tunis Campbell, an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau who was assigned to supervise land claims and resettlement on five Georgia islands after the Civil War.

Liberty County Schoolchildren

Liberty County Schoolchildren

African American schoolchildren are pictured in Liberty County, circa 1890. The Freedmen's Bureau established numerous schools in Georgia from 1865 to 1870, and local education societies continued to administer the schools after the bureau's closure.

Mill Houses

Mill Houses

Mill houses line a street in Dalton, circa 1930. The carpet and textile industries in the city began in the late nineteenth century with the tufted bedspreads of Catherine Evans Whitener and by the 1940s had developed into a mechanized industry in Whitfield County.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
wtf013a.

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Claude Sitton

Claude Sitton

Journalist Claude Sitton (right) covers the desegregation of the University of Georgia in 1961 as the southern correspondent for the New York Times.

Earl Shinhoster

Earl Shinhoster

Earl Shinhoster, a Savannah native, served in various leadership positions with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for more than thirty years. His career with the organization began in 1966 when, at the age of sixteen, he was elected president of the Savannah NAACP Youth Council. At the time of his death in 2000, Shinhoster was the NAACP's national director of voter empowerment.

Courtesy of Savannah Tribune

Oliver H. Prince

Oliver H. Prince

Oliver H. Prince, a native of Connecticut, had a varied career in Georgia, which included stints as a lawyer, state and U.S. senator, journalist, and humorist. He was also instrumental in the founding of Macon and in bringing railroads to the state.

First African Baptist Church

First African Baptist Church

First African Baptist Church, which was established during the 1770s, played an important part in the Savannah civil rights movement. The stained-glass windows in the current church building, located at 23 Montgomery Street in Savannah, feature prominent Black leaders.

Photograph by Carl Elmore. Courtesy of Savannah Morning News

First African Baptist Church

First African Baptist Church

A museum housing artifacts and church memorabilia dating to the eighteenth century is housed on the grounds of First African Baptist Church in Savannah. One of the oldest Black churches in the nation, First African has occupied its current site on Montgomery Street since 1859.

Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia

First Bryan Baptist Church

First Bryan Baptist Church

This post-Civil War sketch depicts members of Savannah's First Bryan Baptist Church, named after early Baptist minister Andrew Bryan, congregating outside the church building. The church is one of the oldest Black churches in North America.

Photograph by James M. Simms

Shotgun Houses

Shotgun Houses

Unrestored shotgun houses line a street in Macon. The shotgun, a rectangular house type that is one room wide and two to four rooms deep, may have developed from a West African architectural tradition.

Courtesy of Elizabeth Lyon

Colonoware Pitcher

Colonoware Pitcher

Colonoware, a form of earthenware pottery, was made by African Americans on plantations in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Produced circa 1740, this pitcher was found during an exacavation in Charleston, South Carolina, during the late 1990s.

Courtesy of New South Associates

Savannah-Ogeechee Canal

Savannah-Ogeechee Canal

The Savannah-Ogeechee Canal, pictured circa 1888, was completed by enslaved laborers in 1829.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, James S. Silva family papers, #GHS 2126-VM01-04 pg072.

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Slave Quarters

Slave Quarters

Slave quarters, pictured in 1936, stand at Liberty Hall in Taliaferro County, the homeplace of Georgia governor Alexander Stephens. African American structures on Georgia plantations were generally rectangular in shape, as opposed to the square forms preferred by Europeans.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey.

Colonoware Jar

Colonoware Jar

This colonoware jar, uncovered in South Carolina in the 1990s, dates to the mid-eighteenth century. Colonoware was made by African Americans on coastal plantations and has been found on several Georgia sites.

Courtesy of New South Associates

Ninevian Pipe

Ninevian Pipe

Dating to the 1850s, this Ninevian pipe was uncovered during an archaeological excavation conducted between 1989 and 1991 at the Springfield site near Augusta. The Springfield village was populated by free Blacks before the end of slavery in 1865.

Courtesy of New South Associates

Wall Trench

Wall Trench

The outline of a wall trench was uncovered by archaeologists in 2000 at the Silk Hope Plantation, an eighteenth-century rice plantation in Bryan County. The markings in black show the locations of a wall trench and post features that form a slave dwelling, and the red outline shows the presence of pit features that were used for storage and other functions.

Courtesy of Brockington and Associates

Singer-Moye Mounds

Singer-Moye Mounds

The excavation of the Singer-Moye Mounds in Stewart County has revealed the buried foundations of Indian buildings that were destroyed and abandoned more than 600 years ago. Thousands of ceramics fragments and animal bones have also been recovered.

Photograph by Elisabeth Hughes, New Georgia Encyclopedia

New Echota Dedication

New Echota Dedication

Cherokee Indian leaders pose in 1976 next to a plaque dedicating New Echota as a National Historic Landmark. Located northeast of Calhoun, New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
gor036.

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Blood Mountain

Blood Mountain

Blood Mountain, at 4,461 feet, is the highest peak along the Appalachian Trail in Georgia and the sixth highest mountain in the state. The mountain is located near the line between Union and Lumpkin counties and may have been named for a battle between the Cherokees and the Creeks.

Photograph by Sammy Hancock

Etowah Indian Figures

Etowah Indian Figures

Archaeological excavation, carried out intermittently at the Etowah mound site for more than 100 years, has unearthed artifacts such as these figures, which have provided much information about life in the Mississippian Period.

Photograph from Wikimedia

Fort Yargo Cabin

Fort Yargo Cabin

The Fort Yargo cabin was built by whites in 1792 for protection against the Creeks and the Cherokees. Today it is used for history encampments at Fort Yargo State Park.

Photograph by Ashley Farrow, Wikimedia Commons

John Ross

John Ross

As principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, John Ross struggled until 1838 against the removal of the Cherokees from the Southeast. Beginning in 1838, however, he was forced to lead the Cherokees through the tragic removal period, which culminated in the Trail of Tears. He remained principal chief until his death in 1866.

Oothcaloga Moravian Mission

Oothcaloga Moravian Mission

The Oothcaloga Moravian Mission provided education and religious instruction to Cherokees from 1822 to 1833. Operated by the Moravian Church, the mission was located in present-day Gordon County. By 1833 whites occupied the house, following the land lottery of 1832.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #gor322.

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Infantry: Continental Army, 1779-1783

Infantry: Continental Army, 1779-1783

Henry Alexander's lithograph Infantry: Continental Army, 1779-1783 depicts the uniforms and weapons used by the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene was one of the most respected generals of the Revolutionary War and a talented military strategist. As commander of the Southern Department of the Continental army, his leadership was the catalyst that turned the tide toward American victory in Georgia.

Courtesy of Independence National Historical Park

Lemuel Penn Marker

Lemuel Penn Marker

A historical marker on Georgia Highway 172 in Madison County commemorates the murder of Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn by Ku Klux Klan members in 1964.

Tailfer’s Title Page

Tailfer’s Title Page

During the 1730s, Scottish settler Patrick Tailfer led a group of colonists, knowns as the Malcontents, in protest of various laws and policies enforced by the Georgia Trustees. His 1740 tract, entitled A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia, was read in influential circles but failed to make a substantial impact on the circumstances of the Malcontents.

From A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia in America, by P. Tailfer

St. Catherines Island

St. Catherines Island

St. Catherines Island, located in Liberty County, is one of the barrier islands lining the coast of Georgia. The privately owned island, a National Historic Landmark, is about ten miles long and approximately one to three miles wide. From the 1590s to the 1680s a Spanish mission, Santa Catalina de Guale, was located on the island (at that time part of the Spanish colony La Florida).

Photograph by Jason D. Williams

Atlanta Student Sit-in Movement

Atlanta Student Sit-in Movement

A woman wearing a sign protesting segregated facilities outside of Rich's department store in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The sign says "Wear Old Clothes with New Dignity. Don't Buy Here"

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Georgia Tech Students

Georgia Tech Students

Students Ford Greene, Lawrence Michael Williams, and Ralph Long Jr. (left to right) integrated the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1961. Georgia Tech was the first institution of higher education in the South to integrate peacefully and without a court order.

William Bootle

William Bootle

William Bootle served as a U.S. District Court judge in Georgia from 1954 to 1981. His rulings upheld decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court in matters of school desegregation, including the desegregation of the University of Georgia in 1961.

Courtesy of Macon District Court

Horace T. Ward

Horace T. Ward

In 1950 Horace T. Ward became the first African American to challenge the racially discriminatory practices at the University of Georgia. Although Ward's efforts were not successful, his case helped to lay the groundwork for desegregation of the university.

Courtesy of UGA Photographic Services

Baldowski Cartoon: UGA Desegregation

Baldowski Cartoon: UGA Desegregation

This cartoon by Clifford "Baldy" Baldowski depicts Frankenstein wearing a University of Georgia shirt labeled "Mob Violence." Published in 1961 in the Atlanta Constitution, the drawing refers to the riots that took place on campus in response to the desegregation of the university.

Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Clifford Baldowski Editorial Cartoon Collection.

Baldowski Cartoon: UGA Riots

Baldowski Cartoon: UGA Riots

A 1961 cartoon by Clifford "Baldy" Baldowski comments on the riots at the University of Georgia, which occurred in response to the admission of two Black students, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes. The cartoon depicts Hunter saying, "Jeepers. I don't know if he's the same as he use to be or not!"

Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Clifford Baldowski Editorial Cartoon Collection.

Ernest Vandiver

Ernest Vandiver

Under Ernest Vandiver's governorship, from 1959 to 1963, the legislature implemented sweeping changes in the segregation policies of Georgia's public schools. The county unit system for nominating officeholders was also revised during his tenure.

Edwin Harrison

Edwin Harrison

In the aftermath of riots following the integration of the University of Georgia, Edwin Harrison, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, allowed the admission of Black students in May 1961. Georgia Tech became the first institution of higher education in the South to integrate peacefully and without a court order.

Sam Oni

Sam Oni

In 1963 Mercer University in Macon became integrated when it granted admission to Sam Oni, an applicant from the West African country of Ghana.

Courtesy of Mercer University

John D. Gray

John D. Gray

John D. Gray was the first major railroad contractor in the South and served as president of the Monroe Railroad in Georgia. During the Civil War he manufactured weaponry for the Confederacy.

Courtesy of Nancy Eubanks

Freedom Rides Map

Freedom Rides Map

This map shows the routes of numerous Freedom Rides that took place throughout the South from April through December 1961. The rides were intended to test compliance with federal court rulings barring segregation in interstate travel. Freedom Rides were a successful tool in advancing the cause of civil rights.

Map by Associated Press Newsfeatures

Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr.

Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr.

Ralph David Abernathy (right) and Martin Luther King Jr. were central organizers of the Montgomery bus boycott, which demanded that Black passengers be treated fairly on public transportation. 

Courtesy of David Fankhauser

Lamar Period Pottery

Lamar Period Pottery

An example of Mississippian Lamar pottery, on display at the Ocmulgee Mounds Visitor Center in Macon.

Courtesy of Robert Foxworth

Ocmulgee National Historical Park

Ocmulgee National Historical Park

The earthen mounds at the Ocmulgee National Historical Park in Macon are the remains of a native culture that lived at the site between A.D. 800 and 1100, during the Early Mississippian period.

Photograph from National Park Service

Irene Mounds

Irene Mounds

Excavation of the Irene mounds site, near Savannah, was led by several important archaeologists, especially Joseph R. Caldwell, who is pictured with an excavation team. Three different shell layers are visible in the earth behind the researchers.

Reprinted by permission of the Coastal Georgia Archaeological Society

Irene Mounds

Irene Mounds

A group of African American women (pictured in December 1937) helped to excavate the Irene mounds site. The split oak basket, on the right, was made in Savannah especially for this project. The woman in the foreground is smoking a pipe.

Reprinted by permission of the Coastal Georgia Archaeological Society

Johnson Signs Voting Rights Act

Johnson Signs Voting Rights Act

U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, as a crowd, including Martin Luther King, looks on. The law prohibited racial discrimination in voting procedures. Today Georgia voters must be eighteen years of age and legal residents of a state county.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Americus

Americus

The Americus Movement (1963-65) began in Americus, in southwest Georgia, when less than a dozen activists protested against the segregated Martin Theater. The well-organized movement soon grew to number in the hundreds.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

Francis S. Bartow

Francis S. Bartow

Colonel Francis S. Bartow was killed in July 1861 during a Civil War battle at Manassas, Virginia. He was the first high-ranking Georgia military officer to die in the war. Before his death, Bartow advocated for secession and became one of the leaders of the new Confederate government. His portrait was painted by Willis Pepoon.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society collection of portraits, #GHS 1361-320.

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Edward J. Cashin

Edward J. Cashin

Edward J. Cashin, a prominent historian of colonial- and Revolutionary-era Georgia, was a professor at Augusta State University for nearly thirty years. He founded the Center for the Study of Georgia History there in 1996 and served as its director until his death in 2007. A prolific writer and researcher, Cashin published more than twenty books over the course of his career and was active in numerous historical organizations around the state.

Courtesy of Augusta State University

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Many of the major Progressive era reforms were enacted at the federal level by Congress, under the leadership of U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson (pictured circa 1920).

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois is Georgia's most distinguished example of a progressive intellectual who wed social science to the analysis of public issues. In 1910 he founded the NAACP, one of the most significant products of the Progressive era.

Image from Univeristy of Massachusetts Amherst, Special Collections and University Archives, W. E. B. Du Bois Papers.

Nellie Peters Black

Nellie Peters Black

Nellie Peters Black served three terms as president of the Georgia Federation of Women's Clubs. She led Georgia women in supporting U.S. president Woodrow Wilson's thrift and conservation campaigns during the Progressive era.

Hoke Smith

Hoke Smith

Governor Hoke Smith is perhaps the figure most associated with Progressive era reform in the state. During his governorship reforms were seen in education and railroad regulation; the convict lease system was abolished; and a major public health project, a state sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, was undertaken.

Segregated Depot

Segregated Depot

A postcard depicts passengers waiting outside a segregated train depot in Suwanee (Gwinnett County), circa 1915.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
gwn120.

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William J. Northen

William J. Northen

During his tenure as governor, from 1890 to 1894, William J. Northen limited the workday for railroad employees to thirteen hours and granted the Georgia Railroad Commission power to regulate telegraph companies. He also advanced agricultural inspection and education.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

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Street Improvement

Street Improvement

Workers prepare Broad Street in LaGrange for paving, circa 1900. The men on the left are installing water and sewer lines.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
trp071.

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1906 Gubernatorial Campaign

1906 Gubernatorial Campaign

Residents of Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County gather for a political rally for Hoke Smith, owner of the Atlanta Journal, during the gubernatorial race of 1906. Smith, the Democratic candidate, won the election over Clark Howell, his rival publisher at the Atlanta Constitution.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ben121.

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Clay County School

Clay County School

The student body at the first public school in Clay County poses for a photograph in 1905. Built in 1903, the school was located on Jefferson Street in Fort Gaines and was destroyed by fire in 1927.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cly018.

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Tuberculosis Sanatorium

Tuberculosis Sanatorium

In 1911 the state of Georgia opened a public sanatorium in Banks County for the treatment of tuberculosis. The sanatorium was the state's most ambitious health project up to that time, and marked a new interest in public health, a product of the Progressive era.

From History of Public Health in Georgia, 1733-1950, by T. F. Abercrombie

Child Worker

Child Worker

In this 1913 photograph by Lewis Hine, a young girl works at a machine at the Walker County Hosiery Mills in LaFayette.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Convict Labor

Convict Labor

Convicts are shown circa 1909 working on one of the first graded roads in Rockdale County. The convict lease system was abolished in 1908, as one of many reforms enacted during the Progressive era, but soon chain gangs took the place of convict leasing.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
roc063.

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Georgia and Alabama Railroad

Georgia and Alabama Railroad

The Georgia and Alabama Railroad depot in Fitzgerald is pictured around the turn of the twentieth century. Railroad regulation was one of the major reforms of the Progressive era.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # ben326.

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Columbians

Columbians

Homer Loomis, left, holds an envelope addressed to state assistant attorney general Dan Duke while Ralph Childers sweeps the torn-up charter for the Columbians, Inc. into it. Loomis and Childers were members of the white supremacist organization, which aimed to intimidate African Americans and Jews in Atlanta.

Confiscated Dynamite

Confiscated Dynamite

Mario Buzzi (center), an undercover neo-Nazi investigator, holds dynamite confiscated from the Columbians organization during a press conference. Columbians Lanier Waller and James Ralph Childers signed confessions detailing their group's plans. Left to right: Waller; Childers; Solicitor General E. E. Andrews; James H. Sheldon, administrative chairman of the Anti-Nazi League; Buzzi; county detective I. M. Eason; and Atlanta police chief M. A. Hornsby.

Columbians Threatening Neighborhood

Columbians Threatening Neighborhood

In 1946 an African American family moves into a house on Garibaldi Street in Atlanta after the arrest of four Columbians (members of a white supremacist organization) who demonstrated in front of the house. Police officers stand by to prevent trouble.

Leroy Johnson

Leroy Johnson

Leroy Johnson desegregated the Georgia General Assembly when he won his seat in 1962 and went on to become one of Georgia's most powerful state senators. During his tenure, Johnson revised the literacy test for voting rights, making voting more accessible to all citizens of Georgia.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

Sheftall Sheftall

Sheftall Sheftall

Sheftall Sheftall was the eldest son of Mordecai Sheftall, a successful Savannah merchant, shipper, and statesman. In 1777, during the Revolutionary War, Mordecai became a colonel, and he named Sheftall as his assistant. The following year both men were taken as prisoners by the British and held in the Caribbean for two years before being released.

Congregation Mickve Israel

Congregation Mickve Israel

Congregation Mickve Israel in Savannah is the oldest Jewish congregation in the South and the third oldest in the United States. The congregation was founded during the establishment of the colony in 1733, and the current temple building was completed in 1878.

Photograph by Mark Kortum 

Bushnell’s Submarine

Bushnell’s Submarine

Connecticut native and, later, Georgia resident David Bushnell invented the submarine. He created the first prototype of a manned submarine, called the "Turtle," in the 1770s. His design was used in the Revolutionary War against the British.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Indigo

Indigo

An indigo plant (Indigofera suffruticosa) grows wild on Ossabaw Island. Indigo was cultivated by colonial Georgians, and along with rice, was a lucrative crop until cotton surpassed it in the early 1800s.

Photograph by James Bitler

William Holmes Borders

William Holmes Borders

The Reverend William Holmes Borders served as pastor of Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta from 1937 to 1988. In the late 1950s he led the Love, Law, and Liberation Movement to desegregate the city's bus system, and in the 1960s he arranged for the construction of a low-income housing project, Wheat Street Gardens.

Courtesy of Wheat Street Baptist Church; Estate of the Reverend William Holmes Borders Sr.

Wheat Street Baptist Church

Wheat Street Baptist Church

Wheat Street Baptist Church, located in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta, was founded in 1869. The church building, located at the corner of Auburn Avenue and Yonge Street (later William Holmes Borders Drive), was constructed between 1921 and 1939. William Holmes Borders, a prominent civil rights activist, was pastor of the church from 1937 to 1988.

From The United Negro: His Problems and His Progress: Containing the Addresses and Proceedings the Negro Young People's Christian and Educational Congress, Held August 6-11, 1902, by Irvine Garland Penn and John W. E. Bowen Sr.

Walden and Borders

Walden and Borders

Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gather in February 1957 for civil rights hearings held before the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. Prominent leaders from Georgia include A. T. Walden (second row, fourth from left) and the Reverend William Holmes Borders (second row, fifth from left).

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records, #LC-USZ62-126520.

Triple L Movement Leaders

Triple L Movement Leaders

Leaders of the movement to desegregate the bus system in Atlanta gather in the office of Rev. William Holmes Borders (seated) at Wheat Street Baptist Church. From left, Rev. R. B. Shorts, Rev. R. Joseph Johnson, Rev. Howard T. Bussey, and Rev. Ray Williams.

Courtesy of Wheat Street Baptist Church; Estate of the Reverend William Holmes Borders Sr.

Eli Whitney Stamp

Eli Whitney Stamp

Eli Whitney's cotton gin revolutionized the southern economy. Within only a few years, cotton replaced indigo and tobacco as the region's major cash crop. This 1940 postage stamp commemorates Whitney and his invention.

Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Albert B. Saye

Albert B. Saye

Albert B. Saye, a native of Morgan County, was a highly regarded history and law professor at the University of Georgia. He published twelve books over the course of his career, including six on Georgia history. His first, New Viewpoints in Georgia History (1943), is arguably his most famous.

From A Constitutional History of Georgia, by Albert B. Saye

Albert B. Saye

Albert B. Saye

A portrait of Albert B. Saye hangs in Demosthenian Hall at the University of Georgia. Saye taught at the university for fifty-five years, until his death in 1989.

Courtesy of the Demosthenian Literary Society

Archibald Butt

Archibald Butt

After beginning a career in journalism, Augusta native Archibald Butt found success in the army, eventually attaining the rank of major. He is perhaps best known for his role as military aide to U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Butt Memorial Bridge

Butt Memorial Bridge

The Butt Memorial Bridge in downtown Augusta spans the Augusta Canal. Dedicated in 1914, the bridge was named for Archibald Butt, an Augusta native who was the military aide to U.S. president William Howard Taft at the time of his death aboard the Titanic. The bridge is the only Titanic memorial in Georgia.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Historic Postcard Collection, #hpc0814.

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William Taft and Archibald Butt

William Taft and Archibald Butt

U.S. president William Howard Taft (front row, second from left) attends a baseball game in 1910. Seated directly behind Taft is Augusta native Archibald Butt, who served as the president's military aide from 1909 until his death aboard the Titanic in 1912.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
rab289.

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Butt Memorial Bridge Dedication

Butt Memorial Bridge Dedication

U.S. president William Howard Taft (far right) presides at the April 1914 dedication of the Butt Memorial Bridge over the Augusta Canal between Walton Way and Green Street in downtown Augusta. The bridge was named in honor of Archibald Butt, military aide to Taft, who died during the sinking of the Titanic.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ric080.

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William G. Anderson

William G. Anderson

Physician William Anderson, the president of the Albany Movement, is pictured in July 1962.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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Albany Movement

Albany Movement

Protesters march down Broad Street in Albany during the Albany Movement, one of the largest civil rights campaigns in Georgia. From 1961 to 1962 Black residents protested the city's segregationist practices. Around 1,200 protesters were imprisoned as a result of their activities during the movement.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #dgh231-86.

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Tenant Farmhouse

Tenant Farmhouse

A boy stands on the porch of a tenant farmhouse in Troup County, circa 1933. The typical Georgia farm family of this period had no electricity, no running water, and no indoor privies.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
trp186.

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Sharecropping Family, Macon County

Sharecropping Family, Macon County

Cotton sharecropper family in Macon County, 1937. The Great Depression did not end in Georgia until the United States entered World War II in 1941.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photograph by Dorothea Lange, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34-017922-C.

Cotton Bales on Loading Dock

Cotton Bales on Loading Dock

Bales of cotton on one of Savannah's docks are being loaded for shipment, circa 1930. During the Great Depression Savannah's residents were protected economically by the city's pivotal role as a seaport and exporter.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ctm148.

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Depression-Era Tourist Camp

Depression-Era Tourist Camp

The home of an itinerant family is pictured circa 1939 in Fulton County. During the hard economic times of the Great Depression, some families traveled around the South, performing repairs and other odd jobs.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photograph by Marion Post Wolcott., #LC-USF33-030330-M4.

Camp Homerville

Camp Homerville

Camp Homerville, pictured in 1934, was established in Clinch County during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps, Company 1413. Members of the corps focused on forestry and photography.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ccc009.

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Planting Cotton, 1941

Planting Cotton, 1941

A Heard County farmer plants cotton in 1941. The photographer, Jack Delano, worked under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration documenting farm families in Georgia.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34-044231-D.

Federal Writers Project

Federal Writers Project

An African American woman, working for the Federal Writers Project (FWP), in 1936. The FWP was a component of the Works Progress Administration, and the project employed out-of-work writers, artists, local historians, genealogists, folklorists, and librarians as researchers and writers. A major effort of the FWP was the creation of state guidebooks.

W. C. Bradley

W. C. Bradley

During the Great Depression, W. C. Bradley, a Columbus businessman, operated his mills at a loss to avoid laying off workers. Many businesses and residents around the state also extended helping hands to others during the extended economic crisis.

Courtesy of Synovus

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Albany native Bernice Johnson Reagon, a prominent singer of the civil rights movement, worked at the Smithsonian Institution from 1974 to 1994, first as a cultural historian in the Division of Performing Arts/African Diaspora Project, and then as a curator at the National Museum of American History. In 1993 she was appointed distinguished professor of history at American University.

Courtesy of Bernice Johnson Reagon. Photograph by Sharon Farmer

Johnson and King

Johnson and King

Civil rights activist and real estate broker Slater King was one of the leaders of the Albany Movement. To the left is Bernice Johnson, one of the original Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Freedom Singers, who later formed the musical group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon was a member of the Freedom Singers, which formed in Albany during the civil rights movement. Reagon later founded two a capella ensembles of African American women singers—the Harambee Singers, in 1966, and Sweet Honey in the Rock, in 1973.

Photograph from Sweet Honey in the Rock album Give Your Hands to Struggle (1975)

Count Casimir Pulaski

Count Casimir Pulaski

Count Casimir Pulaski was one of Georgia's most notable military heroes during the Revolutionary War. A Polish nobleman, Pulaski was killed while leading an unsuccessful charge against the British during the 1779 Siege of Savannah.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Foltz Photography Studio (Savannah, Ga.), photographs, 1899-1960, #GHS 1360-25-13-14.

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Casimir Pulaski Stamp

Casimir Pulaski Stamp

General Casimir Pulaski, featured on this 1931 U.S. postage stamp, joined American forces in the Revolutionary War. Fort Pulaski, near the mouth of the Savannah River, bears his name.

Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum

William McIntosh

William McIntosh

Charles Bird King's portrait of William McIntosh (ca. 1825). In 1825 McIntosh negotiated and signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, signing away all Creek lands in Georgia and thereby defying most of the reforms that he had encouraged and the laws that he had helped write.

Image from Archives and Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati Libraries, McKenney and Hall: History of the Indian Tribes Collection.

William McIntosh

William McIntosh

A Lower Creek Indian chief, William McIntosh was born to a Scottish father and Creek mother and was fluent in the culture and language of both Creek and white societies. He supported the United States in its efforts to obtain Creek land, and his role in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs was considered a betrayal by Creeks.

Image from Alabama Department of Archives and History

McIntosh Inn

McIntosh Inn

The McIntosh Inn, built in 1823 at Indian Springs in Butts County by Creek leader William McIntosh, thrived as a popular resort until the 1930s. In 1825 McIntosh signed the Treaty of Indian Springs with the U.S. government at the hotel; he was murdered three months later by angry Creeks who considered the agreement a betrayal.

Photograph by Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Historical Marker, McIntosh Inn

Historical Marker, McIntosh Inn

The marker reads: "Here on February 12, 1825, William McIntosh, a friendly chief of the Creek Indians, signed the Treaty by which all lands west of the Flint River were ceded to the State of Georgia. For this, he was murdered by a band of Creeks who were opposed to the treaty. This tablet is placed by The Piedmont Continental Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution A.D. 1911."

Photograph by Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Beaulieu Plantation

Beaulieu Plantation

This tree-lined drive marks the entrance to Beaulieu Plantation, the estate of William Stephens, who came to Savannah in 1737 to serve as secretary of Trustee Georgia. Beaulieu was one of the leading river plantations, and Stephens experimented with grape and cotton cultivation.

Photograph by Carol Ebel

Kate Cumming

Kate Cumming

Inspired by Florence Nightingale, Kate Cumming served as a nurse during the Civil War. She treated wounded Confederate soldiers in numerous field hospitals throughout Georgia. After the war she published a chronicle of her wartime nursing experiences.

Courtesy of National Library of Medicine

Baldowski Cartoon: Ministers’ Manifesto

Baldowski Cartoon: Ministers’ Manifesto

This cartoon, by well-known political cartoonist Clifford "Baldy" Baldowski, refers to the Ministers' Manifesto, a statement issued by the Atlanta Christian Council in 1957 to urge the peaceful integration of public schools. A second manifesto, encouraging racial moderation, was issued in the wake of the Temple bombing in 1958. The cartoon, published in 1960, appeared in the Atlanta Constitution.

Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Clifford Baldowski Editorial Cartoon Collection.

William B. Hartsfield

William B. Hartsfield

Atlanta mayor William B. Hartsfield speaks about the bombing of "the Temple" in Atlanta on October 13, 1958, the day after a dynamite blast destroyed portions of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation's synagogue. Hartsfield denounced the act, accusing the bombers of giving "a bad name to the South."

William B. Hartsfield

William B. Hartsfield

As mayor, Hartsfield guided Atlanta through World War II with a policy of fiscal restraint. He also led the city through the racial unrest of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, overseeing the peaceful integration of the city's bus system in 1957 and schools in 1961.

Wheat Street Baptist Church

Wheat Street Baptist Church

The planning of the "Love, Law, and Liberation" movement, which integrated the Atlanta bus system, took place at Wheat Street Baptist Church, on Sweet Auburn Avenue. The movement, which began in January 1957, was led by the church's pastor, William Holmes Borders.

Photograph by Warren LeMay

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Samuel Griswold

Samuel Griswold

Samuel Griswold, one of the South's leading cotton gin manufacturers, founded Griswoldville, an industrial village in Jones County. The town was located on the Central of Georgia Railway, and Union general William T. Sherman's forces destroyed it during the March to the Sea in 1864.

Courtesy of Laura Nelle O'Callaghan

Garnett Andrews

Garnett Andrews

Garnett Andrews was appointed judge of the Northern Circuit of the Superior Court of Georgia in 1834. He later served in the state House of Representatives and, on the eve of the Civil War, was a vocal opponent of secession. The portrait was painted in the early 1830s.

Courtesy of Rosalie Andrews McConnell

Josiah Tattnall

Josiah Tattnall

As a U.S. naval officer, Josiah Tattnall traveled around the world during the 1840s and 1850s. After the Civil War began, he was commissioned as a captain in the Confederate navy, with command of the Georgia and South Carolina coasts.

Image from U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph

Ellen Craft in Disguise

Ellen Craft in Disguise

To escape slavery, light-skinned Ellen Craft disguised herself as a male enslaver. Her husband, William, who was darker skinned, posed as her valet. They successfully traveled to the North, and eventually to England, where they published a narrative recounting their lives in slavery and their daring escape.

John Brown

John Brown

A fugitive from slavery in Georgia, John Brown provided one of the few book-length testimonials of what it was like to be enslaved in the Deep South, Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Now in England (1855).

Slave Narratives

Slave Narratives

This photograph of Josephine Hill, a freed woman, was taken in 1937 or 1938 for the slave narrative collection, part of the Federal Writers' Project.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Federal Writers' Project Slave Narratives Collections, #LC-USZ62-125143.

Springvale Park

Springvale Park

Comprising ten acres, Springvale Park is the centerpiece of the Inman Park neighborhood, which was established in the late 1880s. In 1903 Inman Park founder Joel Hurt hired landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to improve the park aesthetically.

Photograph by Ted Bazemore

Inman Park

Inman Park

Atlanta's first planned garden suburb, Inman Park was envisioned as an oasis for the city's wealthy citizens. After a period of decline, the neighborhood underwent an extensive restoration, beginning in the 1970s.

Photograph by Ted Bazemore

Trolley Barn, Inman Park

Trolley Barn, Inman Park

The Trolley Barn in Inman Park was the terminus for Atlanta's first electric streetcar line, which ran west to downtown. The barn was the repair depot for the streetcars. Today the building is used for community events.

Photograph by Ted Bazemore

Inman Park

Inman Park

In 1969 Robert Griggs purchased and restored this Queen Anne-style house on Euclid Avenue, thereby launching the Inman Park restoration movement.

Photograph by Ted Bazemore

Callan Castle, Inman Park

Callan Castle, Inman Park

The Beaux-Arts style Callan Castle (1902-4) was built in Inman Park for Coca-Cola Company founder Asa Candler.

Photograph by Ted Bazemore

Donald Hollowell

Donald Hollowell

Prominent civil rights attorney Donald Hollowell talks to WSB reporters during the desegregation of the University of Georgia in 1961. Hollowell represented Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, the first African American students to gain admission to the university.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture

Donald Hollowell

Donald Hollowell

Civil rights attorney Donald Hollowell, a native of Kansas, was instrumental in the movement to desegregate public institutions throughout Georgia during the 1950s and 1960s. He established a law practice in Atlanta in 1952 and remained a resident of the city until his death in 2004.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture

Donald Hollowell

Donald Hollowell

Donald Hollowell (third from the right) served in the U.S. Army's segregated Tenth Cavalry Regiment, better known as the Buffalo Soldiers, from 1935 to 1938. He was recalled to active service in 1941, when the United States entered World War II.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture

Louise and Donald Hollowell

Louise and Donald Hollowell

Louise and Donald Hollowell are pictured at Cafe Zanzibar in New York City on August 13, 1944, during World War II. Hollowell served with distinction in Europe during the war, rising to the rank of captain by the war's end.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System

Albany Movement Leaders

Albany Movement Leaders

(Left to right) Attorney T. M. Jackson, chief counsel Donald Hollowell, Dr. William G. Anderson, and attorney C. B. King stand in front of the Albany federal courthouse and post office.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

Donald and Louise Hollowell

Donald and Louise Hollowell

Donald and Louise Hollowell stand next to the Donald L. Hollowell Parkway in Atlanta. The former Bankhead Highway was renamed in 1998 in honor of the prominent civil rights attorney.

John Blassingame

John Blassingame

John Blassingame, a native of Covington, was a noted historian of slavery. He received his bachelor's degree at Fort Valley State College in Peach County, and completed graduate work at Howard University and Yale University, where he joined the faculty in 1971. His major work, The Slave Community, was published the following year, and from 1979 to 1999 he edited six volumes of the Papers of Frederick Douglass.

Courtesy of Yale University

Neptune Small

Neptune Small

Neptune Small, pictured circa 1900, was born into slave status on St. Simons Island at Retreat Plantation, which was owned by Thomas Butler King. Small accompanied King's sons to battle during the Civil War. After the war he lived as a free man on St. Simons for more than forty years.

Jefferson Franklin Long

Jefferson Franklin Long

Jefferson Franklin Long was the first African American from Georgia to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. A native of Crawford County, Long was elected in December 1870 and served until March 1871.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

The Goat Man

The Goat Man

Charles McCartney, also known as the "Goat Man," was a traveling preacher who roamed central Georgia in a goat-pulled wagon in the mid-twentieth century.

The Goat Man

The Goat Man

Charles McCartney, also known as the "Goat Man," was a folk figure in Georgia for four decades in the mid-twentieth century. He likely inspired some of the characters in Flannery O'Connor's fiction.

Confederate Gold

Confederate Gold

In this Harper's Weekly engraving, Union soldiers are shown searching for buried Confederate gold on a southern plantation.

From Harper's Weekly

Thomas Brewer

Thomas Brewer

Founder of the local NAACP chapter in Columbus, Thomas Brewer (pictured ca. 1950) is remembered for orchestrating the legal challenge to Georgia's all-white primary system.

Courtesy of Columbus State University Archives

NAACP Charter Application

NAACP Charter Application

The NAACP charter application for a Columbus branch was signed in 1939 by Thomas Brewer, a local physician and political activist.

Courtesy of Columbus State University Archives

Confederate Works, Atlanta

Confederate Works, Atlanta

George N. Barnard made this photograph of Confederate works in Atlanta in September 1864, after Confederate troops had evacuated the city to escape Union general William T. Sherman's forces. Barnard, the official photographer for the Military Division the Mississippi, took many photographs of battlefield remains in Atlanta.

From Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by George N. Barnard

Railroad Depot, Atlanta

Railroad Depot, Atlanta

As the official photographer for the Military Division of the Mississippi, George N. Barnard traveled with Union general William T. Sherman's troops. This photo shows an Atlanta railroad depot in 1864, after the city's capture by Union troops.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photgraph by George N. Barnard, #LC-B8171-2712.

Atlanta during the Civil War

Atlanta during the Civil War

An Atlanta street, showing the destruction inflicted on the city by Union general William T. Sherman's troops, in 1864. The picture was taken by George N. Barnard, the official photographer for the Military Division of the Mississippi, commanded by Sherman.

From Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by G. N. Barnard

Damaged Potter House

Damaged Potter House

This photograph shows the shell-damaged Potter House in Atlanta. As the official photographer for the Military Division of the Mississippi, George N. Barnard documented in 1864-65 some of the destruction left in the wake of the Civil War.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photograph by George N. Barnard, #LC-B8171-2717.

McPherson’s Death Site

McPherson’s Death Site

The death site of Union general James B. McPherson was photographed by George N. Barnard after the Civil War ended. McPherson was killed on horseback during the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864. A horse skeleton is visible in the left background.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photgraph by George N. Barnard.

Eliza Frances Andrews

Eliza Frances Andrews

Eliza Frances Andrews (pictured ca. 1879) was a writer of journals, novels, newspaper reports, botany articles and textbooks, and editorials. Her published diary, War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865, is one of the most compelling first-person accounts of the Civil War home front.

Courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Lupton Library Special Collections

Eliza Frances Andrews

Eliza Frances Andrews

Image of Eliza Frances Andrews in the War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865, one of the most compelling first-person accounts of the Civil War (1861-65) home front, published in 1908. Eliza Frances Andrews was a writer, newspaper reporter, editor, columnist, social critic, scientist, and educator. By the time of her death in 1931 in Rome, Georgia, Andrews had written three novels, more than a dozen scientific articles on botany, two internationally recognized botany textbooks, and dozens of articles, commentaries, and reports on topics ranging from politics to environmental issues.

Image from The War Time Journal of a Georgia Girl (1908)

Roy Harris

Roy Harris

A powerful Augusta politician, Roy Harris twice served as Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives. His support was deemed critical for those seeking the governorship. As the president (1958-66) of the segregationist organization known as Citizens' Councils of America, Harris was also a powerful figure regionally.

Baldowski Cartoon: Roy Harris

Baldowski Cartoon: Roy Harris

This cartoon (ca. 1958), drawn by political cartoonist Clifford "Baldy" Baldowski, depicts former state legislator and Board of Regents member Roy Harris. Harris plays "Roy's Tune" on an accordion. The caption reads, "Everybody now.... let's dance!"

Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Clifford Baldowski Editorial Cartoon Collection.

King Papers

King Papers

Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin (second from left) examines a display of Martin Luther King Jr.'s papers at Sotheby's auction house in New York City. Franklin led the effort in 2006 to raise $32 million to purchase the papers for Atlanta. Also pictured, from left, Xernona Clayton, Andrew Young, and Carolyn Young.

Great Speckled Bird

Great Speckled Bird

Staff members of the Great Speckled Bird, an underground newspaper in Atlanta published from 1968 to 1976, meet to plan a forthcoming issue. The paper, founded by students from several Georgia colleges, advocated New Left issues.

Photograph by Carter Tomassi

Gay Activists

Gay Activists

A student demonstrates for gay rights at the University of Georgia in Athens, circa 1971. In 1972 the Committee on Gay Education at the university successfully sued for the right to hold a dance on campus.

Mills B. Lane Jr.

Mills B. Lane Jr.

Mills B. Lane Jr., a native of Savannah, was president of Citizens and Southern National Bank, based in Atlanta, from 1946 to 1973. During his tenure Lane financed several major projects in the city, including the Atlanta Stadium, and worked to establish peaceful race relations in both Atlanta and Savannah.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium

An International League baseball game is played at the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1965, the same year in which the facility was completed. In addition to sporting events, the stadium was used for concerts and other large gatherings before it was destroyed in 1997 to make way for Turner Field (later Center Parc Stadium).

Segregated Railroad Station

Segregated Railroad Station

Signs above the doors at a railroad station in Manchester (Meriwether County), pictured in 1944, read "Colored Men" and "Colored Waiting Room," indicating segregated facilities.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF3301-001172-M4.

Bus Station Sign

Bus Station Sign

A sign, pictured in 1943, indicates separate facilities for Black customers at a bus station in Rome. Segregation of Blacks and whites became a common occurence in the South with the rise of Jim Crow laws in the 1890s.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Segregation Caricature

Segregation Caricature

A caricature entitled "For the Sunny South," published in 1913, depicts an airplane towing a "Jim Crow trailer."

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Le Petit Journal

Le Petit Journal

The race massacre of 1906 made international headlines and threatened Atlanta's image as a thriving New South city. The incident, sparked by sensationalized accounts of Black violence, lasted for two nights and resulted in dozens of Black deaths. It was reported in the October 7, 1906, issue of the French publication Le Petit Journal. The original caption translates as "Lynchings in the United States."

Sweet Auburn

Sweet Auburn

The Sweet Auburn neighborhood was the heart of the Black residential and business community in the first part of the twentieth century. Pictured in the foreground is an administrative office of the National Park Service, which maintains the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in the neighborhood.

Segregated Ponce de Leon Park

Segregated Ponce de Leon Park

By the 1880s, as Atlanta grew and expanded, so too did Jim Crow segregation. The popular Ponce de Leon Springs, an amusement park and lake, was for whites only. Blacks were permitted only as servants.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0356.

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Julia Flisch

Julia Flisch

Julia Flisch, a native of Augusta, was instrumental to the development of higher-education opportunities for women in Georgia. Over the course of her career, Flisch taught at Georgia Normal and Industrial College (later Georgia College and State University) in Milledgeville, Tubman High School for Girls in Augusta, and the Junior College of Augusta (later Augusta State University).

Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter speaks at the first Georgia Women of Achievement induction ceremony, which was held in 1992 at Wesleyan College in Macon. A group of Wesleyan alumnae founded Georgia Women of Achievement in 1990, two years after Carter suggested the need for such an organization in the state.

Moore’s Ford Marker

Moore’s Ford Marker

A historical marker, erected by the Georgia Historical Society, stands on the site of a mass lynching, which took place in 1946 on the border of Walton and Oconee counties. The crime generated national attention and led to U.S. president Harry Truman's creation of the President's Committee on Civil Rights.

Leo Frank Marker

Leo Frank Marker

A historical marker stands near the site of Leo Frank's lynching in Cobb County. Dedicated in March 2008, the marker was erected by the Georgia Historical Society, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, and Temple Kol Emeth.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Historical Marker Program.

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Sharecroppers’ Shed

Sharecroppers’ Shed

A corn crib and tool shed used by sharecroppers is pictured in Cobb County, circa 1890. In 1880 sharecroppers worked 32 percent of the farms in Georgia; thirty years later, that percentage had risen to 37 percent.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cob036.

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Sharecroppers

Sharecroppers

Sharecroppers pose in a Bulloch County tobacco field in 1949. The practice of sharecropping, which involved workers raising crops on someone else's farm in exchange for a portion of the harvest, developed in the years after the Civil War and persisted until the mid-twentieth century.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
bul027.

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Sharecroppers’ House

Sharecroppers’ House

A sharecropper stands in the door of her Lowndes County home, circa 1910. In that year Black sharecroppers managed more than 106,000 farms in Georgia.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # low105.

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Viola Napier

Viola Napier

Viola Napier performs her duties as city clerk of Macon in 1952. One of the first two women elected to Georgia's state legislature, Napier became city clerk in 1927 and served in that capacity for twenty-seven years. She also provided unofficial legal counsel for five mayors during her tenure.

Viola Napier

Viola Napier

Viola Napier, pictured in 1932, was one of the first two women elected to Georgia's House of Representatives. She won office in 1922, along with Bessie Kempton, and served until 1926. Trained as a lawyer, Napier was also the first woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court of Georgia.

William Harris Crawford

William Harris Crawford

William Harris Crawford, a longtime resident of Oglethorpe County, became the first Georgian to run for the U.S. presidency when he stood for election in both 1816 and 1824. Although never elected president, Crawford served in a variety of other capacities during his political career, including service as a state representative, U.S. senator, minister to France, and cabinet member for U.S. president James Madison.

Courtesy of Department of the Treasury

Brunswick Shipyard

Brunswick Shipyard

Georgia's coastal region played a critical role in the U.S. Maritime Commission's $350 million shipbuilding program. During its peak production years in 1943 and 1944, the Brunswick shipping yard employed more than 16,000 men and women and constructed ninety-nine "Liberty ships" for the war effort.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
gly251.

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Bell Aircraft Corporation, ca. 1943

Bell Aircraft Corporation, ca. 1943

Bell Aircraft Corporation built B-29 bombers at its Marietta, Georgia, plant during World War II.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # cob202.

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World War II Pilots

World War II Pilots

Pilots Donald Bryan (left) and K. W. Noyes paint crosses on their Republic P-47 Thunderbolt on February 24, 1944. The crosses represent victories in battle by the pilots, who served as escorts for bombers in Germany during World War II.

Courtesy of 352nd Fighter Group Association, and Sam Sox Jr. Archivist

Emory University School of Medicine

Emory University School of Medicine

Emory organized medical units in both world wars to care for wounded soldiers behind front lines. Recovery rooms developed during World War II for postoperative patients were so successful that they were brought home for civilian use after the war was over.

Prisoners Socializing

Prisoners Socializing

In Macon and Dublin POW camps, German prisoners of World War II were treated well and given plenty of leisure time. In many cases, these inmates retained a strong sense of camaraderie.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Tracy O'Neal Photographic Collection.

Women and Wartime Employment

Women and Wartime Employment

Women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during World War II, often working in traditionally male-dominated fields. Here, women at the Union Point Manufacturing Company in Greene County are producing textiles in 1941.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34-046518-D.

Fort Benning Workers Camp

Fort Benning Workers Camp

During World War II migrant workers and their families took up residence in makeshift camps like this one near Fort Benning in Columbus. The metal shelters pictured here rented for $10 a month, and trailer space rented for $2 a month.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Boeing B-29 “Superfortress”

Boeing B-29 “Superfortress”

The Boeing B-29 "Superfortress," first test flown in 1943, was the most advanced heavy bomber of World War II. Its powerful engines and pressurized cabin allowed the B-29 to fly higher, faster, and with a larger bomb-carrying capacity than any other airplane in its day. It served primarily in the Pacific theater of World War II and later in the Korean War.

Image from Alan Wilson

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Postwar Economic Development

Postwar Economic Development

Following World War II Georgia's economy continued to expand, and hundreds of new firms opened factories throughout the state. Here, the Riverside Manufacturing Company's plant in Moultrie is pictured while under construction in 1955. Workers at the plant manufactured Masterbilt industrial uniforms.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
clq090.

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Eugene Talmadge

Eugene Talmadge

Talmadge ran for governor for a fourth term in 1946, promising to restore the white primary and to keep Blacks in their place in Jim Crow Georgia. Talmadge, who had very strong support in rural areas, won the gubernatorial nomination by obtaining a majority of the county unit votes.

New Ebenezer

New Ebenezer

German artist Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck drew a map of New Ebenezer during his visit to the settlement in 1736. New Ebenezer, located on the bluffs above the Savannah River, was the second settlement established by the Georgia Salzburgers, a group of Protestants expelled from the Catholic province of Salzburg in 1731.

Illustration by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck

Jerusalem Church

Jerusalem Church

Jerusalem Church was established by the Salzburgers in Ebenezer during the 1730s. Ebenezer, left in ruins after the Revolutionary War, had disappeared by 1855, but Jerusalem Church, now known as Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church, still stands. It is one of the few buildings in Georgia left intact after the Revolutionary War.

Photograph by Bruce Tuten

Early Ebenezer

Early Ebenezer

This sketch of the early Ebenezer settlement was drawn in 1736 by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck. That same year the Salzburger settlement moved to a location closer to the Savannah River, where conditions were better for farming.

Print from Von Reck Archive, Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen

Seal of the Trustees

Seal of the Trustees

One face of the 1733 seal of the Georgia Trustees features two figures resting upon urns. They represent the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, which formed the northwestern and southeastern boundaries of the province. The genius of the colony is seated beside a cornucopia, with a cap of liberty on her head and a spear in one hand. The abbreviated Latin phrase Colonia Georgia Aug means "May the colony of Georgia prosper."

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King, sitting beside Ralph David Abernathy (right) at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, speaks to the press after the assassination of her husband, Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968. For nearly forty years after her husband's death, King continued to promote their shared vision of equality and nonviolence.

SCLC Leaders Marching

SCLC Leaders Marching

Ralph David Abernathy (second from left) marches with Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr. (center) in 1966 on the Georgia state capitol. All were influential leaders during the early years of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Joseph E. Brown

Joseph E. Brown

The Civil War governor of Georgia, Joseph E. Brown was one of the most successful politicians in the state's history. A member of the Bourbon Triumvirate, Brown served as a U.S. senator from 1880 to 1890.

Alfred H. Colquitt

Alfred H. Colquitt

Alfred H. Colquitt, a member of the Bourbon Triumvirate, was elected governor of Georgia in 1876. Although his tenure was marked by controversial finances and other scandals, Colquitt is credited with advocating industrialization in the state as a means of recovering from the economic hardships of the Civil War.

From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon, a renowned Confederate officer and political leader, was a member of the Farmers' Alliance in Georgia until the organization's split with the Democratic Party in 1892. A member of the Bourbon Triumvirate, Gordon served multiple terms in the U.S. Senate and, from 1886 to 1890, as governor of the state.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Brady-Handy Photograph Collection.

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Johann Martin Boltzius

Johann Martin Boltzius

Lutheran minister Johann Martin Boltzius, along with religious refugees from Salzburger, founded the settlement of Ebenezer near Savannah in the early 1730s as a religious utopia. Boltzius hoped to create a successful economic system that was not dependent upon slavery.

George Whitefield

George Whitefield

An engraving of Anglican minister George Whitefield, created in 1774, depicts him preaching at a church in New York. A popular figure of the eighteenth-century Great Awakening in America, Whitefield founded the Bethesda orphanage near Savannah in 1740.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Benjamin Hawkins

Benjamin Hawkins

Benjamin Hawkins, a North Carolina native, served as the "Principal Temporary Agent for Indian Affairs South of the Ohio River" from 1796 until his death in 1816. Hawkins established the Creek Agency Reserve along the Flint River in present-day Crawford County, Georgia, where he lived with his wife and children. A skilled and fair diplomat, Hawkins encouraged Indians in his jurisdiction to adopt the U.S. government's "plan for civilization" as their best option for survival.

Fort Benjamin Hawkins

Fort Benjamin Hawkins

Indian Superintendent Benjamin Hawkins personally selected the location of Fort Benjamin Hawkins, which was built to protect settlers from the Creeks. Despite Hawkins's fear that the Creeks would attack the settlement, no problems arose during the fifteen years that the fort was used as an outpost. Fort Hawkins was later used as a supply hub during the War of 1812.

James Longstreet

James Longstreet

During Reconstruction, James Longstreet, pictured circa 1865, lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. Although he served as a Confederate general during the Civil War, Longstreet acquired the image of a southern traitor during the postwar years by cultivating political relationships with such prominent Republicans as U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War Glass Negative Collection, #LC-DIG-cwpb-06084.

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James Longstreet

James Longstreet

James Longstreet, a general during the Civil War, grew up primarily in Georgia, where from the age of nine he was raised by his uncle Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. He served as second-in-command to Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia and in 1864 helped lead Confederate troops to victory at the Battle of Chickamauga, which was fought in north Georgia.

Image from Bradford, Gamaliel, 1863-1932

Longstreet at Gettysburg

Longstreet at Gettysburg

Painter H. A. Ogden depicts James Longstreet leading his troops in Longstreet at Gettysburg (circa 1900). Longstreet, a Confederate general, disagreed with the tactics of his superior, Robert E. Lee, and was later blamed for the Confederacy's loss of the battle.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Longstreet Monument

Longstreet Monument

A monument to James Longstreet, a Confederate general and Georgia politician, stands in the Alta Vista Cemetery in Gainesville, where he is buried. Longstreet lived in Gainesville, operating the Piedmont Hotel and a farm, from 1875 until his death in 1904. 

Photograph by Michael Noirot 

Preston King

Preston King

Preston King, pictured in 2012, is a member of a family known for its activism during the Albany Movement. King was convicted of draft evasion in 1961, after he refused to comply with orders from the Albany draft board addressing him as "Preston," rather than "Mr. King." King jumped bail following his trial and lived abroad until 2000, when he received a pardon and returned to Georgia. A prominent academic, today King lives in Atlanta.

Photograph from C-SPAN

Porterdale Mill

Porterdale Mill

In 1916 Bibb Manufacturing Company opened the Osprey Mill in Porterdale. Bibb was an important part of Georgia's cotton and textile industry for more than a century and became one of the state's largest employers by the mid-1950s.

Columbus Mill

Columbus Mill

The Columbus Mill was built by the Bibb Manufacturing Company in 1900 on the banks of the Chattahoochee River. Eventually the cotton mill grew to be the largest in the country, supporting a mill town known as "Bibb City."

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Engineering Record, #HAER GA,108-COLM,27-10.

Free Kindergarten

Free Kindergarten

The Bibb Manufacturing Company, founded in Macon in 1876, opened mills in a number of Georgia communities by the end of the nineteenth century. In 1905 the company opened a free kindergarten in Covington, believed to be the first such program in Newton County.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #new142-83.

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Forsyth Mill

Forsyth Mill

After World War II, the Bibb Manufacturing Company opened several new mills in Georgia, including its Forsyth Mill, pictured in the 1970s. During the 1950s, Bibb became one of the largest employers in the state, and by 1966 the company operated fourteen mills in Georgia.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # mnr184.

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Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, both natives of Plains, have lunch in the White House's Oval Office in 1977. Carter was elected to the U.S. presidency in 1976 and served one term.

James Earl Carter and Children

James Earl Carter and Children

James Earl Carter, father of U.S. president Jimmy Carter, stands with his three oldest children, Gloria (left), Ruth (center), and Jimmy, circa 1930. A fourth child, Billy, was born in 1937.

Jimmy and Billy Carter

Jimmy and Billy Carter

U.S. president Jimmy Carter (left) and his younger brother, Billy, inspect a peanut crop in 1977 on the Carter farm in Sumter County.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # sum097.

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Jimmy and Jack Carter

Jimmy and Jack Carter

U.S. president Jimmy Carter (left) walks with his oldest son, Jack, on the site of the future Gordon County Grain Company in 1977. At the time of this photograph, Jack was a resident of Calhoun, located in Gordon County, where he practiced law.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #gor236.

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Amy Carter and Parents

Amy Carter and Parents

Amy, Rosalyn, and Jimmy Carter smile and wave to the crowd at the 1976 Democratic National Convention in New York City. The youngest child of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, Amy was the object of much media attention during her father's tenure as president.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Carter Family

Carter Family

The Shahbanou of Iran (left) holds James Earl Carter IV, the grandson of U.S. president Jimmy Carter, during a visit to the White House in 1978. Beside her, from left, are First Lady Rosalynn Carter and the baby's parents, Caron and Chip Carter.

Carter Family

Carter Family

Governor Jimmy, Rosalynn, and Amy Carter during a celebratory parade in 1971.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Presidential Reconstruction

Presidential Reconstruction

U.S. president Andrew Johnson signs documents at the White House in 1865 to pardon members of the Confederacy. In October 1865 Georgia delegates held a convention in which they satisfied Johnson's requirements for readmission to the Union. Johnson's policies, however, were later overturned by Congress.

From Harper's Weekly

Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson

Thomas Nast's depiction of a tearful Andrew Johnson, published in 1866 as part of a political cartoon entitled Tearful Convention, foreshadows the even greater frustration that the president would feel over Congress's resistance to his Reconstruction policies, including the ease with which southern states were readmitted into the Union.

From Harper's Weekly

State Capitol at Milledgeville

State Capitol at Milledgeville

The state capitol in Milledgeville, pictured circa 1850, housed the General Assembly from 1807 until 1868 and was the site of the state's secession convention in 1861. Known today as the "Old Capitol Building," the structure currently houses Georgia Military College and the Antebellum Capitol Museum.

Turpentine Still

Turpentine Still

A Thomas County turpentine still produces rosin and turpentine in the early 1900s. Along with other naval stores products, rosin and turpentine were used in the construction and repair of sea vessels.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
tho323.

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Turpentine Still

Turpentine Still

A turpentine still in Thomas County, pictured circa 1895, distills turpentine and rosin from the crude gum harvested from pine trees. The highest grade of turpentine was distilled from longleaf yellow and slash pine varieties.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
tho144a.

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Pine Tree Festival

Pine Tree Festival

A parade float, pictured in the late 1950s, progresses through Swainsboro, the seat of Emanuel County, during the Pine Tree Festival. Forest-related industry was an economic mainstay for the county from the 1870s through the 1960s.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
emn067.

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Naval Stores

Naval Stores

Laborers on a Savannah dock prepare barrels of rosin for shipment, circa 1895. From the 1890s until 1945, the ports at Savannah and Brunswick shipped out most of the world's supply of naval stores.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ctm280.

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King Center

King Center

The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, located in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta, was established in King's memory by his family in 1968. Today the center, which houses a library and archives, strives to fulfill King's vision of social justice through a variety of programs and services.

King’s Crypt

King’s Crypt

In 1970, during the dedication ceremony for the King Center complex in Atlanta, the remains of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. were relocated to a crypt at the center. The reflecting pool surrounding the crypt was completed in 1977. King's wife, Coretta Scott King, was interred beside him in 2006.

Image from Wally Gobetz

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Albany Movement

Albany Movement

Demonstrators protest the imprisonment of fellow protestors by Albany police sheriff Laurie Pritchett during the Albany Movement, a collaborative effort by such civil rights groups as SNCC, the SCLC, and the NAACP to desegregate the city of Albany in 1961-62.

Julian Bond

Julian Bond

Julian Bond, pictured at a 1981 press conference at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Atlanta, served as communications director for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1960 to 1965, when he was elected to the Georgia state legislature.

John Lewis

John Lewis

John Lewis speaks at a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1964. Lewis was elected chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1963 and served until 1966. The philosophy and tactics of SNCC underwent a radical shift following Lewis's departure.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, #LC-DIG-ppmsc-01270.

Yamacraw Territory

Yamacraw Territory

A map of Georgia, circa 1745, shows the territory inhabited by the Yamacraw Indians, a group formed in 1728 by disaffected Creek and Yamasee Indians. The Yamacraws, led by Tomochichi, established their first community on the bluffs of the Savannah River. After the arrival of James Oglethorpe in 1733, the group agreed to move north to accomodate Oglethorpe's plans to build an outpost, which later became the city of Savannah.

From History of Georgia, by C. Howell

Tomochichi

Tomochichi

As a principal mediator between the native Creek (Muscogee) and English settlers during the first years of Georgia's settlement, Tomochichi (left) contributed to the establishment of peaceful relations between the two groups. His nephew, Toonahowi, is seated on the right in this engraving, circa 1734-35, by John Faber Jr.

Atlanta Life Insurance

Atlanta Life Insurance

The old Atlanta Life Insurance building, pictured in 2005, is boarded up on Auburn Avenue. Established by Alonzo Herndon in 1905, Atlanta Life was one of three financial institutions, all headquartered in the Sweet Auburn district, that served the Black middle class in Atlanta before the civil rights movement.

Royal Peacock

Royal Peacock

The Royal Peacock, a club located in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn historic district, was formerly known as the Top Hat Club, one of the city's premier African American music venues early in the twentieth century.

Martin Luther King Jr. Birthplace

Martin Luther King Jr. Birthplace

The birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta is one of the many historic properties that J. W. Robinson has worked to restore.

Image from Wally Gobetz

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Sweet Auburn Festival

Sweet Auburn Festival

Visitors enjoy the activities offered at the Sweet Auburn Heritage Festival, held each year in the Auburn Avenue historic district. The festival was founded in 1984 by civil rights leader Hosea Williams.

Land Grant to Austin Dabney

Land Grant to Austin Dabney

Austin Dabney, an enslaved Georgian, earned freedom in exchange for his service in the patriot army. Dabney was banned from participating in the land lottery open to Revolutionary War veterans in 1819, but the legislature granted him acreage in Washington County in 1821.

From The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, by S. Kaplan and E. N. Kaplan

State’s Rights Hotel

State’s Rights Hotel

The building that housed the State's Rights Hotel in Milledgeville was designed in the Federal style by John Marlor and completed in 1825. The structure was probably used as a tavern until 1837, when the building was sold. The hotel opened about two years later and became a center of political activity for several years.

Courtesy of Georgia's Old Capital Museum

Brown-Stetson-Sanford House

Brown-Stetson-Sanford House

The Brown-Stetson-Sanford House in Milledgeville, the former home of the State's Rights Hotel, was moved from its original location on North Wilkinson Street to West Hancock Street in 1966. Today the home, pictured in 2006, houses a museum and civic center operated by the Old Capital Museum.

Courtesy of Georgia's Old Capital Museum

Ellen Louise Axson

Ellen Louise Axson

Ellen Louise Axson and Woodrow Wilson were married in Savannah on June 24, 1885. Before her marriage, Axson attended the Art Students League of New York.

Ellen Axson Wilson

Ellen Axson Wilson

Ellen Axson Wilson, pictured in 1912, became the first Georgian to serve as first lady of the United States when her husband, Woodrow Wilson, won the 1912 presidential election. Ellen Wilson was born in Savannah and grew up primarily in Rome, where her father was a Presbyterian minister.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Independent Presbyterian Church

Independent Presbyterian Church

Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, pictured circa 1930, counted Mary Telfair, the benefactor of Telfair Museums, as a member in the nineteenth century. U.S. first lady Ellen Axson Wilson, whose paternal grandfather began serving as pastor in 1857, was born in the manse of the church in 1860 and married there in 1885.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ctm159.

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Ellen and Woodrow Wilson

Ellen and Woodrow Wilson

Ellen Axson Wilson poses in 1910 with her husband, Woodrow Wilson, who served as governor of New Jersey in 1911-12. Beginning in 1905 Ellen Wilson, who studied art before her marriage, resumed painting and spent occasional summers at an art colony in Connecticut.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Wilson Family

Wilson Family

Woodrow Wilson and his wife, Ellen Axson Wilson (standing), pose with their three daughters in 1912, the same year that Woodrow Wilson won the presidential election. As first lady, Ellen Wilson campaigned to improve conditions on the streets of Washington, D.C., and planned the rose garden on the White House grounds.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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Wilson Funeral Procession

Wilson Funeral Procession

U.S. president Woodrow Wilson's carriage proceeds down Broad Street in Rome during the funeral of his wife, Ellen Axson Wilson, on August 11, 1914. A native of Rome, the first lady died in the White House on August 6.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # flo128.

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James Harrison Wilson

James Harrison Wilson

James Harrison Wilson, a major general in the Union army during the Civil War, led a cavalry raid into Alabama and Georgia in March-April 1865, during the last weeks of the war. The cities of Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia, fell to Wilson's troops during the action, which is known today as Wilson's Raid.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Selected Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865, #LC-B8172-2074.

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, was known for his successful cavalry raids throughout much of the Civil War. On April 2, 1865, he was unable to prevent Union general James Harrison Wilson from raiding Selma, Alabama, a critical production and supply center for the Confederacy.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano published one of the earliest known slave narratives, The Interesting Narrative, in London in 1789. The work chronicles his years of enslavement, which he spent sailing trade ships both at sea and along the Savannah River. Equiano purchased his freedom in 1766 and traveled widely thereafter.

From The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, by O. Equiano

Atlanta History

Atlanta History

The journal Atlanta History, published semiannually, offers articles on Georgia and southern history, architecture, art, transportation studies, and urban studies, as well as photographic essays and oral history interviews.

John Macpherson Berrien

John Macpherson Berrien

As a U.S. senator, John Macpherson Berrien distinguished himself as an eloquent debater. The U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Marshall dubbed him "the honey-tongued Georgia youth." Engraving is by J. C. Buttre from a daguerreotype.

John Macpherson Berrien

John Macpherson Berrien

John Macpherson Berrien, pictured circa 1830, served as a state senator, a U.S. senator, and the attorney general of the United States under President Andrew Jackson. A native of New Jersey, Berrien spent much of his life in Savannah.

John Milledge

John Milledge

John Milledge, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, served as the state attorney general and in the state legislature before being elected governor of Georgia in 1802. Milledgeville, which served as the state capital for much of the nineteenth century, was named in his honor.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

Oglethorpe with Creek Indians

Oglethorpe with Creek Indians

The Creek Indians meet with James Oglethorpe. By the time Oglethorpe and his Georgia colonists arrived in 1733, relations between the Creeks and the English were already well established and centered mainly on trade.

Quaker Meetinghouse

Quaker Meetinghouse

A replica of the original Quaker meetinghouse stands in Wrightsborough, which was founded in 1768 as a Quaker community in present-day McDuffie County. Opposed to slavery and therefore unable to compete in Georgia's economy, the Quakers, or Religious Society of Friends, began to leave the area during the late eighteenth century.

Courtesy of Sarah Shaw

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams, a civil rights leader in both Savannah and Atlanta, speaks at a rally in 1974. In 1963 Williams joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. until King's assassination in 1968. Williams continued to work with the SCLC until 1979.

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams

Civil rights activist Hosea Williams, wearing his trademark overalls and red shirt, poses in 1997 at the site of a demonstration march held ten years earlier in Forsyth County. Williams led the march to protest Ku Klux Klan activities in the area.

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams

Hosea Williams folds T-shirts in 1996 for his Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless program. The program, founded by Williams in Atlanta in 1971, provides food, health care, and clothing to thousands in the Atlanta area each year.

Richard B. Russell Sr.

Richard B. Russell Sr.

Richard B. Russell Sr. was elected chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia in 1922. His prior service to the state included tenures as a state legislator and an appeals court justice. He was the father of Richard B. Russell Jr., who served as a U.S. senator from Georgia from 1933 to 1971.

Richard B. Russell Sr.

Richard B. Russell Sr.

As a young man, Richard B. Russell attended law school at the University of Georgia before his election in 1882 as the youngest member of the state legislator. He served for three terms, during which time he focused on promoting higher education in the state.

Campaign Sign

Campaign Sign

Richard B. Russell Sr. campaigned for the office of chief justice of the state supreme court in 1922. He won the election over incumbent William Fish and served on the bench until his death in 1938.

Russell Family

Russell Family

Ina Dillard and Richard B. Russell Sr. (center) pose with their children for a campaign photo in 1922. Richard B. Russell Jr., a future governor and U.S. senator, sits beside his father.

Ina Dillard Russell

Ina Dillard Russell

Ina Dillard Russell, the wife of Richard B. Russell Sr. and mother of Richard B. Russell Jr., stands in the garden of the Governor's Mansion in 1931. Known as "Mother Russell" across the state, Russell and her husband lived at the mansion during their son's tenure as governor from 1931 to 1933.

Jesse Hill

Jesse Hill

Jesse Hill was a prominent businessman and civil rights leader in Atlanta. He served as the president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, one of the nation's largest Black-owned companies, from 1973 until 1992. He also served on the boards of several leading Atlanta corporations, including Delta Air Lines and SunTrust.

Courtesy of Alexa Benson Henderson

Atlanta Life Insurance

Atlanta Life Insurance

Atlanta Life Insurance Company was founded by Alonzo Herndon, a prominent Black businessman in Atlanta, in 1905. After Herndon's death, leadership of the company passed to his son, Norris Herndon, in 1927 and then to Jesse Hill in 1973. The company is headquartered in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn district.

Photograph by Wally Gobetz 

Jesse and Azira Hill

Jesse and Azira Hill

Jesse Hill, the former leader of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, is pictured in 2001 with his wife, Azira. Hill became active in the civil rights movement upon his arrival in the city in 1949, while living at the YMCA on Butler Street. The street was renamed in his honor in 2001.

Water Tower

Water Tower

The water tower at Old Town Plantation is located approximately eight miles southeast of Louisville in Jefferson County. The plantation was established as a trading post around 1770 by Georgia Galphin, an Indian commissioner, on the site of an ancient Creek town.

Courtesy of Forrest Shropshire

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe, along with a twenty-one-member Board of Trustees, founded the colony of Georgia in 1733 and directed its development for nearly a decade. Although the board appointed Anglican clergy to the new colony, Oglethorpe welcomed settlers of a variety of religious persuasions.

Courtesy of Oglethorpe University

Christ Church of Savannah

Christ Church of Savannah

Christ Church of Savannah, the first Anglican church to be established in the Georgia colony, was founded by Henry Herbert in 1733. The current church building, the third to be constructed on the site since 1744, was completed in 1838.

Image from Roman Eugeniusz

John Wesley Preaching

John Wesley Preaching

John Wesley, appointed an Anglican rector for the Georgia colony in 1735, served at Christ Church in Savannah. Influenced by his interactions with Moravians during his time in Georgia, Wesley founded Methodism after his return to England in 1737.

Photograph from Wellcome Trust, Wikimedia

RiverBlast

RiverBlast

The annual "RiverBlast" celebration is held in early March to commemorate the anniversary of the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus.

Courtesy of National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus

National Civil War Naval Museum

National Civil War Naval Museum

The National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus opened its doors in 2001. Located on the Chattahoochee River in Columbus, the museum features Civil War ships and maritime artifacts within its 40,000 square feet.

Courtesy of National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus

CSS Jackson

CSS Jackson

In 1865 the Union army set fire to the unfinished CSS Jackson and set it adrift in the Chattahoochee River, where it burned for two weeks. The ship was raised in 1961 and is housed today at the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus.

Courtesy of National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus

Brooke Rifle

Brooke Rifle

A Confederate Brooke Rifle is fired regularly outside of the National Civil War Museum at Port Columbus. The gun was built in 1865 at the Confederate Navy Works in Selma, Alabama, and was brought to the Confederate Navy Shipyard in Columbus for use on the CSS Jackson.

Courtesy of National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus

Reenactors on Water Witch

Reenactors on Water Witch

Reenactors portraying marines and soldiers are pictured on the replica of the USS during RiverBlast 2010 at the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus.

Courtesy of National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia in 1733 and built Fort Frederica, which became the center of colonial frontier defense, on St. Simons Island in 1736. Oglethorpe also recruited men from along the colonial milita to form the Rangers, a full-time military force.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society collection of portraits, #GHS 1361-PH-25-08-4841.

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James Wright

James Wright

James Wright replaced Henry Ellis as royal governor of Georgia in 1760 and proved to be an efficient and popular administrator. During his tenure in office (1760-76) Georgia enjoyed a period of remarkable growth.

Georgia Land Lottery

Georgia Land Lottery

Cherokee land lots were parceled out to white Georgians in one of the two state land lotteries held in 1832. The state conducted a total of eight lotteries between 1805 and 1833. Sketch by George I. Parrish Jr., circa 1832.

Artwork by George I. Parrish Jr. Courtesy of Cindy Parrish, Maryville,TN

Yazoo Act Burning

Yazoo Act Burning

The burning of the Yazoo Act, which resulted in the Yazoo land fraud of 1795, took place on the grounds of the capitol building in Louisville. Louisville served as the state capital from 1796 until 1806, when the legislature moved to Milledgeville.

Sarah Gibbons Telfair

Sarah Gibbons Telfair

Sarah Gibbons was born into one of the wealthiest families in the Georgia colony. In 1774 she married Edward Telfair, a prominent planter and merchant in Savannah, and the couple had seven children who survived infancy. Portrait by unknown artist, oil on board (8 1/4" x 7"), date unknown.

Courtesy of Telfair Museums.

Veterans Parade

Veterans Parade

Berry Benson, an Augusta resident and veteran of the Civil War, leads a 1917 review before U.S. president Woodrow Wilson in Washington, D.C. Benson carries his rifle, which he refused to surrender at the end of the war in 1865.

Courtesy of Edward J. Cashin

Berry Benson

Berry Benson

Berry Benson, a longtime citizen of Augusta, was a Civil War veteran, cotton broker, accountant, and writer. He served as the model for the anonymous soldier standing atop the Confederate Monument in Augusta, erected in 1878 on Broad Street.

Courtesy of Edward J. Cashin

Augusta Confederate Monument

Augusta Confederate Monument

The Confederate Monument in downtown Augusta bears the inscription, "No Nation Rose So White and Fair; None Fell So Pure of Crime." Four Confederate generals, including Georgian Thomas R. R. Cobb, stand around the base of the memorial, while the likeness of Augusta resident Benson Berry graces the top.

Photograph by Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Mary Telfair

Mary Telfair

Mary Telfair, the daughter of Georgia governor Edward Telfair, bequeathed the family home in Savannah to found Telfair Museums, today the oldest public art museum in the South. Portrait by Enrichetta Narducci (1842), gouache on ivory, 3 1/8" x 2 3/4".

Courtesy of Telfair Museums.

Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences

Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences

Sculptures donated by Mary Telfair grace the interior of the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (later Telfair Museums) in Savannah, circa 1900. Telfair bequeathed the family home, designed by William Jay, for the establishment of the museum upon her death in 1875.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # ctm189.

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Telfair Hospital for Females

Telfair Hospital for Females

The Telfair Hospital for Females, in Savannah, was built in 1884 in the Italianate style by the architectural firm of Fay and Eichberg. Funding for the hospital was provided for in Mary Telfair's will, and by 1960, when it merged with Candler General Hospital, the facility had become the longest-operating women's hospital in the country.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey, Photograph by Walter Smalling Jr..

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Charles Jones Jenkins

Charles Jones Jenkins

Charles Jones Jenkins accepts a scroll bearing the governor's seal and the motto In Arduis Fidelis (Steadfast in Adversity) in this portrait by Poindexter Page Carter. In 1872 the state presented the seal and motto to the former governor in appreciation for his resistance to the dictates of the federal government during Reconstruction.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

William Brown Hodgson

William Brown Hodgson

William Brown Hodgson married into the prominent Telfair family of Savannah in 1842 and, in addition to managing the family plantations, became an important figure in the city's intellectual life. Watercolor-on-ivory miniature portrait (1842) by Ernest J. A. Girard.

Courtesy of Telfair Museums.

William Brown Hodgson

William Brown Hodgson

This portrait of William Brown Hodgson, by artist Carl Brandt, was unveiled at the 1876 dedication ceremony for Hodsgon Hall in Savannah. The hall was built in Hodgson's memory by his wife, Margaret Telfair Hodgson, to house the Georgia Historical Society.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society collection of portraits, #GHS 1361-084.

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Hodgson Hall

Hodgson Hall

Hodgson Hall, completed in 1875, stands at the northwest corner of Forsyth Park in Savannah and houses the Georgia Historical Society. The building was erected by Margaret Telfair Hodgson in honor of her husband, William Brown Hodgson, an active member and curator in the society.

Margaret Telfair Hodgson

Margaret Telfair Hodgson

Margaret Telfair was born into the prominent Telfair family of Savannah in 1797, and in 1842 she married William Hodgson in London, England. The couple lived in the Telfair mansion on St. James Square in Savannah until their deaths in the 1870s. Portrait attributed to Richard West Habersham, watercolor on ivory (1 7/8" x 1 1/2 "), ca. 1834-35.

Courtesy of Telfair Museums.

Georgia Military Institute

Georgia Military Institute

The Georgia Military Institute was founded in Marietta in 1851 to educate new engineers and teachers for the state. Many GMI students were called to active duty during the Civil War, and the school was burned by Union troops in 1864. It never reopened. Sketch by Captain D. R. Brown of the 20th Connecticut.

From History of the Georgia Military Institute, by Bowling C. Yates

Francis W. Capers

Francis W. Capers

Francis W. Capers, the superintendent of the Georgia Military Institute in Marietta at the start of the Civil War, provided drill instructors from among the school's cadets to train new Confederate soldiers. In May 1864 he led his cadets as a volunteer unit in the Confederate army and attempted to halt the advance of Union troops into Georgia.

From History of the Georgia Military Institute, by Bowling C. Yates

Cadet Lamar

Cadet Lamar

Jonathan L. D. Lamar, a cadet at the Georgia Military Institute in Marietta, poses in his uniform for a tintype made around 1856. During this time the school enrolled between 150 and 200 cadets, many of whom came from Georgia's wealthiest families.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cob854-90.

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Charles Crisp

Charles Crisp

Charles Crisp, raised in Savannah, was a prominent judge and a U.S. congressman during the second half of the nineteenth century. Crisp County, located in south Georgia, is named in his honor.

From Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Charles Frederick Crisp

Charles Crisp

Charles Crisp

Charles Crisp, a Confederate veteran from Georgia, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1883 until his death in 1896. During his tenure in Congress, Crisp was elected Speaker of the House from 1891 to 1895. He was the only Georgian to serve in that role between Howell Cobb, elected in 1849, and Newt Gingrich, elected in 1995.

Image from Robert Cutler Hinckley

Joseph Vann

Joseph Vann

Joseph Vann, the son of Cherokee chief James Vann, inherited his father's Spring Place Plantation in Murray County. Before being dispossessed of the plantation in 1834, Vann was a successful businessman and member of the Cherokee legislature.

Courtesy of Chief Vann House Historic Site

Chief Vann House, 1934

Chief Vann House, 1934

In 1834 Cherokee chief James Vann's son Joseph lost the family home to the state. The home was subsequently owned by seventeen people and had fallen into a state of disrepair before its 1952 purchase and restoration by the Georgia Historical Commission.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Plan of Petersburg

Plan of Petersburg

This town of Petersburg, once the third largest in Georgia, stood in the forks of the Broad and Savannah rivers. Established in 1786, the town was submerged by the man-made Clarks Hill Lake in the early 1950s. This map, compiled by historian E. Merton Coulter from data in the Elbert County deed records, approximates the layout of the town during its heyday in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

From Old Petersburg and the Broad River Valley of Georgia, by E. M. Coulter

Bobby Brown State Park

Bobby Brown State Park

One of two major recreational parks in Elbert County, Bobby Brown State Park marks the site of the old town of Petersburg, which is under the waters of Clarks Hill Lake.

Photograph by Darby Carl Sanders, New Georgia Encyclopedia

John Clark

John Clark

John Clark, a Revolutionary War veteran, was the governor of Georgia from 1819 to 1823. During the war, Clark served under the command of his father, Elijah Clarke, at the battles of Kettle Creek and Musgrove Mill.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

Logan Bleckley

Logan Bleckley

Logan Bleckley retired as chief justice of the state supreme court in 1894, at the age of sixty-seven. Interested in poetry, philosophy, and mathematics in addition to the law, Bleckley continued to study these disciplines into his later years.

Logan Bleckley

Logan Bleckley

Logan Bleckley, a self-educated lawyer, served as both associate and chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia during the late nineteenth century. His opinions were circulated nationally and often contained stanzas of Bleckley's own poetry.

C. Mildred Thompson

C. Mildred Thompson

C. Mildred Thompson, an Atlanta native, was a prominent historian who taught at both Vassar College and the University of Georgia. In 1915 she published an important study, Reconstruction in Georgia: Economic, Social, Political: 1865-1872.

Courtesy of Special Collections, Vassar College Libraries

Dillard with Teachers

Dillard with Teachers

Ina Dillard, standing in the second row, third from the left, poses in 1890 with fellow teachers in Athens. Dillard taught the third grade at Washington Street School in Athens from 1889 until 1891, when she married Richard B. Russell Sr., a future chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

Russell Family

Russell Family

Ina Dillard Russell, surrounded by her thirteen children, sits on the porch of the Russell home in Barrow County on June 22, 1953. Russell taught her children at home during their early years and was known for writing long instructional letters to them after they went away to school.

Fort King George

Fort King George

Fort King George was originally constructed at the mouth of the Altamaha River in 1721 to protect the British claim to the Georgia colony. The fort was garrisoned until 1732. More than 250 years later, the fort was reconstructed and today houses a museum and replicas of the blockhouse (pictured) and barracks.

Courtesy of Fort King George

Map of Fort King George

Map of Fort King George

This map of Fort King George was likely drawn in 1722 by Colonel John "Tuscarora Jack" Barnwell, who established the fort near present-day Darien in 1721.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives.

Fort King George

Fort King George

The Union Jack flies above three cannons overlooking Black Island Creek at the reconstructed Fort King George near Darien. The original British garrison was established in 1721 and abandoned in 1732. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and reconstructed in 1988.

Courtesy of Fort King George

Clement Evans

Clement Evans

Clement Evans, a native of Stewart County, served as a judge, state senator, soldier, and Methodist minister during his varied career. A supporter of the Confederate cause throughout his life, Evans cofounded the United Confederate Veterans and edited or authored several publications on Georgia's military history.

Clement Evans

Clement Evans

Clement Evans, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War, voiced the foundation of Lost Cause ideology by asserting that the act of secession must be justified in order to preserve the honor of the South.

Sapelo Shell Ring

Sapelo Shell Ring

A portion of the largest shell ring on Sapelo Island was excavated in 1950. The trench, cut into the ring by archaeologists, reveals white flecks of shell left behind by the hunter-gatherers who lived on the island during the Late Archaic Period, 5,000 to 3,000 years ago.

Courtesy of Victor D. Thompson

Sapelo Shell Ring

Sapelo Shell Ring

An archaeologist stands beside Shell Ring No. 1 on Sapelo Island. The shell rings, circular or semicircular in shape, are too large to be shown in their entirety by a single photograph.

Courtesy of Victor D. Thompson

Convict Labor

Convict Labor

A prison-labor crew and guard are photographed in Atlanta in 1895. One of the state's primary revenue sources during the late nineteenth century, convict leasing was outlawed in 1908 after reports of harsh working conditions and brutal punishments were made public.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #ful0391.

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Chain Gang Labor

Chain Gang Labor

A Georgia chain gang builds a road in Oglethorpe County in 1941. After the prohibition of convict leasing in 1908, the state implemented the chain gang system as a source of inexpensive labor on major construction projects.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Tabby

Tabby

Traditional tabby, used for construction primarily along the coast, is composed of equal parts lime, water, sand, oyster shells, and ash. First introduced in Georgia by James Oglethorpe in 1736, tabby experienced revivals in the first half of the nineteenth century and again from the 1880s to 1920s.

Photograph by Jim Darby

The Barracks

The Barracks

Among the archaeological ruins remaining at Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island are the soldiers' barracks (pictured), along with the king's magazine and the house foundations and walls. The structures are made of tabby, a limey mortar.

Courtesy of Ed Mathews, Amelia Island Images

Camden County Public Library

Camden County Public Library

The Camden County Public Library was constructed in 1988 with "revival tabby," or traditional tabby mixed with Portland cement.

Photograph by Jim Darby

Tabby Ruins

Tabby Ruins

Tabby was used in the coastal Southeast from the late 1500s to the 1850s.

Courtesy of Patricia Barefoot

Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

A drawing depicts the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, which took place on June 27, 1864. Confederate troops, led by Joseph E. Johnston, successfully defended Kennesaw Mountain, located about twenty miles northwest of Atlanta, from the advances of Union general William T. Sherman.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

During the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston's troops line the mountain's crest to repulse the advance of Union general William T. Sherman. The battle was a victory for Johnston, who lost 1,000 troops to Sherman's 3,000.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Morgan Collection of Civil War Drawings, #LC-DIG-ppmsca-21083.

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Joseph E. Johnston

Joseph E. Johnston

Although Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston, pictured circa 1863, won the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain against Union general William T. Sherman on June 27, 1864, he continued to retreat, allowing Sherman to move closer to Atlanta. On July 17 Johnston was relieved of command and replaced by John B. Hood.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Lena Baker

Lena Baker

In 1945 Lena Baker became the first, and to date only, woman to be executed in Georgia. Convicted of murdering her employer, Baker was sentenced to death despite her insistence that she acted in self-defense. In 2005 she was pardoned posthumously by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Courtesy of Lela Phillips

Hernando de Soto

Hernando de Soto

Hernando de Soto was a Spanish-born explorer and conqueror who landed in present-day Tampa Bay, Florida, in 1539 and came to the Georgia area in 1540. Chroniclers of the expedition described the Coosa River valley in glowing terms.

Abraham Baldwin

Abraham Baldwin

After writing the charter for the University of Georgia, Abraham Baldwin served as the college's first president from 1786 to 1801. In 1787 he was chosen as one of four Georgia delegates to the Constitutional Convention. During his long political career, Baldwin also served in the Georgia General Assembly, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate.

Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services

University of Georgia

University of Georgia

An early sketch, circa 1850, of the University of Georgia in Athens depicts the Franklin College quadrangle as seen from the southwest across Broad Street. The architecture of the campus was modeled after that of Yale University in Connecticut, the alma mater of Abraham Baldwin, UGA's first president.

Abraham Baldwin Stamp

Abraham Baldwin Stamp

This 1985 U.S. postage stamp commemorates the life of former senator Abraham Baldwin, founder of the University of Georgia.

Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum 

Daniel Boorstin

Daniel Boorstin

Daniel Boorstin, an Atlanta native and prominent historian, served as the Librarian of Congress from 1975 until his retirement in 1987. A prolific writer, Boorstin won the Pulitzer, Parkman, and Bancroft prizes over the course of his career.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Reconstruction School

Reconstruction School

Many freedpeople took advantage of the educational opportunities offered to them during Reconstruction. Often affiliated with Black churches of the time, these schools were usually founded by teachers from the North.

Herschel Johnson

Herschel Johnson

Herschel Johnson led the state constitutional convention in 1865 in Milledgeville following the Civil War. Delegates to the convention drafted a new constitution that made several amendments, including the abolition of slavery, to the 1861 constitution.

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens was selected in 1866 by the Georgia legislature to represent the state, along with Herschel Johnson, in the U.S. Senate. Because he had served as vice president of the Confederacy, however, the Senate did not allow Stephens to take his seat.

Tunis Campbell

Tunis Campbell

This sketch (circa 1848) of Tunis Campbell is the only known image of the prominent Black politician and minister. After serving as a Union chaplain during the Civil War, Campbell became a prominent leader of the Republican party in Georgia during Reconstruction.

Courtesy of Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University

Amos T. Akerman

Amos T. Akerman

Akerman was a Georgia lawyer who rose to prominence as U.S. attorney general during Reconstruction.

Linda and Millard Fuller

Linda and Millard Fuller

Linda and Millard Fuller cut the ribbon at the dedication ceremony for the Fuller Center for Housing in Americus. The center, which opened in 2005, raises funds to support the efforts of organizations building affordable housing around the world.

Courtesy of Sumter Shots

Millard Fuller

Millard Fuller

Millard Fuller is pictured in 1976 at Koinonia Farm in Sumter County. That same year he and his wife, Linda Fuller, founded Humanity International, which had built more than 175,000 homes around the world by 2005.

Extra Mile Pathway Marker

Extra Mile Pathway Marker

Former U.S. president Georgia H. W. Bush (far left) stands with Linda and Millard Fuller in front of the bronze marker commemorating the couple's work to build housing for low-income citizens. The marker is erected along the Extra Mile Points of Light Volunteer Pathway, a national monument in Washington, D.C., that opened in October 2005.

Courtesy of Points of Light

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, pictured in the 1980s, participate in an annual "blitz build" with Habitat for Humanity as part of the Jimmy Carter Work Project.

Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston

Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston

As a young girl, Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston first lived with her parents along the Little Ogeechee River in Georgia. In 1774, after the death of her mother, she was sent to Savannah, where she lived through the Revolutionary War. Johnston later wrote about her experiences during the war, including the 1779 siege on Savannah, in her memoir Recollections of a Georgia Loyalist.

Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston

Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston

Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston's memoir of the American Revolution, which she experienced as a young girl in Savannah, was published in 1901. The book, entitled Recollections of a Georgia Loyalist, provides one of the most detailed accounts available of a southern woman's experience during the war.

Family Tree

Family Tree

This blank "planetary photographic record" was published around 1869 and functioned as a family tree. The keeping of records and the tracing of ancestral lineage was primarily done in earlier centuries to establish a family's nobility. Today these records form an integral part of the historical record.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Hodgson Hall

Hodgson Hall

The Georgia Historical Society, housed in Hodgson Hall in Savannah, holds one of the largest collections of genealogical records in the state.

Family Record Chart

Family Record Chart

This family record chart was marketed to African American families during the 1880s. Because detailed family records were not typically kept for enslaved people prior to the Civil War, conducting genealogical research has often posed a challenge for Black families. This difficulty is depicted by the chart's pictorial representations of life before and after the war.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Eugenius Nisbet

Eugenius Nisbet

Eugenius Nisbet was one of the first three justices, along with Joseph Henry Lumpkin and Hiram Warner, to serve on the Supreme Court of Georgia upon its inception in 1845. Previously Nisbet had served as both a state representative and a U.S. congressman.

From Georgia Government and History, by A. B. Saye

William T. Sherman

William T. Sherman

William T. Sherman issued Field Order No. 15 in January 1865, calling for the redistribution of confiscated Southern land to freedmen in forty-acre plots. The order was rescinded later that same year, and much of the land was returned to the original white owners.

From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery

Benjamin Hill

Benjamin Hill

Benjamin Hill, a native of Japer County, served as a Georgia statesman for more than three decades. Hill began his political career in 1851 as a state representative, served as a Confederate senator during the Civil War, and won a seat in the U.S. Congress in 1875.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Chief Vann House

Chief Vann House

Called the "Showplace of the Cherokee Nation," this two-story classic mansion is one of the best-preserved Cherokee plantation homes. Built by Chief James Vann in 1806, it was the first brick home within the Cherokee Nation. The mansion is a state historic site.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Vann House Dining Room

Vann House Dining Room

In the 1950s the Georgia Historical Commission undertook a renovation of the Chief Vann House in Murray County, restoring the blue, red, green, and yellow color scheme originally used throughout the house.

Image from Dsdugan

Hoke Smith

Hoke Smith

Hoke Smith provoked rising racial tensions in the state by running on a platform of Black disenfranchisement during the gubernatorial campaign of 1906. The atmosphere of racial unrest resulted in the eruption of the Atlanta race riot in September 1906.

Walter White

Walter White

Walter White, a prominent civil rights activist in Atlanta during the first half of the twentieth century, became the executive secretary of the NAACP in 1931 and served in that position until his death in 1955. In 1948 White published a memoir, A Man Called White, which details his family's experience of the 1906 Atlanta race riot.

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Rankin poses for a portrait in 1916, the same year in which she became the first woman to win election to the U.S. House of Representatives. In the decade before her election, Rankin had worked for women's suffrage, which was achieved with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment during her tenure in the House.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Rankin spent most of the last years of her life in Watksinsville. A dedicated pacifist, Rankin actively opposed both world wars and the Vietnam War during her long political career.

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Rankin, a native of Montana, became the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916 and later purchased property in Georgia, first in Bogart and then in Watksinsville. After her death in 1973, proceeds from the sale of her Watkinsville land were used in 1976 to found the Jeannette Rankin Foundation, which is headquartered in Athens.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection, #LC-DIG-ggbain-23835.

Dorothy Rogers Tilly

Dorothy Rogers Tilly

Dorothy Rogers Tilly, a native of Hampton, began a lifetime of civil rights work in 1918 with the Women's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church. During the 1930s she worked with the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, traveling throughout Georgia to help diffuse violence against African Americans and prevent lynchings.

Committee on Civil Rights

Committee on Civil Rights

Dorothy Tilly, a civil rights activist from Georgia, stands to the right of President Harry S. Truman (center) and his Committee on Civil Rights, to which she was appointed in 1946. Three years later Tilly founded the Fellowship of the Concerned, a biracial group dedicated to educating white southerners as a means of overcoming prejudice.

Stephen Heard

Stephen Heard

This sketch of Stephen Heard, a Revolutionary War veteran and early state legislator, mounted on his horse, Silverheels, appears in the 1913 collection Grandmother Stories from the Land of Used-to-Be, by Howard Meriwether Lovett.

Charles Weltner

Charles Weltner

Charles Weltner accepts the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 1991. An Atlanta native, Weltner served as both a U.S. congressman from Georgia and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. His career was marked by an ardent opposition to segregation during the 1950s.

Courtesy of John F. Kennedy Library Foundation

Elijah Clarke

Elijah Clarke

In early 1794 Elijah Clarke, in an attempt to claim Creek lands west of the Oconee River, established as many as six settlements in areas of present-day Greene, Morgan, Putnam, and Baldwin counties. The state militia intervened in September 1794, and the settlements, which came to be known as the Trans-Oconee Republic, were disbanded peacefully.

George Walton

George Walton

In 1794 George Walton, one of the Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence, denounced the actions of Elijah Clarke, who was attempting to illegally settle Creek lands west of the Oconee River. Walton's intervention initiated a peaceful resolution between Clarke and the state.

1860 Presidential Election

1860 Presidential Election

Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln, with running mate Hannibal Hamlin, steams toward a wagon named "Democratic Platform" that is trapped on the tracks between two teams of candidates. Stephen Douglas and Hershel Johnson pull toward the left, while John Breckinridge and Joseph Lane pull toward the right.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

William Washington Gordon

William Washington Gordon

William Washington Gordon served the state in a variety of ways during the nineteenth century, including terms as both representative and senator in the Georgia legislature. Gordon also made significant contributions as the president of Central Railroad and Banking Company, which constructed the first rail line between Savannah and the state's interior.

William Washington Gordon Monument

William Washington Gordon Monument

The monument to William Washington Gordon, builder of the state's first railroad, is situated on Wright Square in Savannah. Erected in 1883, the monument was designed by Henry Van Brunt and Frank M. Howe.

Image from Ken Lund

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Dobbs Family, Spelman Graduates

Dobbs Family, Spelman Graduates

Irene and John Wesley Dobbs with their six daughters and grandchildren at the Spelman College graduation of daughter June. The Dobbs girls all graduated from Spelman. (Left to right) Mr. Dobbs; Irene Dobbs Jackson, class of '29; Juliet Dobbs Blackburn, class of '31; Millicent Dobbs Jordan, class of '33; Josephine Dobbs Clement, class of '37; Mattiwilda Dobbs Janzon, class of '46; June Dobbs Butts, class of '48; and Mrs. Dobbs.

Courtesy of Spelman College Archives

John Wesley Dobbs

John Wesley Dobbs

John Wesley Dobbs was one of the most influential African Americans in Atlanta during the first half of the twentieth century. The founder of the Atlanta Civic and Political League and cofounder of the Atlanta Negro Voters League, Dobbs worked throughout his life to further the causes of Black suffrage and equality.

Hamilton Holmes

Hamilton Holmes

In 1961 Hamilton Holmes (center) became one of the first African American students to gain admission to the University of Georgia after a two-year legal battle, led in part by Donald Hollowell (left). Holmes's father, Alfred "Tup" Holmes (right), was an Atlanta businessman.

Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the students who desegregated the University of Georgia in 1961, returned in 1992 to speak at the first annual Holmes-Hunter lecture. Holmes, a prominent orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta until his death in 1995, was named the first African American member of the university foundation's board of trustees in 1983.

Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services

Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1966

Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1966

The Georgia Historical Quarterly was founded in 1917 by the Georgia Historical Society with the aims of collecting, preserving, and disseminating the state's history. The 1966 issue was published under the editorship of E. Merton Coulter, a preeminent scholar of Georgia history.

E. Merton Coulter

E. Merton Coulter

E. Merton Coulter, a University of Georgia professor and historian of the South, helped shape the southern public's interpretation of its heritage in general and Georgia's in particular. He taught at the state's flagship university in Athens from 1919 to 1958 and served as editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly from 1924 to 1974.

Georgia Historical Quarterly, 2005

Georgia Historical Quarterly, 2005

The Georgia Historical Quarterly, a scholarly journal featuring articles and book reviews, was established in 1917 and continues publication today. This cover, depicting two Civil War volunteers from the Fincher family of Forsyth County, appeared on the spring 2005 issue of the journal.

Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1998

Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1998

A colorized sketch of African Americans traveling after the Emancipation Proclamation graces the fall 1998 cover of the Georgia Historical Quarterly, which was established by the Georgia Historical Society in 1917.

Georgia Historical Quarterly, Spring 2016

Georgia Historical Quarterly, Spring 2016

The Georgia Historical Quarterly was completely redesigned in spring 2016, the journal's first redesign since 1989.

Henry Cumming

Henry Cumming

Henry Cumming, a native of Augusta, is best remembered for his pioneering vision of and support for the Augusta Canal, which was completed in 1846. In 1822 Cumming opened a law practice in Augusta with George Crawford, who would become governor of the state in 1843.

Courtesy of David Connolly

Augusta Canal, 1880

Augusta Canal, 1880

This sketch of the Augusta Canal, a project championed and partially funded by Augusta attorney Henry Cumming, was made in 1880.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

George W. Crawford

George W. Crawford

George W. Crawford was the first and only Whig to be elected governor of Georgia. He served two terms, from 1843 to 1847. A native of Columbia County, Crawford also served as a state representative and as Georgia's attorney general.

From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery

Battleship USS Maine

Battleship USS Maine

An explosion aboard the American battleship USS Maine in 1898 resulted in the sinking of the ship and the deaths of 266 men. The attack propelled the United States into a military conflict with Spain, which would later be known as the Spanish-American War.

From Pictorial History of Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom, by T. White

Camp “Onward”

Camp “Onward”

Camping in long rows of tents, soldiers from the Thirty-first Michigan Regiment were stationed at Camp "Onward" in Savannah during the Spanish-American War (1898).

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ctm089.

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Nancy Hart

Nancy Hart

According to Revolutionary lore, Nancy Hart famously outwitted a group of Tories who had invaded her home. She served them wine and, once they were drunk, filched their weapons, which she used to shoot two of the men and hold the rest captive until help arrived. Painting by Louis S. Glanzman.

Courtesy of National Geographic

Nancy Hart Cabin

Nancy Hart Cabin

A replica of Revolutionary War patriot Nancy Hart's cabin stands near its original site in Elbert County. Hart is renowned for capturing and killing several Tories at her cabin during the war.

Courtesy of Elbert County Chamber of Commerce

Monument at Kettle Creek

Monument at Kettle Creek

The Kettle Creek Battlefield Historic Monument commemorates a Revolutionary War battle that took place on February 14, 1779. Famed patriot Nancy Hart was reportedly present during the conflict.

Courtesy of Thomas Hammack Jr.

Callaway Family

Callaway Family

Fuller Callaway Jr. attends a picnic in LaGrange with Alice Hinman Hand, whom he married in 1930, and his mother, Ida Callaway. Like his father, Fuller Callaway Jr. was heavily involved in the textiles industry.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
trp257.

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Callaway Gardens

Callaway Gardens

The award-winning Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain boasts 14,000 acres of gardens, a nature preserve, and a family-oriented resort including restaurants, shopping, and nature exhibits. Guests to the gardens enjoy hiking, golf, racquet sports, fly-fishing, and range shooting.

Image from JR P

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Fuller E. Callaway

Fuller E. Callaway

The self-made businessman Fuller E. Callaway displayed an entrepreneurial spirit at a young age. The son of a minister, Callaway grew up to become a successful manufacturer and banker with diverse commercial interests and a reputation for generosity and moral leadership.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Unity Mills

Unity Mills

Unity Mills was the second mill in which Fuller Callaway invested, and the LaGrange plant shipped its first finished cotton product on December 24, 1901. Callaway served as secretary-treasurer of Unity.

Courtesy of Troup County Archives, LaGrange, Callaway Educational Association Photo Collection.

Callaway Mills

Callaway Mills

Callaway Mills employees sampling cotton to determine its grade and, therefore, its price in 1926.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #trp190.

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Blue Springs Farms

Blue Springs Farms

The home of Cason Callaway, a prominent textile manufacturer, at his Blue Springs Farms in Harris County is pictured in 1933. Following his retirement in 1938, Callaway established an experimental farm of 40,000 acres on this property.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # trp168.

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Cason Callaway

Cason Callaway

Cason Jewell Callaway was a successful businessman and state agricultural leader during the first half of the twentieth century. He founded Callaway Gardens, in Harris County, in 1952.

Courtesy of Callaway Gardens

Cason Callaway

Cason Callaway

Cason Jewell Callaway inspects the cabbage crop at one of his experimental farms, circa 1933.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
trp185.

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Cason and Bo Callaway

Cason and Bo Callaway

Cason Callaway pictured with his son Bo Callaway at Cason's Blue Springs Lodge near Hamilton, Georgia, circa 1950.

Courtesy of Troup County Archives, LaGrange, Callaway Gardens Collection,.

Callaway Mills Laboratory

Callaway Mills Laboratory

Fuller E. Callaway Jr. is pictured working in the lab at Callaway Mills, probably in the 1940s.

Courtesy of Troup County Archives, LaGrange, Callaway Educational Association Collection.

Augusta Canal

Augusta Canal

Built in 1845 by Henry Cumming, the Augusta canal is seven miles long, extending from above the rapids of the Savannah River to the heart of Augusta. In 1996 the canal was designated a National Heritage Area, the first site in Georgia to receive this designation.

Image from TranceMist

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Augusta Canal

Augusta Canal

Preservationists in Georgia are working to conserve both the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal and the Augusta Canal. The Augusta Canal was named a National Heritage Area in 1996.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

Confederate Powder Works

Confederate Powder Works

The Augusta Canal, designed to generate waterpower for manufacturing as Georgia entrepreneurs attempted to diversify the state's economy, was the last canal built in Georgia and by far the most successful. Construction on the canal started in 1844, and the canal became operational in 1846.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

Augusta Factory

Augusta Factory

The Augusta Factory, a cotton mill, was powered by the Augusta Canal during the 1890s. The factory was built in 1847 and demolished in 1960.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ric002.

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Augusta Canal

Augusta Canal

A modern tourboat passes the Confederate Powder Works chimney in Augusta along the Augusta Canal. The Georgia Community Greenspace Program has worked to preserve the Augusta Canal as an important historic and archaeological site.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

106th Field Signal Battalion

106th Field Signal Battalion

The 106th Field Signal Battalion marches near Camp Wheeler in Macon, circa 1918. During World War I Camp Wheeler was one of the largest war-training camps in Georgia.

Courtesy of Todd Womack

Otranto

Otranto

The tragic 1918 sinking of the British Otranto upset many Georgia communities. Nearly every county in the state lost at least one man when the ship went down off the coast of Scotland.

Courtesy of Todd Womack

Camp Hancock

Camp Hancock

Two soldiers from the Twenty-eighth Division stand guard in 1917 at Camp Hancock, just outside Augusta. During World War I (1917-18), Georgia was an important area for military training.

Courtesy of Todd Womack

Camp Gordon

Camp Gordon

A group of Black soldiers at Camp Gordon. Many white men in Georgia sought to prevent Black men from being drafted. As in the Civil War, when some enslavers refused to loan enslaved people to the Confederate government for various kinds of war work, some land-owning whites in 1917 refused to allow their Black sharecroppers to register for the draft or to report for duty once they had been called.

Fort Screven

Fort Screven

The Savannah Volunteer Guards occupy tents at Fort Screven in 1917, when the United States entered World War I. Built on Tybee Island from 1885 to 1897, Fort Screven was one of the state's five major military installations at that time.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # ctm194.

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Spirit of the American Doughboy

Spirit of the American Doughboy

A postcard depicts Ernest M. Viquesney's sculpture, Spirit of the American Doughboy, which stands in downtown Waycross. Viquesney produced more than 150 of these statues for towns across Georgia between 1921 and 1943.

Courtesy of Todd Womack

Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, presides over the organization's 1922 convention at Liberty Hall in New York City.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Alexander Telfair

Alexander Telfair

This oil portrait of Alexander Telfair (30 1/8" x 64 1/4") was made around 1830. Telfair assumed control of his family's considerable plantation and business operations around 1818, following the deaths of his brothers, Josiah and Thomas Telfair.

Courtesy of Telfair Museums.

Telfair Mansion

Telfair Mansion

The Telfair mansion, commissioned by Alexander Telfair and designed by renowned architect William Jay, was completed in 1819. Telfair's sister Mary Telfair left the home to the Georgia Historical Society upon her death in 1875, and today the mansion houses the Telfair Academy of the Telfair Museums in Savannah.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # ctm156.

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Lindbergh Parade

Lindbergh Parade

Charles Lindbergh parades through downtown Atlanta where crowds line the street on October 11, 1927. He is on his way to Grant Field at Georgia Tech, where he will deliver a message on the commercial potential of aviation to a crowd of 20,000 people.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Spirit of St. Louis

Spirit of St. Louis

Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis lands on the grass runway at Candler Field on October 11, 1927. The day was cloudy and rainy but that did not deter thousands from meeting Lindbergh at the field. The Spirit of St. Louis is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Charles Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh

The groundbreaking aviator Charles Lindbergh stands beside an airplane on Sapelo Island. The photograph was probably taken around 1929, when Lindbergh paid a short visit to the island.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #sap058.

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Charles Lindbergh Departs

Charles Lindbergh Departs

In this aerial photograph Charles Lindbergh prepares to take off from Candler Field on October 12, 1927, in the Spirit of St. Louis. He is bound for Spartanburg, South Carolina, the next stop on his triumphal tour.

Charles Lindbergh Prepares to Depart

Charles Lindbergh Prepares to Depart

October 12, 1927, was a sunny day, perfect for flying. Charles Lindbergh poses in his flight suit in front of a parked biplane (not to be confused with the Spirit of St. Louis) at Candler Field, ready for his departure. Second from the right is Doug Davis, who owned the hangar where the Spirit of St. Louis was parked. William Lee, a U.S. mail pilot, stands to the far right.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Candler Field

Candler Field

Charles Lindbergh poses with Georgia governor Lamartine Hardman (right) and Atlanta mayor Isaac N. Ragsdale (left) at Candler Field on October 11, 1927.

Lindbergh Day Arrival

Lindbergh Day Arrival

Governor Lamartine Hardman (right) greeting aviator Charles Lindbergh (left) upon his arrival at Candler Field during his nationwide tour in 1927.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Lindbergh Historical Marker

Lindbergh Historical Marker

In 1985 Americus celebrated "Lindbergh Days" with the dedication of a new state historical marker commemorating aviator Charles Lindbergh's first solo flight from Souther Field.

Courtesy of Ed Jackson

Ku Klux Klan Ceremony

Ku Klux Klan Ceremony

Members of the Ku Klux Klan in Valdosta gather around a burning cross during a ceremony in October 1922. That same year Hiram W. Evans of Texas assumed leadership of the Klan and worked to extend its political influence across the country, including in Georgia.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
low043.

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William J. Simmons

William J. Simmons

William J. Simmons, seated during a 1921 investigation of the Ku Klux Klan by a U.S. House of Representatives committee, was inspired by D. W. Griffith's film, The Birth of a Nation, and the Leo Frank trial in Atlanta to reestablish the Klan in 1915. Simmons designed the hooded uniforms and secret rituals associated with the organization.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Julian Harris

Julian Harris

Julian Harris, editor and co-owner, with his wife, Julia, of the Columbus Enquirer-Sun, reads mail at his desk in the late 1920s. Harris, the son of Georgia folklorist Joel Chandler Harris, and his wife jointly won a Pulitzer Prize in 1926 for their reporting in the Enquirer-Sun on state officials with ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0939-85.

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Hiram Warner

Hiram Warner

Hiram Warner, a native of Massachusetts, moved to Georgia in 1822 at the age of twenty to teach in Hancock County. He subsequently practiced law and won election to both the state legislature and the U.S. Congress during his long political career. In 1867 Warner was appointed the second chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery

Hiram Warner

Hiram Warner

Hiram Warner, pictured here between 1870 and 1880, was appointed the second chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia in 1867 and served for one year. In 1872 Warner returned for another term as chief justice, serving until 1880. Of his 2,000 written opinions, many continue to influence the interpretation of Georgia law today.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Battle of Atlanta

Battle of Atlanta

This lithograph depicting the Battle of Atlanta and the death of Union general James McPherson was first published in 1888 by Louis Kurz and Alexander Allison. The battle occurred on July 22, 1864, during Union general William T. Sherman's Atlanta campaign.

James McPherson

James McPherson

This engraving depicts Major General James McPherson, for whom Fort McPherson in southeast Atlanta was named. The Union general was killed in action during the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864.

From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery

Battle of Atlanta

Battle of Atlanta

An illustration from the summer 1893 issue of Leslie's Illustrated shows the Battle of Atlanta, with Kennesaw Mountain in the background.

Confederate Earthworks

Confederate Earthworks

Earthworks were positioned in front of Atlanta in 1864 to defend that city from Union troops during the Civil War.

From Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by G. N. Barnard

Allatoona Pass

Allatoona Pass

Gaining control of the railroads leading into and out of Atlanta was key to Union victory during the Civil War. On June 3, 1864, Union general William T. Sherman overcame the Confederates at Allatoona Pass. The Allatoona train depot appears in the center of this 1864 photograph, taken by George N. Barnard.

Courtesy of U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

Battle of Atlanta

Battle of Atlanta

Confederate preparations for a system of defense against the Union forces included a fortified perimeter around Atlanta, which was ten miles in circumference and positioned about a mile outside of the city.

From Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by G. N. Barnard

Destroyed Railroad Tracks

Destroyed Railroad Tracks

Upon his evacuation of Atlanta on September 1, 1864, Confederate general John B. Hood destroyed an ammunition train, leaving nothing but the wheels and axles. The train tracks were also destroyed by the retreating Confederates.

Photograph by George N. Barnard

Union Soldiers

Union Soldiers

Union soldiers relax beside the guns of a captured Confederate fort in Atlanta. Union general William T. Sherman captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864, and occupied the city until mid-November.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photograph by George N. Barnard.

Atlanta in Ruins

Atlanta in Ruins

An illustration, originally from Harper's New Monthly (October 1865), depicts Atlanta after the evacuation of Confederate troops in late 1864.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, v.31 (June-Nov 1865)

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Atlanta Campaign

Atlanta Campaign

A sketch depicts an engagement at the Culp House near Marietta during the Atlanta Campaign of 1864.

From a sketch by C. E. F. Hillen

William Bacon Stevens

William Bacon Stevens

William Bacon Stevens, cofounder of the Georgia Historical Society, wrote the first scholarly history of Georgia, which was published in 1847. This etching of Stevens was done by H. B. Hall.

Hodgson Hall Reading Room

Hodgson Hall Reading Room

Hodgson Hall, located at the northwest corner of Forsyth Park in Savannah, has been the headquarters of the Georgia Historical Society since 1875. The building houses the society's collection of Georgia's historical materials.

Georgia Historical Quarterly

Georgia Historical Quarterly

An image of William B. Hodgson graces the spring 2003 cover of the Georgia Historical Quarterly, a journal published by the Georgia Historical Society since 1917. During the nineteenth century Hodgson was a prominent member of the society, which erected its current headquarters, Hodgson Hall, in his memory.

Jackie Robinson’s Birthplace

Jackie Robinson’s Birthplace

This historical marker in Cairo marks the birthplace of Jackie Robinson, the "first African American in Major League Baseball." In 1998 the Georgia Historical Society assumed responsibility for the state's historical marker program and since that time has erected more than 100 markers around Georgia. 

Georgia History Festival

Georgia History Festival

The Georgia History Festival, an annual two-week educational event, is sponsored by the Georgia Historical Society and reaches tens of thousands of students across the state.

List of Trustees

List of Trustees

In 2008 the Georgia Historical Society created the Georgia Trustees annual awards program, which recognizes "Georgians whose accomplishments and community service reflect the highest ideals of the founding body of Trustees, which governed the colony from 1732 to 1752." Each year the new inductees add their names to a list of the original Trustees.

Walter White

Walter White

A prominent African American figure and spokesperson during the early civil rights years, Walter White served as chief secretary of the NAACP from 1929 to 1955.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34-013342-C.

Vernon Jordan

Vernon Jordan

Vernon Jordan, an Atlanta native, rose to national prominence during the 1960s and 1970s as a lawyer and civil rights activist. As part of the legal team responsible for forcing the University of Georgia to admit African Americans, Jordan escorted Charlayne Hunter, the first Black woman enrolled at the university, to the admissions office in 1961.

Courtesy of National Urban League

Vernon Can Read!

Vernon Can Read!

Vernon Can Read!, the autobiography of civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, was published by PublicAffairs in 2001. Cowritten with law professor Annette Gordon-Reed, the book chronicles Jordan's years with the NAACP, the United Negro College Fund, and the National Urban League.

Inman Orphanage

Inman Orphanage

The Inman family donated a portion of their wealth to many charitable causes in Atlanta, including several colleges, the Confederate Soldiers' Home, Grady Memorial Hospital, and this orphanage.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Hugh Inman

Hugh Inman

Hugh Inman, the youngest son of Shadrach W. Inman, sits for a portrait as a young boy. After the family moved to Atlanta in 1865, Hugh worked with his father to establish a dry goods store in the city.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Inman Family

Inman Family

Four generations of the Inman family begin with (right to left) Shadrach W. Inman, Samuel M. Inman, Henry Arthur Inman, and Arthur Crew Inman. Shadrach arrived in Atlanta from east Tennessee in 1865 to join his brothers William H. and Walker P. Inman. The Inman family soon became among the most wealthy and prominent in the city.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Samuel Inman

Samuel Inman

Samuel Inman, the oldest son of Shadrach W. Inman, opened a dry goods store in Augusta before becoming, along with his brother Hugh and friend Joel Hurt, an investor in railroads, streetcars, and banks in Atlanta during the 1890s.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Tullie Smith Farm

Tullie Smith Farm

The Tullie Smith Farm, now part of the Atlanta History Center, offers a living history interpretation to visitors during the annual "From Sheep to Shawl" festival.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Atlanta History Museum

Atlanta History Museum

The Atlanta History Museum, located on the campus of the Atlanta History Center, is one of the Southeast's largest history museums. The 30,000-square-foot facility, designed by architect George T. Heery, opened in 1993 and houses four permanent exhibitions, as well as two galleries for traveling exhibitions.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Swan House

Swan House

The Swan House, formerly the property of Edward Inman, was purchased by the Atlanta Historical Society in 1966. Renovated during the 1990s, the house is one of two historic homes located on the grounds of the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Photograph by Rod Smith.

Swan House Interior

Swan House Interior

The Swan House, a house museum at the Atlanta History Center, was renovated during the 1990s. The interior decor reflects the time period of the 1920s and 1930s, when the Edward Inman family resided in the home.

W. J. Usery in Coal Mine

W. J. Usery in Coal Mine

W. J. Usery (far right), in his role as director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, talks to workers in a West Virginia coal mine during the 1970s. Usery served as director of the service from 1973 to 1974.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, W. J. Usery Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

W. J. Usery Jr.

W. J. Usery Jr.

W. J. Usery Jr., a native of Hardwick, was the first Georgian to serve as the U.S. secretary of labor. Appointed to the position by U.S. president Gerald Ford in 1976, Usery resolved major labor disputes in the rubber and trucking industries during his tenure as secretary.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, W. J. Usery Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

W. J. Usery at Cape Canaveral

W. J. Usery at Cape Canaveral

W. J. Usery (right) inspects the Atlas missile launch vehicle with colleagues at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Test Facilities. Usery served as the International Association of Machinists' Grand Lodge special representative to Cape Canaveral in 1956.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, W. J. Usery Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

W. J. Usery with Gerald Ford

W. J. Usery with Gerald Ford

W. J. Usery (left) attends a reception in 1978 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., with U.S. president Gerald Ford. In 1976 Ford appointed Usery, who had extensive experience in resolving labor disptures, as the first U.S. secretary of labor from Georgia.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, W. J. Usery Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

Mildred Lewis Rutherford

Mildred Lewis Rutherford

Mildred Lewis Rutherford, a teacher, historian, writer, and lecturer known primarily for her Confederate memorial activities, published a monthy periodical entitled Miss Rutherford's Scrap Book from 1923 to 1926.

From Miss Rutherford's Scrap Book, vol. 4, April 1923

Primus E. King

Primus E. King

In 1977 the Democratic Executive Committee of Muscogee County, as mandated by Federal Judge T. Hoyt Davis in 1945, presented a check for $324.70 to Primus E. King. The court awarded the money to King in reparation for the denial of his right to vote in a 1944 Democratic primary.

Linwood Cemetery

Linwood Cemetery

The women of Columbus, led by Lizzie Rutherford, began to maintain the Confederate section of Linwood Cemetery shortly before the Civil War ended. Rutherford's efforts were among the earliest to foster a nostalgia for the prewar South that eventually culminated in what historians today term "Lost Cause religion."

Courtesy of Historic Linwood Foundation, Inc.

Clement Evans

Clement Evans

A proponent of the Lost Cause ideology, Clement Evans was a Civil War veteran, minister, student of military history, and cofounder of the United Confederate Veterans.

Augusta Confederate Monument

Augusta Confederate Monument

The Augusta Confederate Monument in downtown Augusta bears an inscription that encapsulates the sentiments of the Lost Cause: "No Nation Rose So White and Fair; None Fell So Pure of Crime."

Photograph by Elisabeth Hughes, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Mary Frances Early

Mary Frances Early

Mary Frances Early was the first African American to graduate from the University of Georgia. Early transferred from the University of Michigan as a music education graduate student in 1961 and earned her master's degree from UGA the following year.

Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services

Mary Frances Early

Mary Frances Early

Mary Frances Early, the first African American to graduate from the University of Georgia, sits in her Center Myers dorm room, which also housed Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the first African American woman to be admitted to the university. A riot erupted outside of this room two days after Hunter arrived on campus in 1961.

Courtesy of Mary Frances Early

Cornelia Bailey

Cornelia Bailey

Cornelia Bailey gathers silver grass and life everlasting, an herb used by her grandfather to make medicinal tea, on Sapelo Island. Bailey received a 2004 Governor's Award in the Humanities for her efforts to preserve the island's Geechee culture.

Photograph by Richard Cheppy. Courtesy of Cornelia Bailey

Cornelia Bailey and Mother

Cornelia Bailey and Mother

Cornelia Bailey, the "griot" of Sapelo Island, preserves the oral history of the Geechee culture through educational tours and storytelling. This portrait of Bailey with her mother appears in Bailey's 2000 memoir, God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man.

Photograph by Richard Cheppy. Courtesy of Cornelia Bailey

Cornelia Bailey with Jimmy Carter

Cornelia Bailey with Jimmy Carter

Cornelia Bailey welcomes U.S. president Jimmy Carter to Sapelo Island in 1979 with an oyster roast in his honor. After living on St. Simons Island for many years, Bailey returned to her childhood home in 1966 and began working to educate the public about Sapelo's Geechee culture.

Photograph by Richard Cheppy. Courtesy of Cornelia Bailey

Hopkins Holsey

Hopkins Holsey

Hopkins Holsey was appointed to finish James C. Terrell's term in the U.S. Congress in 1835 and served as a representative from Georgia until 1838. In 1838 he moved to Athens, where in 1846 he bought the Southern Banner, a local newspaper.

Photograph by Mathew B. Brady. Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

Georgia Guidestones

Georgia Guidestones

Known as "America's Stonehenge," the Georgia Guidestones in Elbert County were unveiled on March 22, 1980, after a mysterious man known as R. C. Christian commissioned a local company to engrave the stones with ten maxims to "an age of reason." The text on the guidestones was presented in twelve different languages.

Photograph by Melinda Smith Mullikin, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Georgia Guidestones

Georgia Guidestones

The Georgia Guidestones formed a granite monument that stood on one of the highest hilltops in Elbert County. The monument's four supporting stones were each more than sixteen feet tall and bore ten guides dealing with government, population control, the environment, and spirituality.

Image from Kevin Trotman

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Julius Bailey

Julius Bailey

This photograph, taken by Malcolm and Muriel Bell, captures Julius Bailey driving an ox cart along a Sapelo Island road around 1939. The image graces the cover of Drums and Shadows, a study of Black culture in coastal Georgia. Originally published in 1940, the book was reissued by the University of Georgia Press in 1986.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Muriel Barrow Bell and Malcolm Bell, Jr. collection, #GHS 1283-PH-03-02-101.

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Lewis McIver

Lewis McIver

Malcolm Bell Jr. and his wife, Muriel Barrow Bell, worked in 1939 with the Federal Writers' Project to document the African heritage in coastal Georgia. This portrait of Lewis McIver, a fisherman at Pin Point, is one of the many photographs composed by the couple during that year.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Photograph by Malcolm and Muriel Bell..

Malcolm and Muriel Bell

Malcolm and Muriel Bell

Husband and wife Malcolm Bell Jr. and Muriel Barrow Bell pose in 1938. Two years later, the couple's photographs were published in Drums and Shadows, a photographic study of African American culture along the Georgia coast commissioned by the Federal Writers' Project.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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County Unit System

County Unit System

Election day in Kingsland, Camden County, in the early 1960s, before the advent of voting booths. Georgia's elections were governed by the county unit system, which gave more weight to rural votes than to urban votes, until 1962. Even though they were home to a minority of Georgians, rural counties usually decided the winners of statewide elections.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cam368.

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Griffin Bell

Griffin Bell

Griffin Bell, left, with hand raised, is sworn in as U.S. attorney general under President Jimmy Carter (far left) in January 1977. In 1962 Bell headed a judicial panel that ruled Georgia's county unit system of voting to be in violation of the "one man, one vote" principle. His decision forced the change of a system that had been in place since 1917 and had given disproportionate voting power to rural counties.

Photograph from the National Archives and Records Administration

Selena Sloan Butler

Selena Sloan Butler

Selena Sloan Butler founded the first chapter of the National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers in 1911 and is credited with cofounding the National Parent Teacher Association.

Courtesy of Andrew College

William J. Northen

William J. Northen

William J. Northen was elected governor of Georgia in 1890 through the efforts of the Farmers' Alliance, an organization dedicated to overcoming the financial problems of southern farmers. Northen was leader of the alliance in Hancock County prior to his election as governor.

Leonidas F. Livingston

Leonidas F. Livingston

Leonidas F. Livingston, pictured in Washington, D.C., in 1897, served in the U.S. Congress from 1890 until 1910. A Democrat, Livingston served as president of the Georgia Farmers' Alliance from 1888 until 1892, but left the organization when it launched the new Populist Party.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
new283-83.

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Camp Lawton

Camp Lawton

Union prisoners were transferred from Andersonville Prison to Camp Lawton in Millen after Sherman's attack on Atlanta in 1864. Designed to hold 40,000 inmates, the population of Camp Lawton only reached around 10,000.

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Prison

Union prisoners, seen from this bird's-eye view of the stockade, were encamped at Andersonville Prison, or Camp Sumter, in southwest Georgia. By 1864 Andersonville held the largest prison population of the Civil War, and prisoners suffered from starvation and disease as a result of severe overcrowding.

Camp Oglethorpe

Camp Oglethorpe

Camp Oglethorpe, which opened in Macon in 1862, became most noted among Union prisoners for the number of escape tunnel operations beneath the enclosure. Although the facility was virtually abandoned in 1863 as a result of prisoner exchanges with the Union army, by 1864 more than 2,300 Union officers were imprisoned there.

Courtesy of Massachusetts Commandery Military Order of the Loyal Legion, U.S. Army Military History Institute

James Blount

James Blount

James Blount served as the U.S. representative for the Sixth District of Georgia from 1873 to 1893. In the months following his 1893 retirement, Blount investigated the Hawaiian Revolution of that same year and reported to the U.S. government that most Hawaiians were opposed to annexation by the United States.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Brady-Handy photograph collection.

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Fort Frederica National Monument

Fort Frederica National Monument

Georgia's Department of Natural Resources and the National Park Service join forces to offer an archaeological training program for teachers each summer at Fort Frederica National Monument on St. Simons Island. Students later return with their teachers to excavate a simulated colonial site.

Courtesy of Sea Island Company

John Houstoun

John Houstoun

John Houstoun served twice as the governor of Georgia, as well as the mayor of Savannah.

Archibald Campbell

Archibald Campbell

Through his 1778 Georgia campaign, particularly his capture of Savannah and Augusta, Archibald Campbell achieved one of the few unqualified British successes in the American Revolution.

Image from Wikimedia

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Andrew Pickens

Andrew Pickens

Colonel Andrew Pickens led South Carolina and Georgia militiamen to victory at the Battle of Kettle Creek in 1779. 

Photograph by Wikimedia

Count Charles Henri d’Estaing

Count Charles Henri d’Estaing

Count Charles Henri d'Estaing, a French naval commander sympathetic to the American revolutionary cause, attempted to take Savannah from the British in 1779. His army was repulsed in one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War.

Image from Archives américaines, New-York

Lyman Hall

Lyman Hall

Lyman Hall was one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence. He served as a representative to the Continental Congress and as governor of Georgia from 1783 to 1784.

Plan of Savannah

Plan of Savannah

In December 1778, British troops under Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell captured Savannah as part of their campaign to restore the colony of Georgia to British rule. This drawing details the town of Savannah at the time of the British invasion.

Battle of Kettle Creek Site

Battle of Kettle Creek Site

Revolutionary War veterans are buried in the Kettle Creek cemetery, which is maintained today by a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The Battle of Kettle Creek, fought on February 14, 1779, prevented the British from invading upper Georgia.

Photograph by Chris Crookston, Wikimedia

John Wereat

John Wereat

John Wereat served briefly as de facto governor of Georgia in 1779 and is best known for his attempt in 1795 to thwart the Yazoo land fraud, a corrupt deal between the state legislature and land speculators.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, John Wereat letter to John Gibbons, #GHS 0854-AF-006.

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George Walton

George Walton

George Walton, one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence, served as governor of the state for two months in 1779. Following the Revolutionary War, Walton held another term as governor from 1789 to 1790, and also served as a U.S. senator and chief justice of Georgia.

From History of Georgia, edited by K. Coleman

Elijah Clarke

Elijah Clarke

Elijah Clarke was among the few heroes of the Revolutionary War from Georgia. Even though he was wounded several times, Clarke led several successful frontier guerrilla campaigns against British soldiers and American Loyalists during the war. Clarke County is named for him.

John Martin

John Martin

An honored Revolutionary War soldier turned politician, John Martin was governor of Georgia from 1782 to 1783. It was during his term of office that Georgia retook Savannah from the British and the Revolutionary War in Georgia came to an end.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

Kenneth Coleman

Kenneth Coleman

Kenneth Coleman, shown here in 1975, was an authority on colonial Georgia as well as a prolific writer and editor. Coleman taught in the history department at the University of Georgia for twenty-one years and was an active member of several state historic preservation societies.

Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services

A History of Georgia

A History of Georgia

Kenneth Coleman served as general editor for A History of Georgia, which the University of Georgia Press published in 1977. A second edition was published in 1991.

UGA Historians

UGA Historians

The publication of A History of Georgia was celebrated by historians and administrators at the University of Georgia. From left to right: Numan Bartley, UGA Press director Ralph Stephens, Kenneth Coleman, UGA president Fred Davison, Doug Barnard, Charles Wynes, Nash Boney, William Holmes, and Phinizy Spalding. Photograph taken April 1978.

Atlanta National Bank

Atlanta National Bank

This photograph of the Atlanta National Bank (tall building, left) on Alabama Street was taken during the 1910s. Atlanta Joint Terminal Georgia Railroad Freight Depot is at the end of the street.

Austell

Austell

The town of Austell, in Cobb County, was named for the banker Alfred Austell in honor of his work to build two branches of the Southern Railway. This photograph of Main Street in downtown Austell was taken in 1951.

Ebenezer Creek

Ebenezer Creek

Ebenezer Creek in Effingham County was the site of Ebenezer, one of Georgia's first settlements. Founded by religious refugees from Salzburg during the 1730s, Ebenezer became a haven for other persecuted religious groups, including the Moravians.

Thomas R. R. Cobb

Thomas R. R. Cobb

After graduation from the University of Georgia, Thomas R. R. Cobb practiced law and wrote several significant legal works, including a defense of slavery called An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America (1858). Cobb and his brother Howell campaigned around Georgia for secession following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Thomas R. R. Cobb

Thomas R. R. Cobb

Thomas R. R. Cobb, an antebellum legal authority and Confederate general, was born in Jefferson County but spent most of his life in Athens. He graduated at the top of his class from the University of Georgia and in 1844 married Marion Lumpkin, the daughter of prominent judge Joseph Henry Lumpkin.

Howell Cobb

Howell Cobb

Following Georgia's secession from the Union in 1861, Howell Cobb served as president of the Confederate Provisional Congress (1861-62) and a major general of the Confederate army.

Lucy Cobb Institute

Lucy Cobb Institute

The Lucy Cobb Institute, a secondary school for young women in Athens, was founded in 1859 by Thomas R. R. Cobb, a prominent lawyer and proslavery writer.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # clr053.

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T. R. R. Cobb House

T. R. R. Cobb House

The historic T. R. R. Cobb house, built in Athens in 1839, was moved to Stone Mountain in 1985. The home was returned in 2004 to Athens and situated two blocks from its original location. Restored by the Watson-Brown Foundation, the home opened in 2007 as a house museum and conference site.

Photograph by Sarah E. McKee, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Swearing in of A. T. Walden

Swearing in of A. T. Walden

Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen (right) swears in A. T. Walden as judge of the Atlanta Municipal Court on February 3, 1964. Walden, the first Black judge appointed in Georgia following Reconstruction, served as president of Atlanta's NAACP branch from 1924 to 1936.

A. T. Walden

A. T. Walden

Attorney A. T. Walden, a key participant in the effort to increase Black voter registration during the 1940s, served as one of the first cochairs of the Atlanta Negro Voters League executive committee.

Courtesy of Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta–Fulton Public Library System

Lemuel Grant

Lemuel Grant

A railroad engineer, Lemuel Grant designed the fortifications for Atlanta during the Civil War. He also designed and built the Market (Broad) Street Bridge in 1865, and in 1882 donated 100 acres for Atlanta's first park, which is named in his honor.

Image from Atlanta And Its Builders by Thomas H. Martin

Grant Park

Grant Park

Atlanta residents stroll through Grant Park in 1907. Other popular activities at the park included swimming, boating, and playing tennis.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful1055-91.

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Jessie Daniel Ames

Jessie Daniel Ames

Before founding the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL), Jessie Ames was president of the Texas League of Women Voters and director of women's work for Atlanta's Commission on Interracial Cooperation. As part of her work with the ASWPL, Ames formed alliances with Jewish women's groups, the Young Women's Christian Association, and the Parent-Teacher Association.

Courtesy of Austin History Center, Austin Public Library, FP E.4 D #9

John Hope

John Hope

John Hope, the first Black president of both Morehouse College and Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University), was an important African American educator and race leader of the early twentieth century.

Image from The Crisis, Vol 8, No 1, May 1914

Elbert P. Tuttle

Elbert P. Tuttle

Elbert P. Tuttle works in his Atlanta office in 1982, shortly after the creation of the Eleventh Circuit.

Elbert P. Tuttle

Elbert P. Tuttle

Elbert Parr Tuttle heard a number of significant civil rights cases as chief judge of the Fifth Circuit during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1968 he stepped down as chief judge and entered semiretirement as a senior judge, serving on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals from its creation in 1981 until his death in 1996.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976.

Raphael Moses

Raphael Moses

Major Raphael Moses, as chief supply officer for General James Longstreet, carried out the final order of the Confederate government. He is also credited with being the first to ship and sell peaches outside of the South.

Joseph Lowery

Joseph Lowery

Joseph Lowery stands before the SCLC headquarters in Atlanta. In 1977 Lowery succeeded Ralph David Abernathy as president of the SCLC, which has been based in Atlanta since its inception in 1957.

Lowery at Lockheed Martin Protest

Lowery at Lockheed Martin Protest

Joseph Lowery voices his dismay on February 22, 2000, over alleged racial discrimination practices at Lockheed Martin. Behind him are Lockheed workers who came to lend support to the protest.

Winn-Dixie Boycott

Winn-Dixie Boycott

The Reverend Joseph Lowery (middle, right), the Reverend Randel Osburn (middle, left), and others picket a Winn-Dixie grocery store in Atlanta. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference's boycott of Winn-Dixie began in the fall of 1985 and lasted four months, ending only when the chain agreed to stop selling products grown or manufactured in South Africa.

Courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Records, Photograph by Elaine Tomlin.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr., Baptist minister and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was the most prominent African American leader in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Albany Movement Leaders

Albany Movement Leaders

The Albany Movement leaders included, from left, Slater King, the president of the movement; Elza Goldie Jackson, the recording secretary; the Reverend Sammie B. Wells, the chairman of voter registration; Thomas Chatmon, the director of voter registration; and Robert Thomas, a local barber and active volunteer.

Reprinted from Freedomways

Emancipation Meeting Flyer

Emancipation Meeting Flyer

This flyer advertises an "emancipation meeting" cosponsored by the SCLC and featuring Martin Luther King Jr. as the speaker. The SCLC organized "right-to-vote" marches and registration drives in Georgia during the 1960s.

Carrie Steele Logan

Carrie Steele Logan

This portrait of Carrie Steele Logan is the only known image of the woman who founded the Carrie Steele Orphan Home in 1888. The orphanage has housed over 20,000 children since that time and may be the oldest predominantly Black orphanage in the country.

Courtesy of Historic Oakland Cemetery

Grave Site of Carrie Steele Logan

Grave Site of Carrie Steele Logan

Carrie Steele Logan, founder of the Carrie Steele Orphan Home in Atlanta, died in 1900 at the age of seventy-one and was buried in Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery. The epitaph on her gravestone reads "The mother of orphans. She hath done what she could."

Image from Anne Davis 773

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Wormsloe House

Wormsloe House

South front of the Wormsloe House, 1899. Victorian-style improvements were made to the family house by Wymberly Jones De Renne in the 1890s. The Victorian additions and ornamentation were removed by his daugher nearly forty-five years later.

Wormsloe Entrance

Wormsloe Entrance

A narrow road adorned with live oak trees along either side makes for a dramatic entrance to the Wormsloe historic site.

Photograph by Jeff Gunn

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Wormsloe

Wormsloe

The Wormsloe site, on the Isle of Hope peninsula, was an important part of the defense of the Georgia colony against the Spanish. A guard post and a marine garrison were located at Wormsloe during the colonial era.

Photograph by Katherine Bowman

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Tabby Ruins at Wormsloe

Tabby Ruins at Wormsloe

Noble Jones used tabby, a mixture of limestone, sand, and shells, to build fortifications at Wormsloe in 1740 for the defense of Savannah. In 1793 he began construction on a new tabby home, the ruins of which are still standing.

Image from G. Dawson

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George Wymberley Jones De Renne

George Wymberley Jones De Renne

Historical works made up the majority of the books privately printed by George Wymberley Jones De Renne. He called four of his publications the "Wormsloe Quartos" in honor of his family's ancestral estate.

Courtesy of Eudora De Renne Roebling

Wymberley Wormsloe De Renne

Wymberley Wormsloe De Renne

Wymberley Wormsloe De Renne worked off and on most of his life to complete the library his father had begun. The Catalogue of the Wymberley Jones De Renne Georgia Library became the basis of the sale of the De Renne Georgia Library in 1938 to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, for placement in the University of Georgia Libraries.

Courtesy of Eudora De Renne Roebling

Tourist Map of Wormsloe, 1930

Tourist Map of Wormsloe, 1930

In 1927 the Wormsloe estate was opened to the public as Wormsloe Gardens. The site became a popular tourist attraction. A tourist map from 1930 shows the layout of the property at the time.

Elfrida De Renne Barrow

Elfrida De Renne Barrow

In 1953 Barrow incorporated the Wormsloe Foundation, one of whose activities was the publication of historical works. Barrow is pictured here in a portrait by Edward August Bell (ca. 1905).

Courtesy of Elfrida Barrow Moore

John Marshall

John Marshall

Although Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) that the Cherokees should receive the protection of the U.S. government, the state of Georgia continued to encroach upon Cherokee lands.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Sequoyah

Sequoyah

This hand-colored lithograph of Sequoyah (also called George Gist or George Guess), the legendary creator of the Cherokee syllabary, was made in 1833 after an oil portrait by Charles Bird King as part of a series depicting Native American leaders.

From The Indian Tribes of North America, by T. L. McKenney and J. Hall

John Ross

John Ross

This portrait by Charles Bird King shows John Ross at his prime. A well-educated and successful businessman, John Ross helped to establish the Cherokee Nation's first government and became principal chief in 1827.

Print by Charles Bird King. From History of the Indian Tribes of North America, by T. McKenney and J. Hall

Major Ridge

Major Ridge

Hand-colored lithograph of Major Ridge, a Cherokee leader who helped establish the Cherokee system of government. The soldier, politician, and plantation owner is remembered for signing the Treaty of New Echota (1835), which ceded Cherokee lands to the U.S. government and authorized Cherokee removal.

From History of the Indian Tribes of North America, by T. McKenney and J. Hall

Rock Eagle

Rock Eagle

Located north of Eatonton in Putnam County, Rock Eagle is an Indian-made rock structure dating back to the Middle Woodland period (300 B.C. to A.D. 600).

Photograph by Brian McInturff

Etowah Indian Mounds

Etowah Indian Mounds

A path leading to two of the mounds at the Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site. Located in Bartow County, the site is home to the second-largest Indian mound in North America, rises to a height of slightly more than 60 feet.

Photograph from Sharon Meier

Chieftains Museum

Chieftains Museum

The Cherokee leader Major Ridge and his family lived in this house, near present-day Rome, in the early 1800s. The house was part of Ridge's 280-acre plantation. Today, the historic site is a museum.

Courtesy of Alice Taylor-Colbert, Shorter University. Reprinted by permission of Chieftains Museum

Roosevelt Motorcade

Roosevelt Motorcade

U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt waves from a motorcade with his daughter Anna (center) and wife, Eleanor, circa 1932.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Franklin D. Roosevelt at Warm Springs

Franklin D. Roosevelt at Warm Springs

Through his foundation at Warm Springs, Franklin D. Roosevelt began to study the connections between Georgia's difficult agricultural conditions and its social and educational problems. His New Deal programs would ultimately address the nation's and Georgia's social conditions.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard B. Russell Jr.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard B. Russell Jr.

Richard B. Russell Jr. (right) campaigns in Warm Springs for U.S. presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Russell, upon his election to the U.S. Senate in 1933, helped to ensure passage of Roosevelt's New Deal programs throughout the 1930s.

James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt

James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt

James M. Cox (left), the governor of Ohio and founder of Cox Enterprises, is pictured at the White House with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1920. That year Roosevelt, who was elected president of the United States in 1932, ran as Cox's vice presidential candidate during Cox's unsuccessful bid for the presidency.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Little White House

Little White House

From 1924 to 1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt maintained a residence in Warm Springs, known as Little White House. Since 1948 the house has been open to the public.

Courtesy of Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

Techwood Homes Dedication

Techwood Homes Dedication

U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks in Atlanta at the dedication ceremony for Techwood Homes, the nation's first public housing project, on November 29, 1935.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

During his visits to Warm Springs, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, pictured in 1932, enjoyed traveling the countryside and getting to know the concerns of members of the community.

Roosevelt Family

Roosevelt Family

Eleanor Roosevelt (far left) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (center) stand aboard the battleship Indiana in 1934, accompanied by their daughter-in-law Betsey Cushing Roosevelt, their son James Roosevelt, and Franklin's mother, Sara Roosevelt.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Little White House Stamp

FDR and the Little White House Stamp

The U.S. Postal Service featured Franklin D. Roosevelt's home in Warm Springs, dubbed the "Little White House," on this 1945 postage stamp. The house is open to the public today, and the nearby Roosevelt Warm Springs Rehabilitation Center still serves patients with spinal cord injuries.

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson served as president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. This portrait was taken while Wilson was in office.

Rev. Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Janet Woodrow Wilson

Rev. Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Janet Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson was born to Joseph Ruggles Wilson, a Presbyterian minister, and Janet Woodrow Wilson in Staunton, Virginia, on December 28, 1856 . The couple also had two older daughters at the time of Woodrow's birth, and a second son was born after the family moved to Augusta in 1858.

Boyhood Home of Woodrow Wilson

Boyhood Home of Woodrow Wilson

The boyhood home of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, who spent almost twelve years of his childhood (1858-70) in Augusta, has been preserved and restored.

Courtesy of Boyhood Home of President Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson in 1871

Woodrow Wilson in 1871

In 1871, when Woodrow was about fifteen years old, the Wilson family moved from Augusta to Columbia, South Carolina. The previous year, in an early indication of his leadership abilities, the young Woodrow had been elected president of the Lightfoot Baseball Club.

Ellen Axson Wilson

Ellen Axson Wilson

Ellen Axson Wilson is pictured in 1912, one year before her husband, Woodrow Wilson, became the president of the United States. After her death in 1914, her body was returned by train to her native Georgia, and her remains were buried in Rome's Myrtle Hill Cemetery.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

A lifelong politician, Alexander Stephens is perhaps best remembered as the vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president and a Georgia native, was a master at managing relations with journalists, and he used his stable of press supporters, including the Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel and the Southern Confederacy of Atlanta, to spread his peace doctrine.

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens. After the Civil War Stephens was elected to the U.S. Senate, but that body refused to seat the former vice president of the Confederacy. He then was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives and finally as governor, an office he held for only a few months before he died.

Image from Clement Anselm Evans

Liberty Hall

Liberty Hall

Liberty Hall in Taliaferro County, home of Alexander H. Stephens, is pictured in 1936.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey, #HABS GA,133-CRAWV,1--2.

The Hercules of 1861

The Hercules of 1861

In this political cartoon, a Union officer (unidentified) swings a club labeled "Union" in defense against a many-headed serpent labeled "Secession." The serpent's heads are: Floyd, Pickens, Beauregard, Twiggs, Davis, Stephens, and Toombs, all leaders of the Southern secession movement and the resulting Confederacy.

Courtesy of Civil War Treasures, New York Historical Society

A. H. Stephens Historic Park

A. H. Stephens Historic Park

The A. H. Stephens Historic Park, in Crawfordville, is part of the Georgia state park system. The park includes Alexander Stephens's restored home, Liberty Hall, as well a museum containing Civil War artifacts.

Courtesy of Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Photograph from Georgia State Parks.

1881 International Cotton Exposition

1881 International Cotton Exposition

The 1881 International Cotton Exposition buildings in Atlanta's Oglethorpe Park consisted of a central building and several wings. The central building was devoted to textile-manufacturing displays while the wings showcased other southern products, including sugar, rice, and tobacco.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

U.S. President Cleveland at 1887 Piedmont Exposition

U.S. President Cleveland at 1887 Piedmont Exposition

U.S. president Grover Cleveland (foreground) walks past the Georgia Building at the 1887 Piedmont Exposition, held in October at Atlanta's Piedmont Park. More than 50,000 visitors attended the exposition that day.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0674.

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1895 Cotton States and International Exposition

1895 Cotton States and International Exposition

Grant Williams, a civil engineer, turned Atlanta's 1887 Piedmont Exposition grounds into a larger venue to accomodate the more ambitious 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition. Williams's plan included twenty-five buildings, a lake, fountains, and statuary.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0658.

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Piedmont Exposition, 1887

Piedmont Exposition, 1887

This drawing shows the 1887 Piedmont Exposition's main building. Located in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, the structure was 570 feet long, 126 feet wide, and two stories high. The Exposition opened on October 10 to nearly 20,000 visitors.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Mexican Village Exhibition, 1895

Mexican Village Exhibition, 1895

A Mexican village display at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition, held at Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #ful0673.

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Shooting the Chutes, 1895

Shooting the Chutes, 1895

Shooting the chutes, an early type of water ride, on Lake Clara Meer during the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition, held at Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0666.

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Machinery Hall Exhibition, 1895

Machinery Hall Exhibition, 1895

Exhibitions in the Machinery Hall at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition, held in Piedmont Park in Atlanta. The Lane & Bodley Company of Cincinnati exhibit is in the foreground.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0667.

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Cotton States and International Exposition, 1895

Cotton States and International Exposition, 1895

The Cotton States and International Exposition was the last of three cotton expositions held in Atlanta during the late nineteenth century. Held in Piedmont Park, the exposition presented new technology in a variety of industries and showcased Atlanta as a regional business center.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0664.

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Cotton States and International Exposition, 1895

Cotton States and International Exposition, 1895

View of the north-end grounds and Lake Clara Meer at the 1895 Cotton States Exposition, held in Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #ful0662.

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Crowds at 1895 Cotton Exposition

Crowds at 1895 Cotton Exposition

A crowd strolls through Piedmont Park in Atlanta at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition. The chime tower and the U.S. government building can be seen in the background.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0676.

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Hofwyl House

Hofwyl House

The former rice plantation dates to 1806, and the Hofwyl House, built in 1850 by descendants of planter William Brailsford, still stands.

Image from Ebyabe

Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation

Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation

When the Hofwyl-Broadfield plantation was willed to the state in 1973, the owners left antiques collected by the family for more than five generations. Such household items are on display at the historic site.

Image from Wendy

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Phinizy Spalding

Phinizy Spalding

Phinizy Spalding stands in front of a restoration project in Smithsonia. Spalding founded the Historic Cobbham Foundation and was active in the National and Georgia Trusts for Historic Preservation and the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation.

Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services

Book Presented to Jimmy Carter

Book Presented to Jimmy Carter

President Jimmy Carter accepts an autographed copy of A History of Georgia in the Oval Office on April 3, 1978. From left: Charles Wynes, Phinizy Spalding, Numan Bartley, Nash Boney, President Carter, Kenneth Coleman, Ralph Stephens, Fred C. Davison, and William Holmes.

Wilson Lumpkin

Wilson Lumpkin

Wilson Lumpkin served as governor of Georgia from 1831 to 1835. During his long political career, Lumpkin was also elected to office in the U.S. House and Senate and held the position of U.S. commissioner to the Cherokee Indians. Painting by J. T. Moore.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Tours

Wilson Lumpkin

Wilson Lumpkin

Before embarking on his political career, Wilson Lumpkin also worked as a farmer and as a teacher. Upon his death in 1870, Lumpkin's daughter deeded his farm in Athens to the University of Georgia.

From The Removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia, by Wilson Lumpkin

Tift Sawmill

Tift Sawmill

Henry Tift's sawmill, circa 1900. After the success of the sawmill, Tift expanded his business interests by establishing the Tifton Cotton Mill and the Bank of Tifton.

Henry Tift

Henry Tift

A successful businessman and developer, Henry H. Tift founded the south Georgia town of Tifton.

Courtesy of Coastal Plain Experiment Station

Tift Locomotive

Tift Locomotive

This locomotive, long used at the Tift sawmill, was said to have seen service in the Civil War before it was bought by Henry Tift.

Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Wesley Thomas Hargrett Collection.

Tift Sawmill

Tift Sawmill

The lumberyard at Henry Tift's sawmill at Tifton, around 1900. Tift established his sawmill at the highest ground in the area.

Alonzo Herndon

Alonzo Herndon

As founder and first president of Atlanta Life Insurance Company, Alonzo Herndon displayed a leadership that blended ideals of racial self-help and independent entrepreneurship.

Courtesy of Alexa Benson Henderson

Alonzo Herndon with Mother and Brother

Alonzo Herndon with Mother and Brother

Alonzo Herndon with his mother, Sophenie, and his brother, Thomas, ca. 1890. About his early life Alonzo writes, "My mother was emancipated when I was seven years old and my brother Tom five years old. She was sent adrift in the world with her two children and a corded bed and [a] few quilts. . . . She hired herself out by the day and as there was money in the country, she received as pay potatoes, molasses, and peas enough to keep us from starving."

Courtesy of The Herndon Home

Herndon Family

Herndon Family

Alonzo, Adrienne, and Norris Herndon, 1907. Alonzo's marriage to Adrienne had a far-reaching impact on his life, greatly influencing his cultural and educational growth. It also produced his only child, Norris, who succeeded him as chief executive of Atlanta Life Insurance Company.

Courtesy of The Herndon Home

Staff of Atlanta Life Insurance Company

Staff of Atlanta Life Insurance Company

The staff of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company Branch Office, ca. 1925. In 1922 the company had achieved legal reserve status, a position enjoyed by only four other Black insurance companies at that time.

Courtesy of The Herndon Home

Demonstration in Atlanta

Demonstration in Atlanta

In 1947 demonstrators gather in Atlanta to demand the desegregation of the Atlanta police force. The signs read: "For Negro Police"; "105,000 Negro Citizens Rate at Least 1 Negro Police"; and "Negro Police Will Aid in Law & Order."

Henry McNeal Turner

Henry McNeal Turner

One of the most influential African American leaders in late-nineteenth-century Georgia, Henry McNeal Turner was a pioneering church organizer and missionary for the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) in Georgia.

Eugene Talmadge

Eugene Talmadge

Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge speaks at a 1942 political rally in Moultrie. During his 1946 gubernatorial campaign, Talmadge ran on a white supremacist platform and won a fourth term as governor in an election widely considered to be fraudulent. He died before he could take office, however, and the state legislature selected his son, Herman Talmadge, to assume the governorship.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection.

Voters in Milledgeville

Voters in Milledgeville

African Americans in Milledgeville wait in line to vote following the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The act created both the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and a commission to investigate racial or religious discrimination during voter registrations and elections.

Martin Luther King Jr. during Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther King Jr. during Civil Rights Movement

King's interest in nonviolence became a central tenet of his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and helped lead a young generation of African Americans to promote desegregation through peaceful sit-ins.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

W. W. Law

W. W. Law

W. W. Law, known as "Mr. Civil Rights," served as president of the Savannah NAACP from 1950 to 1976. During his tenure he led protests and boycotts against segregated businesses in the city and was fired from his job with the U.S. Postal Service for his civil rights activities. His job was restored to him as a result of U.S. president John F. Kennedy's intervention.

Atlanta Protests

Atlanta Protests

Although Atlanta claimed to be "a city too busy to hate," racial animosity is evident in this 1964 photograph documenting simultaneous protests. The Ku Klux Klan, marching to protest the desegregation of an Atlanta hotel, passes by a group of African Americans demonstrating against a segregated restaurant.

Photograph from Corbis

Andrew Young

Andrew Young

Andrew Young was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 and as mayor of Atlanta in 1981. His elections signaled the institutionalization of the revolution in Black political power he had helped to create in Georgia. Young won the mayoral reelection in 1985 but was defeated in a 1990 primary bid to become the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays was the president of Morehouse college from 1940 until his retirement in 1967.

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays, president of Morehouse College from 1940 until 1967, attends a birthday party in his honor on August 11, 1973.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays

Benjamin Mays speaks with Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr.

Maynard Jackson’s Inauguration

Maynard Jackson’s Inauguration

Elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973, Maynard Jackson was the first African American to serve as mayor of a major southern city. Jackson served eight years and then returned for a third term in 1990. During his tenure, Jackson increased the amount of city business given to minority-owned firms and added a new terminal to the Atlanta airport, later renamed Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in his honor.

Maynard Jackson

Maynard Jackson

Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson appealed for calm on the steps of City Hall after mass violence and vandalism erupted in downtown Atlanta in response to the Rodney King verdict on April 30, 1992. Jackson was shouted down several times before the crowd finally moved off toward Peachtree Street.

Ebos Landing

Ebos Landing

Ebos Landing is a bend in Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island. Although conflicting accounts of the "Myth of the Flying Africans" exist, many locals designate this spot as the site from which a boatload of enslaved West Africans either flew away or drowned themselves during an 1803 rebellion.

Photograph by Elisabeth Hughes, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Ebos Landing

Ebos Landing

Ebos Landing, pictured in 2004, was the site of an 1803 slave rebellion, during which a group of Ebo Africans drowned themselves rather than submit to slavery.

Photograph by Elisabeth Hughes, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Sarah “Sallie” Conley Clayton

Sarah “Sallie” Conley Clayton

Sallie Clayton, an adolescent at the time of the Civil War, recounted memories of her own and her family's ordeal in Requiem for a Lost City.

Courtesy of Atlanta Historical Society

Mary Harris Gay

Mary Harris Gay

Mary Harris Gay, a Decatur native, wrote Life in Dixie during the War (1892), in which she recounted her memories of watching the Civil War battle of Decatur.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #dek418-85.

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Fulton County Sewing Project

Fulton County Sewing Project

The Fulton County Sewing Project employed many Atlanta women in the 1930s and was one of a number of service ventures operated by the Civil Works Administration's Divison of Women's Work. Formed in 1933, the CWA was among the many New Deal agencies and programs designed to provide relief to Americans during the Great Depression.

WPA House

WPA House

As part of a New Deal Works Progress Administration project, workers construct a house in Smithsonia (or Smithonia), in Oglethorpe County.

Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Works Progress Administration in Georgia, 1936.

E. D. Rivers

E. D. Rivers

E. D. Rivers was elected governor of Georgia in 1936 as an avid supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Harris & Ewing Collection.

Walter F. George

Walter F. George

Up to 1937 U.S. senator Walter F. George had supported most of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's major New Deal programs, but he joined a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who resisted further reforms. In 1945 George supported Roosevelt's efforts to create the United Nations charter.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, National Photo Company Collection.

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Davis Street School Extension

Davis Street School Extension

The Davis Street School Extension in Atlanta under construction as part of the Works Progress Administration Program, November 2, 1936.

Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Works Progress Administration in Georgia, 1936.

African American Training School

African American Training School

Bibb County African American training school under construction, Works Progress Administration Program, 1936.

Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Works Progress Administration in Georgia, 1936.

Eugene Talmadge

Eugene Talmadge

In Governor Eugene Talmadge, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal found one of its most vigorous opponents. In Talmadge's first two terms as governor (1933-37), Georgia state government subverted many of the early New Deal programs.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Juliette Gordon Low

Juliette Gordon Low

Portrait of Juliette Gordon Low by A. Jonnieaux, commissioned by Low for the boardroom of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America. The painting is now displayed at the Juliette Low Birthplace in Savannah.

Courtesy of Girl Scouts of the USA, Collection of Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, Savannah.

Juliette Gordon Low in London

Juliette Gordon Low in London

Photograph portrait of Juliette Gordon Low, while in England, by Alice Hughes.

Courtesy of Girl Scouts of the USA

Andrew Low House, Savannah

Andrew Low House, Savannah

Architect John Norris began designing the Andrew Low House, on Lafayette Square in Savannah, in 1847. The three-story stucco-over-brick structure was designed in the Italianate style. Juliette Gordon Low married Andrew Low's son, and she went on to found the Girl Scouts of America in this house in 1912.

Juliette Gordon Low

Juliette Gordon Low

Juliette Gordon Low with a group of American Girl Scouts, circa 1917.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Juliette Gordon Low

Juliette Gordon Low

This 1948 postage stamp features a likeness of Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Guides of America, later known as the Girl Scouts of the United States, in Savannah in 1912.

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

William Bacon Stevens

William Bacon Stevens

Today William Bacon Stevens's work, A History of Georgia, is considered the first scholarly attempt to tell the story of Georgia's past.

Equitable Building

Equitable Building

John Wellborn Root's eight-story Equitable Building in Atlanta, built in the early 1890s for the developer Joel Hurt, was demolished in 1971, just as Georgia's historic preservation movement was getting under way. Its steel-frame construction and monumental presence made it the city's pioneer skyscraper.

Joel Hurt

Joel Hurt

Atlanta businessman Joel Hurt was involved in real estate, insurance, and streetcars. He was responsible for the construction of three major buildings in downtown Atlanta, including the Hurt Building and the Equitable Building.

Courtesy of Atlanta Historical Society

Hurt Building

Hurt Building

The Hurt Building, named for Atlanta developer Joel Hurt and completed in 1926, was the seventeenth-largest office building in the world; still standing, it remains a distinctive Atlanta landmark.

Photograph by Ganeshk

Nellie Peters Black and Daughters

Nellie Peters Black and Daughters

Nellie Peters Black, on the Peters family farm with her daughters. Black was a proponent of the Country Life Movement as well as a crusader for agricultural diversification.

Nellie Peters Black

Nellie Peters Black

Nellie Peters Black personified the early club woman movement in the South, belonging to numerous civic and social organizations.

Goose Pond Community

Goose Pond Community

Dilapidated houses from the Goose Pond community, which was founded in the late eighteenth century, still remained when this photo was taken circa 1964. Today the post office is the only extant building from the original community, located in present-day Oglethorpe County.

McGeehee House, ca. 1967

McGeehee House, ca. 1967

The McGeehee family was one of many who emigrated from Virginia to Goose Pond in northeast Georgia in the late eighteenth century.

Goose Pond Community

Goose Pond Community

The Goose Pond community of present-day Oglethorpe County was established in the late 1700s on land previously occupied by Creek and Cherokee Indians. Two headstones appear in the foreground of the photograph, taken circa 1964.

Gilmer Childhood Home

Gilmer Childhood Home

Georgia governor George R. Gilmer's childhood home originally stood in the Goose Pond community of Oglethorpe County. The house is now located at the Calloway Plantation in Wilkes County.

Photograph by Carol Ebel

Grant Park

Grant Park

Bird's-eye view of Grant Park and Oakland Cemetery in 1892, drawn by Augustus Koch.

Courtesy of Library of Congress

Color photograph of trees in Atlanta's Grant Park

Grant Park

Grant Park is now the oldest surviving park in Atlanta and houses Zoo Atlanta and a residential area. The park was named after Lemuel P. Grant, who donated the land to Atlanta in 1881.

Image from Scott Ehardt

Zoo Atlanta

Zoo Atlanta

In 1999 giant pandas arrived at Zoo Atlanta, located in the city's historic Grant Park, and quickly became one of the most popular attractions at the facility. Each year more than 500,000 people visit the zoo, which focuses on education, conservation, and research.

Lake, Grant Park

Lake, Grant Park

The lake at Grant Park, ca. 1907. The boathouse can be seen in the background.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0415.

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Clovis Points

Clovis Points

The Early Paleoindian subperiod is characterized by Clovis and related projectile point forms, relatively large lanceolate (lance-shaped) points with nearly parallel sides, slightly concave bases, and single or multiple basal flutes (channels) that rarely extend more than a third of the way up the body.

Courtesy of the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology

Flint Projectile Points

Flint Projectile Points

Commonly referred to as "arrowheads," these flint projectile points from the Archaic Period would have been used as spear tips or knives.

Courtesy of Ocmulgee National Monument, National Park Service

Suwannee Points

Suwannee Points

The Middle Paleoindian subperiod features smaller unfluted lanceolate projectile points such as the Suwannee types, among others.

Courtesy of the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology

Rufus Bullock

Rufus Bullock

Rufus Bullock was Georgia's first Republican governor (1868-71) and a staunch supporter of African American equality.

Ralph David Abernathy

Ralph David Abernathy

Civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy speaks on April 9, 1968, at a press conference held during the week of Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral in Atlanta.

Photograph from Corbis

Ralph David Abernathy’s Home

Ralph David Abernathy’s Home

Abernathy (right) stands on the porch of his home following a Klan bombing. Freedom Rider David Fankhauser recalls, "Rev. Abernathy worked very closely with Martin Luther King Jr., and because of his civil rights activities . . . had his home bombed."

From The Civil Rights Movement: An Illustrated History, by B. Wilkenson

Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph David Abernathy Lead Civil Rights March

Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph David Abernathy Lead Civil Rights March

Ralph David Abernathy (right) walks with Martin Luther King Jr. (left) as they lead civil rights marchers out of camp to resume their walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The march took place March 21-25, 1965.

Courtesy of New York World-Telegram

Poor People’s Campaign March

Poor People’s Campaign March

Demonstrators participating in the Poor People's March at Lafayette Park and on Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C.

Image from Warren K. Leffler

Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum

Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum

The museum is named for Ralph Mark Gilbert, a Savannah leader of the civil rights movement. Gilbert served as president of the Savannah NAACP for eight years.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Geoff L. Johnson.

Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum

Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum

Through various kinds of displays, the museum chronicles the civil rights struggle of Georgia's oldest African American community.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Geoff L. Johnson.

Lester Maddox

Lester Maddox

Lestor Maddox locks the doors to the Pickrick restaurant rather than integrating it in 1965. Toward the end of his life, Governor Lester Maddox expressed few regrets and made no apologies for his segregationist beliefs or any of the other political stances he had taken over his career.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Lester Maddox Riding Bicycle

Lester Maddox Riding Bicycle

Governor Lester Maddox performs his signature trick: riding a bicycle backward.

Lester Maddox’s Souvenir Store

Lester Maddox’s Souvenir Store

Lester Maddox is photographed shaking hands inside his souvenir store in Underground Atlanta.

Lester and Virginia Maddox

Lester and Virginia Maddox

Lester Maddox and his wife, Virginia Cox, were married in 1936. Their union lasted sixty-one years, until Virginia's death. The picture is autographed by Maddox.

W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois, pictured circa 1920s, was an educator, historian, and social activist who addressed the issues of Black social problems and world peace. He wrote some of his best-known works in Georgia.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records, #LC-USZ62-123822.

W. W. Law, Leader of NAACP

W. W. Law, Leader of NAACP

W. W. Law, standing in front of the King-Tisdell Cottage in Savannah, became the leader of the state NAACP in 1955. Law was reelected eight times.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Charlayne Hunter-Gault

The journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault became a CNN correspondent in 1999, reporting from South Africa.

Image from Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Charlayne Hunter at UGA

Charlayne Hunter at UGA

Charlayne Hunter returns to campus following demonstrations in 1961. She was one of the first two Black students to enroll at the University of Georgia.

Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Synagogue

Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Synagogue

The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, which first organized in 1860 as the Hebrew Benevolent Society, began construction in 1875 on a synagogue in Atlanta. The Temple, as it came to be known, continues to serve the Jewish community in the city.

Photograph by David 

Edward Kahn

Edward Kahn

In 1928 Edward Kahn became the executive director of the Federation of Jewish Charities. The federation was formed in 1905 to help new Jewish immigrants adjust to life in the United States, and the organization later became a charter member of the Community Chest.

Sam Massell

Sam Massell

Sam Massell was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1969, the first Jew to hold that office in the city. Massell's uncle was Ben Massell, one of Atlanta's premier builders and developers during the mid-twentieth century.

David Mayer

David Mayer

During the antebellum period in Atlanta, most Jews supported the Confederacy, including David Mayer. Mayer served as Governor Joseph E. Brown's commissary officer, and later became a founding and longtime member of Atlanta's school board.

Rich’s Department Store, 1925

Rich’s Department Store, 1925

In 1924 Rich's Department Store opened its flagship store in downtown Atlanta, where it remained until 1991. The building was remodeled during the late 1990s and became part of the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center.

Leo Frank

Leo Frank

Leo Frank, the superintendent of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, was convicted of the murder of factory worker Mary Phagan in 1913. Frank was lynched by a mob in Marietta in 1915 after Governor John M. Slaton commuted Frank's death sentence to life imprisonment.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

David Marx

David Marx

David Marx was a longtime rabbi at "the Temple" in Atlanta. He led the move toward Reform Judaism practices, which were more acceptable to middle-class America. Marx also encouraged his women congregants to form a local section of the National Council of Jewish Women.

Aaron Haas

Aaron Haas

In 1875 Aaron Haas became Atlanta's first mayor pro tempore.

Mendel’s Store, 1921

Mendel’s Store, 1921

Hyman Mendel's dry-goods store, 1921. Mendel, part of a wave of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe who arrived in Atlanta in the 1880s, became the city's biggest dry-goods wholesaler.

Hyman Mendel

Hyman Mendel

Hyman Mendel was one of many successful Jewish immigrants in Atlanta. Mendel became the city's biggest dry-goods wholesaler by the turn of the twentieth century.

Harold Hirsch

Harold Hirsch

In 1936 the Coca-Cola Company attorney Harold Hirsch helped reorganize Atlanta's Jewish social service agencies. The political climate in the United States and in Germany during the 1930s resulted in a switch in priorities to overseas relief.

Emanuel Feldman

Emanuel Feldman

Rabbi Emanuel Feldman led the congregants of Orthodox Congregation Beth Jacob during the 1950s. The creation of the congregation served as a harbinger of the cermonial/religious revival of the last half of the twentieth century.

Holocaust Gallery

Holocaust Gallery

The permanent exhibit The Holocaust Years at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta describes the systematic murder of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. The story is told through photographs, documents, personal memorabilia, family pictures, and in the voices of those who survived and made new lives in Atlanta.

Leb’s Delicatessen

Leb’s Delicatessen

When Leb's delicatessen, a Jewish-owned business in Atlanta, was singled out by sit-in demonstrators during the early 1960s, it became a symbol of recalcitrance.

Max Gettinger

Max Gettinger

Max Gettinger oversaw the reorganization of the Federation of Jewish Charities in 1967. The federation, which began in 1905, was one of many organizations that were formed to cater to the social-service, as well as social, needs of the immigrant Jewish community in Atlanta.

Crackers

Crackers

The epithet cracker has been applied in a derogatory way to rural, non-elite white southerners. Linguists now believe the original root to be the Gaelic craic, still used in Ireland (anglicized in spelling to crack) for "entertaining conversation."

Image from James Wells Champney

Crypt of Civilization Door

Crypt of Civilization Door

The art deco door that seals the Crypt of Civilization features a plaque with an elaborate message written by Thornwell Jacobs and a "moon hubcap" decoration.

Courtesy of Oglethorpe University Archives

Greene Monument

Greene Monument

A monument to Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene stands in Johnson Square, in Savannah.

Image from sfgamchick

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Nathanael Greene Reinterment

Nathanael Greene Reinterment

Soldiers from Fort Screven stand in formation during the 1902 reinterment of Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene in Savannah's Johnson Square.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ctm257.

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Nathan Brownson

Nathan Brownson

Nathan Brownson served as Georgia's governor in 1781-82, toward the end of the American Revolution. He also was elected to the state legislature and was a member of the convention that ratified the U.S. constitution as well as the convention that rewrote Georgia's constitution in 1789. He was the first physician to serve as governor.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries

African Americans at 1895 Cotton States Exposition

African Americans at 1895 Cotton States Exposition

African American attendees of the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition, held in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, are gathered in front of the Negro Building, where Booker T. Washington delivered his "Atlanta Compromise" speech on September 18. The speech detailed Washington's accommodationist strategy of achieving racial equality, primarily through vocational training for African Americans.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0668.

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Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

African American educator and leader Booker T. Washington delivered what is widely regarded as one of the most significant speeches in American history, the "Atlanta Compromise" speech, in 1895.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Harris & Ewing Collection.

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Washington and Roosevelt

Washington and Roosevelt

Booker T. Washington is depicted at a White House dinner with U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt on October 17, 1901.

Slater King

Slater King

Initially vice president of the Albany Movement, founded in 1961, civil rights activist Slater King went on to assume the presidency after William G. Anderson stepped down from the leadership role.

Slater King and Laurie Pritchett

Slater King and Laurie Pritchett

Civil rights activist Slater King confronts Albany police chief Laurie Pritchett.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

Albany Movement

Albany Movement

(Left to right) Thomas Chatmon, Marion King, and an unidentified woman register to vote, to the apparent dismay of the office worker. They are accompanied by young Jonathon King and Slater King (far right).

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

Slater King and Irene Asbury Wright

Slater King and Irene Asbury Wright

Slater King and Irene Asbury Wright lead a group of protestors in Albany. Wright, dean of students at Albany State College, resigned in protest on hearing that Albany State students had been expelled for participating in demonstrations.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park

The chiefdom of Ichisi was located between modern Macon and Perry on the Ocmulgee River. The capital town was probably located at the present-day Lamar archaeological site, a part of Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park.

Riverside Etowah Indian Mound

Riverside Etowah Indian Mound

The Etowah mounds were built during the Lamar Period. Modern-day steps allow tourists to climb to the summit of the Etowah mounds.

Photograph by Muora

Nacoochee Mound

Nacoochee Mound

Although the original Late Prehistoric earthen platform mound has been completely excavated, a reconstruction of the Nacoochee Mound can be seen today on private property in the Nacoochee Valley.

Photograph by Martin LaBar

Lamar Period Pottery

Lamar Period Pottery

Mississippian Lamar pottery is distinctive because of its unique stamping and shape.

Courtesy of Robert Foxworth

Lamar Period Pottery

Lamar Period Pottery

An example of Mississippian Lamar pottery. Lamar pottery was made throughout Georgia and well into the adjacent states.

Courtesy of Robert Foxworth

Mary Musgrove

Mary Musgrove

Mary Musgrove (pictured with her third husband, the Reverend Thomas Bosomworth) served as a cultural liaison between colonial Georgia and her Native American community in the mid-eighteenth century. She took advantage of her biculturalism to protect Creek interests, maintain peace on the frontier, and expand her business as a trader.

Lachlan McIntosh

Lachlan McIntosh

Colonel Lachlan McIntosh, a Scottish immigrant, served as a military and political leader in revolutionary Georgia. He defended Savannah from the British during the Battle of the Rice Boats on March 2-3, 1776, and later served with General George Washington at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in 1778.

Image from the New York Public Library Digital Collections, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection.

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Andrew Bryan

Andrew Bryan

Andrew Bryan, born enslaved in 1737, was a founder and leader of First African Baptist Church in Savannah along with his brother Sampson. The congregation grew and established two satellite churches after 1800, despite opposition and threats of violence from the white community. This sketch of Bryan appeared in Savannah's Morning News Print in 1888.

Reprinted by permission of the University Library, University of North Carolina

McKinnon Savannah Map

McKinnon Savannah Map

An early map of Savannah, drawn by John McKinnon circa 1800.

Savannah, 1889

Savannah, 1889

A drawing of the city of Savannah, circa 1889.

Button Gwinnett’s Signature

Button Gwinnett’s Signature

Button Gwinnett's signature is said to be one of the rarest and most valuable of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The signature is housed at the Georgia Archives in Morrow.

Image from Wikimedia

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Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter, wife of thirty-ninth U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, has forged a career as one of the nation's foremost advocates for mental health, earning recognition in 2001 as one of only three first ladies ever inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Courtesy of the Carter Center

Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter

Lending her voice to many causes, Carter promotes early childhood immunization through the nationwide "Every Child by Two" campaign, assists family and professional caregivers through the Rosalynn Carter Institute at Georgia Southwestern State University, and advocates compassionate care for the dying through "Last Acts: Care and Caring at the End of Life."

Courtesy of the Carter Center

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, both from Plains, discuss their experiences working together with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center in a book they coauthored in 1987, Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life.

Courtesy of the Carter Center

Rosalynn Carter in Indonesia

Rosalynn Carter in Indonesia

Rosalynn Carter observes an election in Indonesia as part of her humanitarian work with the Carter Center.

Courtesy of the Carter Center

Thomas E. Watson, 1904

Thomas E. Watson, 1904

Watson, one of Georgia's most promising politicians of the late nineteenth century, was elected to Congress in 1890 as a Southern Alliance Democrat. Within a year he shocked Georgians by quitting his party, joining the Populists, and founding a newspaper called the People's Party Paper.

Courtesy of Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc.

Thomas E. Watson

Thomas E. Watson

Watson was narrowly defeated in his 1892 bid for reelection to Congress by his Democratic opponent, as he would be again in 1894. In 1918 he made another bid for Congress but lost to Carl Vinson. In 1920 Watson entered his final political race and achieved his first success in more than two decades when he ran for the U.S. Senate.

Courtesy of the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc.

Thomas Watson Capitol Statue

Thomas Watson Capitol Statue

This twelve-foot statue of Thomas Watson was installed in 1932 and moved away from the capitol amid controversy in 2013.

Photograph by Wally Gobetz 

Watson Campaign Poster

Watson Campaign Poster

Thomas Watson ran for president in 1904 and 1908 on a platform that vigorously endorsed white supremacy. He never won more than 1 percent of the nationwide vote while running for president.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Henry W. Grady

Henry W. Grady

Atlantan Henry Grady, a prominent orator and editor of the Atlanta Constitution, heralded the coming of the New South after the end of the Civil War.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection.

Henry W. Grady

Henry W. Grady

Between 1880 and 1886 the Atlanta Constitution became the primary instrument of the Atlanta Ring, a loosely connected group of urban, proindustry Democrats. Henry Grady became the group's leader and dominant political force, helping to arrange the legislature's election of a fellow Ring member, Joseph E. Brown, to the U.S. Senate in 1880.

Carter Center

Carter Center

Situated on a thirty-five-acre park, atop a hill between downtown Atlanta and Emory University, the Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization established in 1982 by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, to advance peace and health worldwide.

Courtesy of the Carter Center

Carter Center

Carter Center

Founded by Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, the center is governed by an independent board of trustees. The board oversees the center's assets and property and promotes its objectives and goals.

Courtesy of the Carter Center

Andrew Young

Andrew Young

Andrew Young is pictured in August 1996 after receiving a commemorative medallion from the International Olympic Committee. Young, a civil rights activist and former mayor of Atlanta, served as cochair of the Atlanta Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games.

Andrew Young

Andrew Young

Andrew Young has had a distinguished career as a minister, civil rights activist, U.S. congressman, United Nations ambassador, mayor of Atlanta, and international businessman.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Andrew Young

Andrew Young

Ambassador Andrew Young at a meeting of the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Flag of Independence

Flag of Independence

A coiled rattlesnake and the words "Our Motto Southern Rights, Equality of the States, Don't Tread on Me" appeared on a flag raised in Savannah upon Abraham Lincoln's election as U.S. president in November 1860. The words, adapted from a Revolutionary War motto, suggest that secessionists drew parallels between southern independence from the Union and American independence from England.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USF34- 051632-D [P&P] LOT 1541.

Atlanta Memorial Arts Center

Atlanta Memorial Arts Center

The Atlanta Memorial Arts Center opened in 1968. It stands as a memorial to the Atlanta Art Association members who died in the Orly air crash.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Orly Air Crash

Orly Air Crash

News of the Orly tragedy made the front page of the Atlanta Constitution, June 4, 1962.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

C. B. King

C. B. King

C. B. King was a prominent African American attorney who fought for civil rights in southwest Georgia.

Courtesy of Carol King

King and Hollowell

King and Hollowell

Attorney C. B. King (left) with attorney Donald L. Hollowell (center), who worked to gain admittance of Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter to the University of Georgia.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

C. B. King after Beating

C. B. King after Beating

An injured C. B. King, in 1962, talks to reporters after being caned by Dougherty County sheriff Cull Campbell in the sheriff's office. King had visited the county jail to check on an injured white demonstrator, William Hansen. Hansen's jaw had been broken in a beating he received when he was put in a cell with other white prisoners who objected to the civil rights protests.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

C. B. King U.S. Courthouse

C. B. King U.S. Courthouse

The C. B. King U.S. Courthouse, pictured in 2007, is located in downtown Albany and named for prominent civil rights attorney C. B. King. The courthouse, designed by architect J. W. Robinson, was completed in November 2002.

Photograph by Meg Inscoe

Charles Rinaldo Floyd

Charles Rinaldo Floyd

The Okefenokee incursion of 1838-39, led by Charles Rinaldo Floyd, ultimately was deemed a success, not because of the defeat of the Seminoles within its borders but because, by virtue of entering the swamp, Floyd claimed its expanse for the state of Georgia.

Isabella Maria Hazzard

Isabella Maria Hazzard

Isabella Maria Hazzard was the mother of Charles Rinaldo Floyd, a militia leader during the Okefenokee Campaign of 1838-39.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # cam212.

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Susie King Taylor

Susie King Taylor

Susie King Taylor was the first Black educator to teach openly in a school for formerly enslaved students, and the only Black woman to publish a memoir of her Civil War experiences.

Wrightsborough

Wrightsborough

Little remains of the Quaker settlement of Wrightsborough, located in present-day McDuffie County.

Courtesy of Forrest Shropshire

William Few Jr.

William Few Jr.

In 1787 William Few Jr. represented Georgia at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Subsequently, Few was a signer of the U.S. Constitution. Etching by Albert Rosenthal (1888) from family miniature.

Battle of Kettle Creek

Battle of Kettle Creek

On February 14, 1779, during the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Kettle Creek was fought in Wilkes County. Around 340 militiamen led by Elijah Clarke and John Dooly of Georgia, and Andrew Pickens of South Carolina attacked 600 American supporters of the British cause, led by James Boyd. Boyd was killed, and his men were forced to retreat across the creek.

From Georgians in the Revolution: At Kettle Creek and Burke County, by R. S. Davis Jr.

James Jackson

James Jackson

The leading Jeffersonian Republican in post-Revolutionary Georgia, U.S. senator James Jackson resigned his seat and returned home to handle the Yazoo land fraud scandal in 1795. The following year he led a successful effort in the Georgia legislature to pass the Yazoo Rescinding Act, which nullified the corrupt land sales.

Roswell Mill Women Housing

Roswell Mill Women Housing

The Bricks, two apartment buildings totaling ten units, were erected circa 1840 as housing for mill workers in the Roswell mill village. The dilapidated structures were photographed prior to renovations in the 1980s and 1990s and conversion to commercial use.

Courtesy of Roswell Historical Society

Roswell Mill Women Monument

Roswell Mill Women Monument

The Roswell Mill Workers' monument in the Old Mill Park in Roswell's historic district. The ten-foot Corinthian column, shattered at the top to symbolize the lives torn apart by the Civil War tragedy, was erected and dedicated on July 8th, 2000, by the Roswell Mills Camp 1547, Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Courtesy of George E. Thurmond

Emancipation

Emancipation

Thomas Nast's famous wood engraving originally appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 24, 1863. The liberation of the state's more than 400,000 enslaved African Americans began during the chaos of the Civil War and continued well into 1865. Blacks and whites struggled to lay the foundations for a new social order.

Patience on a Monument

Patience on a Monument

Detail from an 1868 Thomas Nast illustration. The monument reads, "The whipping post - hunted down with blood hounds - slavery for years - branded and manacled -- the auction block -- husband and wife, parent and child, sold apart. Daughters, mothers, wives, and sisters ruined." Nast aimed to arouse sympathy for freedpeople following emancipation.

From the Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

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Emancipation

Emancipation

Detail from an 1863 Thomas Nast illustration depicting freedpeople after emancipation. Freedpeople set about defining the economic and social freedom they previously could only imagine.

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1929.

Freedmen’s Bureau

Freedmen’s Bureau

An 1866 sketch depicts freedpeople drawing wages from the Freedmen's Bureau, which was established in March 1865 to assist in the transition from slavery to freedom.

From After the War, by Whitelaw Reid

Georgia Penitentiary

Georgia Penitentiary

The Georgia penitentiary in Milledgeville burning in 1864. The illustration appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, on January 14, 1865.

Georgia Penitentiary

Georgia Penitentiary

Layout of the Georgia penitentiary in Milledgeville, circa 1860.

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, was a forward-thinking visionary who demonstrated great skill as a social reformer and military leader. This portrait is a copy of Oglethorpe University's oval portrait of Oglethorpe, which was painted in 1744. The portrait was discovered in England by Thornwell Jacobs and brought back to Atlanta to hang in the president's office at Oglethorpe University.

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe defended the new colony of Georgia militarily, holding the titles of general and commander in chief.

James Oglethorpe

James Oglethorpe

Georgians have honored founder James Oglethorpe by naming a county, two cities, a university, and numerous schools, streets, parks, and businesses for him.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society collection of portraits, #GHS 1361-AF-327.

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James Oglethorpe Stamp

James Oglethorpe Stamp

The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Georgia founder James Oglethorpe for the state's bicentennial anniversary in 1933.

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Slater King and the Albany Movement

Slater King and the Albany Movement

Albany police chief Laurie Pritchett (center left) with civil rights activist Slater King (center right) in Shiloh Baptist Church, where Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee members first met.

Courtesy of Cochran Studios/A. E. Jenkins Photography

Albany Movement

Albany Movement

Protestors march in Albany during the Albany Movement, an effort to desegregate the city that lasted from fall 1961 to summer 1962.

Albany Civil Rights Memorial

Albany Civil Rights Memorial

The Albany Civil Rights Memorial is located in the the city's Charles Sherrod Civil Rights Park. Sherrod came to Albany in 1961 with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to organize a voter registration drive.

Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum

Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum

The Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum (later the Albany Civil Rights Institute) opened in 1998 in the former Old Mt. Zion Church. In 1961 Martin Luther King Jr. organized a mass meeting of civil rights activists, which met at the church. The museum moved to a new facility adjacent to Old Mt. Zion in 2008.

Yuchi Hunters

Yuchi Hunters

Yuchi Indians, depicted in traditional hunting clothing, also carry items acquired through trade with the English, notably the central figure's blanket and rifle.

Illustration by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck

Slave Market

Slave Market

This pen-and-ink drawing and watercolor by Henry Byam Martin depicts a slave market in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1833. An inscription on the original reads "Charleston S.C. 4th March 1833 'The land of the free & home of the brave.'"

Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada

Punishment

Punishment

According to his testimony, the injuries sustained from a whipping by his overseer kept Peter, an enslaved man, bedridden for two months.

Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

Slave Cabins

Slave Cabins

A row of slave cabins in Chatham County is pictured in 1934. Enslaved people fostered family relationships and communities in and among their quarters.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Hulling Rice

Hulling Rice

In the same manner as their enslaved ancestors, women on Sapelo Island hull rice with a mortar and pestle, circa 1925. Language and cultural traditions from West Africa were retained in the Geechee culture that developed in the Sea Islands.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
sap093.

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Emancipation

Emancipation

Thomas Nast's famous wood engraving originally appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 24, 1863. The liberation of the state's enslaved population, numbering more than 400,000, began during the chaos of the Civil War and continued well into 1865. Nast's cartoon aimed to arouse sympathy for freedpeople following emancipation.

From Harper's Weekly

Macon Cotton Factory

Macon Cotton Factory

Antebellum towns including Macon, Milledgeville, Madison, and Greensboro experimented with steam-powered cotton factories, with varying degrees of success. The steam-powered factories in Madison and Greensboro went broke in the 1850s, while those in Milledgeville and Macon survived to serve the Confederacy.

Augustin Smith Clayton

Augustin Smith Clayton

At the end of the 1820s Augustin Smith Clayton of Athens constructed a cotton mill near his hometown, hoping to prove the protective tariff that subsidized northern industry at the expense of southerners unnecessary.

William Schley

William Schley

At the end of the 1820s, William Schley of Augusta constructed a cotton mill near his hometown, hoping to prove that the protective tariff subsidizing northern industry at the expense of southerners was unnecessary.

De Luna Landing

De Luna Landing

A watercolor by Herbert Rudeen illustrates Tristan de Luna's historic landing at Pensacola Bay in August 1559. De Luna's failed plan to establish a Spanish presence along the lower Atlantic coast, the Gulf Coast, and the interior of the Southeast included the colonization of Ochuse (Florida), Coosa (Georgia), and Santa Elena (South Carolina).

Courtesy of Pensacola Historical Society

Pedro Menendez de Aviles

Pedro Menendez de Aviles

A 1791 engraving depicts Pedro Menendez de Aviles at about age fifty. Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest European settlement in North America, in 1565, just before he explored the Georgia coastline.

From The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States: Florida, 1562-1574, by W. Lowery

King in Albany

King in Albany

Martin Luther King Jr. (second from left) stands in front of a burned church in Albany. In 1961 King arrived in Albany at the invitation of local Black leaders to participate in the Albany Movement, a campaign to integrate the city. The movement began in fall 1961 and ended in summer 1962.

March on Washington

March on Washington

Martin Luther King Jr. (bottom left) led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963. King's "I Have a Dream" speech was the most memorable event of the day and confirmed him as Black America's most prominent spokesperson.

Courtesy of the National Park Service

March on Washington

March on Washington

In August 1963 the civil rights movement staged its largest gathering ever, with as many as 250,000 participants at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in Washington, D.C.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, Photograph by Marion S. Trikosko.

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Martin Luther King Stamp

Martin Luther King Stamp

This 1979 Black Heritage Series postage stamp honors the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

James V. Carmichael

James V. Carmichael

By 1951, when James V. Carmichael was just forty-one years old, he had become a successful and well-known businessman and politican.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Carmichael, Bell, and Blair

Carmichael, Bell, and Blair

(Left to right) James V. Carmichael, general manager of the Bell Aircraft Corporation; Lawrence D. Bell, founder and president of Bell Aircraft; and Leon M. Blair, mayor of Marietta, enjoy a party at Blair's home in 1949. Carmichael holds a cane, which he walked with for most of his life, after being struck by a car at age sixteen.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #cob497a.

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James V. Carmichael with B-29

James V. Carmichael with B-29

James V. Carmichael meets with the flight crew of the first B-29 bomber on the tarmac outside of a Lockheed Corporation hangar.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Lockheed Board Meeting

Lockheed Board Meeting

The board of directors for the Lockheed Corporation meets in December 1951. That same year James V. Carmichael became the first general manager of Lockheed and served on the company's board of directors until 1972.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Julian Bond

Julian Bond

As protester, politician, scholar, and lecturer, Julian Bond remained committed to civil rights, economic justice, and peace from the 1950s until his death in 2015. When Bond retired from his twenty-year tenure in the Georgia senate, he had been elected to office more times than any other Black Georgian. In 1998 Bond became chair of the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Julian Bond

Julian Bond

Georgia senator Julian Bond is pictured on the road for a speech in 1978. He retired from the senate to run for the U.S. Congress in 1986; Bond lost the election in a fiercely contested battle to his longtime friend and fellow civil rights activist John Lewis.

Julian Bond

Julian Bond

Georgia state representative and civil rights activist Julian Bond addressing students at Fisk University in 1972. Bond served from 1967 until 1974.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, National Domestic Workers Union (U.S.) Records, Southern Labor Archives.

C. A. Bacote

C. A. Bacote

C. A. Bacote was a distinguished historian, scholar, and political activist who dedicated his life to educating Black voters in Atlanta. He was responsible for helping to register thousands of African American voters in the mid-1940s and for organizing them into a political force in the city.

Clarence A. Bacote

Clarence A. Bacote

As chair of the Atlanta All-Citizens Registration Committee in 1946, Clarence A. Bacote (right) increased the number of Black registered voters in Atlanta from 6,976 to 21,244.

Leo Frank on Trial

Leo Frank on Trial

Leo Frank, pictured at trial, was tried for the murder of Mary Phagan in July 1913. He was convicted of murder largely due to the testimony of Jim Conley, who had been in solitary confinement for six weeks before trial and who had given contradictory testimony in the past.

Photograph from Wikimedia

Mary Phagan

Mary Phagan

Mary Phagan a pencil factory worker, was raped and murdered in 1913. The factory manager Leo Frank was convicted for the murder and imprisoned but then was lynched two years later on August, 16 1915.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

W. E. B. Du Bois and Family

W. E. B. Du Bois and Family

W. E. B. Du Bois and his wife, Nina, are pictured with their son, Burghardt, who died of diphtheria in Atlanta in 1899 at the age of two.

Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

Rebecca Latimer Felton

Rebecca Latimer Felton

Rebecca Latimer Felton, the nation's first female senator, wrote My Memoirs of Georgia Politics after her seventy-fifth birthday. Through speeches and her writings, she helped to effect statewide prohibition and to bring an end to the convict lease system in Georgia.

From History of the Georgia Woman's Christian Temperance Movement, by Mrs. J. J. Ansley

Rebecca Latimer Felton

Rebecca Latimer Felton

A writer and tireless campaigner for progressive reforms, especially women's rights and woman suffrage, Rebecca Latimer Felton was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

From Prominent Women of Georgia, edited by J. B. Nevin

Lucius Holsey

Lucius Holsey

As bishop of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, Lucius Holsey oversaw the growth of the denomination in his native state of Georgia. He was also instrumental in the establishment of Paine Institute (later Paine College), which opened in Augusta in 1884.

Photograph by Mathew B. Brady. Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

Thomas Spalding

Thomas Spalding

Thomas Spalding, one-time owner and developer of Sapelo Island, was one of the leading planters on the tidewater, an agricultural innovator, amateur architect, astute businessman, and leading citizen of McIntosh County.

Woodcut from 1839 Anti-Slavery Almanac

Woodcut from 1839 Anti-Slavery Almanac

A woodcut depicts the capture of a fugitive from slavery by a slave patrol. Slave patrols were common in Georgia from 1757 until the end of the Civil War in 1865.

From The American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1839

Slave Patrols

Slave Patrols

A Georgia statute ordered white adults to ride the roads at night, stopping all enslaved people they encountered and making them prove that they were engaged in lawful activities. Patrollers required enslaved people to produce a pass, which stated their owner's name as well as where and when they were allowed to be away from the plantation and for how long.

From The Underground Railroad, by William Still

Helen Dortch Longstreet

Helen Dortch Longstreet

In 1904 Helen Longstreet privately published Lee and Longstreet at High Tide, in which she tried to defend and resuscitate her husband's wartime reputation.

Helen Dortch Longstreet

Helen Dortch Longstreet

Helen Dortch Longstreet, the second wife of General James Longstreet, is remembered for her unflagging work as a Confederate memorialist, progressive reformer, and a librarian and postmistress. She is also known for her unsuccessful efforts to prevent the damming of Tallulah Falls in northeast Georgia.

Crypt of Civilization Dedication

Crypt of Civilization Dedication

The dedication of the crypt door took place on the Oglethorpe University campus on May 28, 1938. The art deco door, with its rectangular shapes and "moon hubcap" decoration, was considered a work of industrial art. (Thornwell Jacobs is pictured pointing at the door flanked on his right by David Sarnoff and T. K. Peters.)

Courtesy of Oglethorpe University Archives

Thornwell Jacobs

Thornwell Jacobs

Thornwell Jacobs became the president of Oglethorpe University in 1915. Jacobs is depicted in academic regalia in a painting by the portraitist Charles Naegle.

Courtesy of Oglethorpe University Archives

Oglethorpe University

Oglethorpe University

Phoebe Hearst Hall, built in 1915, is Gothic revival in design and was renovated in 1972. The most dominant feature of Oglethorpe University campus architecture, the hall was built in honor of Phoebe Apperson Hearst, mother of the benefactor and publisher William Randolph Hearst Sr. The Crypt of Civilization is housed on the lower level.

Image from Oglethorpe University

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T. K. Peters

T. K. Peters

Inventor, photographer, and crypt archivist T. K. Peters examines the crypt's microfilm. Peters was the only newsreel photographer to film the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 and the construction of the Panama Canal. After the crypt project, he restored the collection of Confederate flags in Georgia's capitol.

Courtesy of Oglethorpe University Archives

Howard Coffin

Howard Coffin

Detroit automotive engineer Howard Coffin (right) visits with U.S. president Calvin Coolidge (left) on the porch of "The Big House"—the south-end tabby-stucco structure originally built by Thomas Spalding in 1810. Coffin owned much of Sapelo Island from 1912 to 1934.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # sap118.

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Howard Coffin

Howard Coffin

Howard Coffin, a pioneer in the automobile industry, is credited with revitalizing Georgia's coast as a popular tourist destination. In the early 1900s Coffin owned all or part of Sea, St. Simons, and Sapelo islands.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Harris & Ewing collection.

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Ulrich B. Phillips

Ulrich B. Phillips

Ulrich B. Phillips, a native of LaGrange, was the first major historian of the South and southern slavery. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Georgia before completing doctoral work in 1902 at the University of Chicago.

Lucius D. Clay

Lucius D. Clay

General Lucius D. Clay, a native of Marietta, organized one of the most remarkable logistical and transportation accomplishments in history, the eleven-month-long Berlin Airlift of 1948-49.

Photograph from Corbis

James D. Bulloch

James D. Bulloch

James D. Bulloch, the primary naval agent of the Confederacy in Europe, oversaw the building of several ships designed to ruin Northern shipping during the Union blockade of the South.

Image from Theodore Roosevelt; An Autobiography (1913), The Macmillan Company

Bulloch Hall

Bulloch Hall

In 1853 Martha "Mittie" Bulloch and Theodore Roosevelt Sr., the parents of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, were married at Bulloch Hall, Mittie's childhood home in Roswell. The Bullochs were one of Roswell's founding families.

Photograph by Darby Carl Sanders, New Georgia Encyclopedia

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

After General Andrew Jackson took control of American troops in January 1818, his efforts weakened Seminole offenses by dividing their numbers between Georgia and Florida.

Daguerreotype of Enslaved Woman

Daguerreotype of Enslaved Woman

Rare daguerreotype of an enslaved woman in Watkinsville, photographed in 1853. A placard with the date "1853," which reads correctly for the camera, is visible. The use of a book as a prop is unusual for an image of an enslaved person.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
clr210-92.

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Enslaved Woman

Enslaved Woman

Enslaved women played an integral part in Georgia's colonial and antebellum history. Scholars are beginning to pay more attention to issues of gender in their study of slavery and are finding that enslaved women faced additional burdens and even more challenges than did some enslaved men.

Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Robert E. Williams Photographic Collection.

Enslaved Woman

Enslaved Woman

Antebellum planters kept meticulous records of the people they enslaved, identifying several traditionally female occupations, including washerwomen.

Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Robert E. Williams Photographic Collection.

Enslaved Children

Enslaved Children

Enslavers clothed both male and female enslaved children in smocks and assigned them such duties as carrying water to the fields. As the children neared the age of ten, slaveholders began making distinctions between the genders.

Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Robert E. Williams Photographic Collection.

Ellen Craft

Ellen Craft

The daughter of an African American woman and her white enslaver, Ellen looked white and was able to escape slavery by disguising herself as a southern slaveholder.

From The Underground Rail Road, by W. Still

Fanny Kemble

Fanny Kemble

An English actress, Kemble married Pierce Mease Butler and was upset to learn of the family's slave labor operations. She eventually published an account of her impressions of slavery, after divorcing Butler and losing custody of their two children.

Alfred Iverson Jr.

Alfred Iverson Jr.

A brigadier general in the Confederate army, Alfred Iverson Jr. captured the highest-ranking Union officer ever taken prisoner during the Civil War and led forces in the Battles of Gaines' Mill, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg.

Photograph from Generals of the American Civil War Web site

Cyclorama

Cyclorama

Cyclorama is the name given to the huge painting depicting the Civil War battle fought on July 22, 1864, east of Atlanta. The painting depicts a view of the battle from just inside the Fifteenth Corps lines at about 4:30 p.m. on July 22. (Only a small portion of the painting is pictured.)

Atlanta’s Railroads

Atlanta’s Railroads

The railroads leading into and out of Atlanta made the city an important military supply center. The Union employed several key strategies against Atlanta's railroads during the Civil War.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division

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Edward Porter Alexander

Edward Porter Alexander

Edward Porter Alexander served the Confederacy in twelve major battles and campaigns of the eastern theater of the Civil War.

Battle of Chickamauga

Battle of Chickamauga

The Battle of Chickamauga, one of the bloodiest engagements of the Civil War's western theater and the biggest battle ever fought in Georgia, took place September 18-20, 1863.

From Battles and Leaders of the Civil War

Edward Porter Alexander

Edward Porter Alexander

Edward Porter Alexander rose to the rank of brigadier general during the Civil War, and afterward he became a scholar, a businessman, and a writer.

From Edward Porter Alexander, The Photographic History of The Civil War in Ten Volumes: Volume Five, Forts and Artillery. The Review of Reviews Co., New York, 1911, p. 61.

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Amanda America Dickson

Amanda America Dickson

Amanda America Dickson, the daughter of an enslaved woman and her enslaver, became one of the wealthiest Black women in nineteenth-century America when the Georgia Supreme Court upheld her claim to her father's contested will. Dickson inherited his estate in Hancock County upon his death in 1885.

Lucy Craft Laney’s Capitol Portrait

Lucy Craft Laney’s Capitol Portrait

Lucy Craft Laney’s portrait, pictured, was the first portrait of an African American woman to be displayed in the Georgia state capitol. It was selected by Governor Jimmy Carter in 1974. Laney was also inducted into the Georgia Women of Achievement in 1992.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries, Capitol Art Collection (Capitol Museum Collection), # 1992.23.0050.

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Silk Filature

Silk Filature

Peter Tondee and his business partner built a silk filature on Reynolds Square in 1759. The building served multiple public functions before it was destroyed by fire in 1839.

Courtesy of Carl Solana Weeks

Peter Tondee

Peter Tondee

Peter Tondee's Long Room, which stood at the northwest corner of Broughton and Whitaker streets in Savannah, became center stage for the political drama that brought a fledgling province into the ranks of the war for American liberty, and it served for several years during and after the Revolution as the seat of government for the new state.

Courtesy of Walter Wright and David A. Hammond

King George II

King George II

King George II of England signed the charter creating the colony of Georgia on April 21, 1732. Originally administered by a board of trustees, the colony later came under the direct governance of the king, from 1752 until his death in 1760, when his grandson George III assumed the throne.

Noble W. Jones

Noble W. Jones

Noble W. Jones was prominent among Georgia's Whig leaders before and during the American Revolution, serving in both the provincial and state legislatures and in the Continental Congress. Portrait by Charles Willson Peale, circa 1781.

Courtesy of Telfair Museums, Courtesy of the Wormsloe Foundation.

Sir John Percival, Earl of Egmont

Sir John Percival, Earl of Egmont

John Viscount Percival, the earl of Egmont, was the first president of the common council and the dominant figure among the Trustees until his retirement in 1742. He acted as Georgia's champion in Parliament.

From History of Georgia, by C. Howell

Seal of the Trustees

Seal of the Trustees

One face of the seal adopted by the Georgia Trustees features a silkworm, mulberry leaf, and cocoon, representing their hopes that the colonists would establish a thriving silk industry. The Latin motto Non sibi sed aliis  translates as "Not for self, but for others."

Georgia Trustees Medallion

Georgia Trustees Medallion

A bronze replica of the 1733 seal of the Trustees is presented to recipients of the Georgia Trustees honor, which is awarded annually by the Georgia Historical Society and the Office of the Governor.

Peruvian Bark

Peruvian Bark

Peruvian bark (Cinchona calisaya), also known as quinine, was grown during the mid-eighteenth century in the Trustee Garden at Savannah. Cultivated by the Georgia colonists as a medical botanical for the lowering of fevers, quinine was later used in the nineteenth century to treat malaria.

From Kohler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, by F. E. Kohler

Trustee Garden Depiction

Trustee Garden Depiction

Even before the Savannah settlement was a reality, artist John Pine produced this imaginary depiction of clearing the land. The central clearing in the background of his 1732 engraving may reflect the early planners' vision of a public garden as an integral part of the new colony.

Mulberry Tree

Mulberry Tree

The white mulberry tree (Morus alba) was introduced to Georgia in 1734, when James Oglethorpe established the Trustee Garden in Savannah. Mulberry leaves are used to feed silkworms, which the colonists raised to make silk for shipment to England.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Smooth Sumac

Smooth Sumac

Sumac (Rhus glabra), a native North American plant with medicinal properties, was cultivated in the Trustee Garden by early settlers to the Georgia colony and sent to London, England. The garden was established in 1734 as an agricultural experiment station modeled after the physick and botanical gardens at Oxford and Chelsea in England.

Image from formulanone

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Weeden Island Period Pottery

Weeden Island Period Pottery

Drawings depict derived effigies with zoned incising found at the Davis Point excavation site at the Kolomoki Mounds. Weeden Island burial mounds are well known for the inclusion of elaborate animal effigy pots in large deposits.

From Excavations at Kolomoki, by W. H. Sears

Kolomoki Mounds

Kolomoki Mounds

The Kolomoki Mounds site in Early County is one of the largest prehistoric mound complexes in Georgia and includes at least eight mounds.

Courtesy of Kolomoki Mounds State Historic Park

Fluted Cumberland Point

Fluted Cumberland Point

The Middle Paleoindian subperiod features fluted or unfluted points with broad blades and constricted handle elements, which may include the Cumberland type. Fluted points (pictured) have a channel or flute running from the base of the point.

Courtesy of the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology

Fluted Dalton Points

Fluted Dalton Points

From the Late Paleoindian subperiod come Dalton and related point types, which are characterized by a lanceolate (lance-shaped) blade outline and a concave base ground on the lateral and basal margins, occasionally well thinned. Blade edges are frequently serrated and beveled.

Courtesy of the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology

Macon Plateau Fluted Point

Macon Plateau Fluted Point

Only one fluted point was found at Macon Plateau, in spite of a massive excavation effort. The fluted point, missing the forward one-third of its length, was of the Clovis type of these artifacts.

Courtesy of the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology

War of Jenkins’ Ear

War of Jenkins’ Ear

The pickled ear of Captain Robert Jenkins became a rallying point for Englishmen eager to challenge Spanish power in the New World. The 1738 satirical cartoon depicts Prime Minister Robert Walpole swooning when confronted with the Spanish-sliced ear, which led to the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739.

Courtesy of British Museum, London

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Bloody Marsh

Bloody Marsh

In the 1742 Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simons Island, General Oglethorpe's soldiers defeated Spanish forces in what was the only Spanish invasion of Georgia during the War of Jenkins' Ear. The battle earned its name from its location rather than from the number of casualties, which were minimal.

Photograph by Forrest Shropshire

Bloody Marsh Map

Bloody Marsh Map

Once formal hostilities began in 1739 between the Spanish and English over the land between South Carolina and Florida, shipping on the Atlantic Ocean suffered frequent interruption from acts of piracy by both sides. These skirmishes escalated into the War of Jenkins' Ear and the Battle of Bloody Marsh.

Image from Wikimedia

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Battle of Bloody Marsh Monument

Battle of Bloody Marsh Monument

A monument marks the location of the Battle of Bloody Marsh, which was fought between the English and the Spanish on St. Simons Island in 1742.

Photograph by Jud McCranie, Wikimedia

Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Atlanta

Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Atlanta

Streets named after Martin Luther King Jr. are common and controversial landscape features. Found in towns and cities across the country, these streets are most prevalent in Georgia.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, Athens

Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, Athens

The intersection of Ruth Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway in Athens.

Photograph by Katie Korth

Federal Road Marker

Federal Road Marker

The highway coming from the right is the Old Federal Road, northwest Georgia's first vehicular way and the earliest postal route of this area. It began on the southeastern boundary of the Cherokees in the direction of Athens, linking Georgia and Tennessee across the Indian Country. Rights to open the thoroughfare were granted informally by the Cherokees in 1803 and confirmed in the 1805 Treaty of Tellico, Tennessee. 'Daniels,' an early stand and stage stop, on the old trace stood here.

Roswell King

Roswell King

Industrialist and businessman Roswell King was in his seventies when he founded his namesake town, Roswell. He established the Roswell textile mills in the late 1830s and enticed wealthy coastal families to join his enterprise, thus changing the economy and the population mix of northern Fulton County.

Courtesy of Roswell Presbyterian Church

Barrington King

Barrington King

Barrington King (1798-1866), the son of Roswell King, was a major force in establishing the town of Roswell and its textile mills. He served as president of the Roswell Manufacturing Company for twenty-seven years, from its incorporation in 1839 until his death in 1866.

Courtesy of Roswell Historical Society

Robert Toombs

Robert Toombs

Robert Toombs returned to America in 1867 after escaping Union troops and fleeing to Cuba and Paris, but because he refused to request a pardon from Congress, he never regained his American citizenship. Toombs died in Georgia in 1885.

From Famous Georgians, by K. Coleman

Robert Toombs Historic Site

Robert Toombs Historic Site

The home of Robert Toombs, a Confederate general and U.S. senator, was built in 1797. Located in Washington, the seat of Wilkes County, the home is open to the public as a state historic site.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

Slavery and Abolitionism Pamphlet

Slavery and Abolitionism Pamphlet

Harrison Berry's principal antebellum publication was a forty-six-page pamphlet entitled Slavery and Abolitionism as Viewed by a Georgia Slave, published in Atlanta in 1861.

From Slavery and Abolitionism as Viewed by a Georgia Slave, by H. Berry

Tenant Farmer Home

Tenant Farmer Home

With few exceptions, antebellum tenant farmers in Georgia were white. After the Civil War, most tenants (including sharecroppers) were formerly enslaved people.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
low105.

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Charles DuBignon

Charles DuBignon

Although Charles DuBignon received nearly one-third of Jekyll Island from his father Colonel Henry DuBignon in 1863, he relocated permanently to Milledgeville after his marriage.

Horton-DuBignon House

Horton-DuBignon House

The Horton-DuBignon House on Jekyll Island (circa 1738) is one of the oldest intact tabby structures in Georgia. DuBignon family members occupied the "mansion house" from 1794 into the 1850s.

Photograph by Martha L. Keber

John Eugene DuBignon

John Eugene DuBignon

John Eugene DuBignon, the fourth generation DuBignon owner of Jekyll Island, sold the island to the Jekyll Island Club for $125,000 in 1886.

Fanny Kemble

Fanny Kemble

British actress Fanny Kemble's infamous entanglement with Georgia was immortalized in her book, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863).

Pierce Mease Butler

Pierce Mease Butler

Grandson and namesake of Pierce Butler, Pierce Mease Butler inherited part of his grandfather's massive fortune and holdings on the Georgia Sea Islands.

John Eatton LeConte

John Eatton LeConte

This portrait of John Eatton LeConte (1784-1860) was made around the year of his death. A noted naturalist, LeConte often visited Woodmanston Plantation in Liberty County and made important contributions to the study of Georgia fauna.

Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, LeConte/Furman/Carter Family Papers.

Joseph LeConte

Joseph LeConte

Joseph LeConte (1823-1901) joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkely, departing for the West Coast in 1869. Although he often expressed a desire to return to the South, he readily adapted to his new state, where he gained fame for his success as a professor of geology and physiology.

John LeConte

John LeConte

Over the course of his career in education, John LeConte was a professor at the University of Georgia, South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina), and the University of California at Berkeley, where he also served as president from 1876 to 1881. LeConte was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 1878. He is pictured circa 1860.

Joseph LeConte

Joseph LeConte

Geology professor and member of a prominent Georgia family, Joseph LeConte was a well-known proponent of evolution, and his book Evolution and Its Relation to Religious Thought (1888) became one of the most popular works on the subject.

Creek Indian Painting

Creek Indian Painting

This copy of a Creek "hieroglyphick painting" was made in the 1770s by Bernard Romans. Romans was a British surveyor and engineer who worked in Florida during the 1770s. He made many notes on the Creeks.

Union Prisoners, Andersonville

Union Prisoners, Andersonville

Union prisoners are seen crowding near the main gate of the Camp Sumter, or Andersonville, Civil War prison. The photograph was taken in August 1864 by A. J. Riddle.

Courtesy of Civil War Treasures, New-York Historical Society

Andersonville Cemetery

Andersonville Cemetery

In 1970 Andersonville was named a National Historic Site, and includes the Confederate prison site, the cemetery, and the National Prisoner of War Museum. It is the only park in the National Park System that serves as a memorial to all American prisoners of war. 

Photograph by Ken Lund 

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Prison

An illustration of Andersonville prison bears the caption, "Let us forgive. But not forget." Andersonville had the highest mortality rate of any Civil War prison. Nearly 13,000 of the 45,000 men who entered the stockade died there, chiefly of malnutrition.

National Prisoner of War Museum

National Prisoner of War Museum

Approximately 45,000 prisoners were held at Andersonville Prison, or Camp Sumter, the largest prison camp of the Confederacy. In 1998 the National Prisoner of War Museum opened at Andersonville.

Courtesy of Americus-Sumter Tourism Council

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Prison

By August 1864, Andersonville prison's population reached its greatest number, with more than 33,000 men incarcerated in the camp.

Burying Soldiers

Burying Soldiers

Union prisoners of war are being buried at the Civil War prison at Camp Sumter, or Andersonville.

Andersonville National Historic Site

Andersonville National Historic Site

The Andersonville National Historic Site is located about twelve miles southeast of Ellaville in Schley County. A prison for Union soldiers during the Civil War, Andersonville is now maintained as a national cemetery and a major tourist attraction.

Image from Mark D L

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Grave Markers at Andersonville Cemetery

Grave Markers at Andersonville Cemetery

The Andersonville prison site was preserved as a national cemetery soon after it closed in 1865, largely due to efforts by Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, who worked to have all the graves identified and marked. 

Photograph provided by Judy Baxter 

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Prison

View of Camp Sumter, or Andersonville, from the northwest. Union prisoners of war were held in the Civil War prison, which was established in 1864.

Union Prisoners, Andersonville

Union Prisoners, Andersonville

This southwest view of the Camp Sumter, or Andersonville, stockade shows Union prisoners of war. By the summer of 1864, the Civil War prison held the largest prison population of its time.

Branch Mint at Dahlonega

Branch Mint at Dahlonega

In 1838 a federal Branch Mint went into operation at Dahlonega. It coined more than $100,000 worth of gold in its first year, and by the time it closed in 1861, it had produced almost 1.5 million gold coins with a face value of more than $6 million.

Courtesy of Dahlonega Mountain Signal

Benjamin Parks

Benjamin Parks

Benjamin Parks is said by some to be the person who discovered gold in Georgia.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
lum119.

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Three Dollar Gold Piece

Three Dollar Gold Piece

Coins minted in Dahlonega were of high quality and are still prized by coin collectors. Mint officers preferred making the larger and easier-to-coin half eagles, but they also produced quarter eagles, gold dollars, and for one year, three-dollar gold pieces.

Photograph from Wikimedia

Gold Nuggets

Gold Nuggets

A tour guide at the Consolidated Gold Mine demonstrating a gold panning technique used by those hoping to strike it big during the Georiga Gold Rush.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

Gold Panning

Gold Panning

Visitors to Dahlonega, in Lumpkin County, pan for gold in the 1970s. Dahlonega was the site of a gold rush that began with the discovery of gold in 1828-29.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
lum134.

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Gold Mining

Gold Mining

Mining often has a devastating effect on local landscapes. This 1900 photo shows a water cannon blasting away a hillside at the Calhoun Gold Mine, in Lumpkin County, during the second gold rush.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
lum154.

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Gold Mining

Gold Mining

A gold-mining operation near Dahlonega is pictured circa 1910.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
lum211.

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Chief Vann House

Chief Vann House

The home of Cherokee chief James Vann was located north of the Moravian Mission at Spring Place. Invited by Vann and other Cherokee leaders, the Moravians provided a school for Cherokee children and housed 114 students between 1804 and 1833.

Taloney Mission

Taloney Mission

The Taloney Mission (later Carmel Mission) was founded by the Georgia Presbyterians in Pickens County along Talking Rock Creek. The Presbyterians established and ran a number of mission schools throughout Georgia from 1817 to 1833. The remains of the Taloney Mission were photographed between 1930 and 1960.

Black Soldiers

Black Soldiers

The enrollment of Black soldiers began in occupied areas of northwestern Georgia between July and September 1864, when the 44th U.S. Colored Infantry was stationed in Rome, Georgia, for recruiting purposes.

Courtesy of London Illustrated News

Arthur F. Raper

Arthur F. Raper

Sociologist Arthur F. Raper exposed Georgia's racial and economic inequities and criticized the damaging institutions of lynching, sharecropping, and tenancy. His work in Greene County stressed the economic exploitation of the sharecropper system.

From The War Within, by Daniel Joseph Singal

Helen Douglas Mankin

Helen Douglas Mankin

Helen Douglas Mankin was the second woman elected to the U.S. Congress from Georgia. Though she won a large popular majority in the next general election, Mankin was forced from office by Georgia's white supremacist leadership, which invoked the state's county unit system against her.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Harris & Ewing Collection.

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Grace Towns Hamilton

Grace Towns Hamilton

The first African American woman elected to the Georgia General Assembly (1965), Grace Towns Hamilton represented her district in mid-Atlanta continuously for the next eighteen years, becoming known to her peers as "the most effective woman legislator the state has ever had."

Courtesy of Jean Bergmark

Eugene Bullard

Eugene Bullard

Eugene Bullard, pictured in 1929, was the world's first Black combat aviator. A native of Columbus, Bullard moved in 1912 to England, where he worked as a prizefighter. He joined the French army at the beginning of World War I and eventually received flight training. During the war he flew at least twenty missions and downed at least one German plane.

Courtesy of Musée de l'Air, Paris, France

Eugene Bullard

Eugene Bullard

Columbus native Eugene James (Jacques) Bullard was the world's first Black combat aviator, flying in French squadrons during World War I.

Image from U.S. Air Force

Color photograph of Eugene Bullard Statue at Robins Air Force Base

Eugene Bullard Statue

On October 9, 2019, a statue honoring Eugene Bullard—the world's first Black fighter pilot—was unveiled at the Museum of Aviation, on the grounds of Robins Air Force Base. 

Photograph by Captain Edner J. Julian, U.S. Army National Guard

Frances Pauley

Frances Pauley

Frances Pauley, social activist and political organizer, devoted her life to the battle against prejudice and discrimination in the South.

Frances Pauley

Frances Pauley

Frances Pauley attends a banquet of the Atlanta branch of the Urban League (AUL) in 1961. Pauley served on the board of the AUL and was president of the Georgia League of Women Voters during the 1950s.

James J. Andrews

James J. Andrews

Contraband merchant, trader, and civilian spy James J. Andrews led a Union raiding party behind Confederate lines to Atlanta, stole a locomotive, and raced northward, destroying track, telegraphy lines, and bridges toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, in what has become known as the Andrews Raid.

Image from Internet Archive Book Image

Hudson's General Postage Stamp

Hudson’s General Postage Stamp

This 1994 postage stamp features Hudson's General locomotive, made famous for its role in Andrews Raid during the Civil War (1861-65).

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum 

Etowah Complicated Stamped Pottery

Etowah Complicated Stamped Pottery

This type of pottery originated in northwestern Georgia and is found in small quantities throughout the state. It is from the Middle Mississippian subperiod.

Courtesy of Mark Williams

Stallings Island Site Pottery

Stallings Island Site Pottery

Stallings Island, located in the Savannah River eight miles upstream from Augusta, is best known for its very early pottery, a technological development that predated the advent of farming in Georgia by several millennia. Pictured are sherds of the punctated fiber-tempered pottery, ca. 3,800-3,500 years ago. The sherd on top is actually 11 centimeters wide.

Courtesy of Kenneth E. Sassaman

King Site Map

King Site Map

The King site in Floyd County covers a little more than five acres and is bounded by a defensive ditch and palisade. It was first occupied at some time during the first half of the sixteenth century.

Courtesy of David Hally

Melvin E. Thompson

Melvin E. Thompson

Melvin E. Thompson claimed a few triumphs during his brief tenure as governor: he increased state spending without new taxes, raised teachers' salaries, increased spending for education, expanded the roads and bridges building program, improved the state's park system, and purchased Jekyll Island.

Ku Klux Klan

Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan was a loosely organized group of political and social terrorists during the Reconstruction, whose goals included political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintenance of absolute white supremacy in response to newly gained civil and political rights by southern Blacks after the Civil War.

From The Invisible Empire, by A. W. Tourgee

Mississippian Earthlodge

Mississippian Earthlodge

Photograph of ceremonial earthlodge which has been reconstructed and is today part of the Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon, Georgia.

Image from Ken Lund

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Tomochichi’s Grave Marker

Tomochichi’s Grave Marker

A large granite boulder with a decorative copper plate was installed in Savannah's Wright Square, southeast of the original grave marker, on April 21, 1899. The plate is inscribed to "the mico of the Yamacraws, the companion of Oglethorpe, and the ally of the colony of Georgia."

Image from Brent Moore

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King’s Magazine, Fort Frederica National Monument

King’s Magazine, Fort Frederica National Monument

The restored magazine building was constructed from tabby and brick ca. 1740. Powder and ammunition were stored in the existing rooms, while the missing north section was used for soldiers' quarters and offices.

Image from HAL333

Fort Frederica

Fort Frederica

Designed to defend the southern frontier from the continued presence of Spanish colonials in the American Southeast, Fort Frederica on St. Simons Island served as the British military headquarters in colonial America.

Fort Frederica National Monument

Fort Frederica National Monument

The British regiment at Frederica disbanded in May 1749. In April 1758, a great fire swept Frederica, reducing much of it to ashes. Today the ruins form the Fort Frederica National Monument.

Archibald Bulloch

Archibald Bulloch

Archibald Bulloch was a Revolutionary soldier, a leader of Georgia's Liberty Party, and the state's first chief executive and commander in chief. Bulloch County in southeast Georgia was named for him upon its creation in 1796.

Archibald Bulloch House, Savannah

Archibald Bulloch House, Savannah

Architect William Jay built this villa on Orleans Square in Savannah in 1819 for Archibald Bulloch. The house was razed in 1916, and the Savannah Municipal Auditorium was constructed on the site. In turn, the Savannah Civic Center was built on the site, replacing the auditorium, in the 1970s.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Foltz Photography Studio (Savannah, Ga.), photographs, 1899-1960, #GHS 1360-08-08-01.

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John Adam Treutlen

John Adam Treutlen

In February 1777 Treutlen, Button Gwinnett, and George Wells were on the drafting committee of Georgia's first constitution.

Image from Dsdugan

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John Adam Treutlen

John Adam Treutlen

John Treutlen was a leader in Georgia during the American Revolution and helped to write Georgia's first constitution. In 1777 he became Georgia's first elected governor.

Image from Internet Archive Book Images

John Houstoun

John Houstoun

John Houstoun was twice governor of Georgia, the first mayor of the city of Savannah, and an early supporter of independence from Britain.

Samuel Elbert

Samuel Elbert

Before his governorship of Georgia in 1785, Savannahian Samuel Elbert served as commander of both Georgia's militia and Continental Line during the Revolutionary War.

Lafayette in Georgia

Lafayette in Georgia

In this painting, Lafayette is portrayed reviewing the Georgia Hussars, the Chatham Artillery, and the Savannah Volunteer Guards from the balcony of the Owens-Thomas House in Savannah during his 1825 visit to the state.

Courtesy of Preston Russell

George Walton

George Walton

One of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence, George Walton served in numerous capacities for the state of Georgia after the American Revolution, including governor of Georgia in 1779.

James Jackson and the Yazoo Land Fraud

James Jackson and the Yazoo Land Fraud

James Jackson, a U.S. senator from Georgia, destroys records connected with the Yazoo land fraud in 1796, after the passage of the Yazoo Rescinding Act. Josiah Tattnall Sr., a state representative, helped Jackson secure the votes necessary in the legislature to pass the act.

From A History of Georgia for Use in Schools, by L. B. Evans

Yazoo Land Grant Map

Yazoo Land Grant Map

In 1795 Georgia governor Georgia Mathews signed the Yazoo Act, which transferred 35 million acres of the state's western territory to four separate companies for a sum of $500,000. This lithograph, originally published in The American Gazetter (1797), shows the land purchased by each company in what is known today as the Yazoo land fraud.

Zubly Sermon

Zubly Sermon

The front page of one of John Zubly's sermons.

James Habersham

James Habersham

James Habersham (ca. 1712-75) arrived in colonial Georgia from England in 1738. Habersham was prominent in the economic and political life of colonial Georgia.

Joseph Habersham

Joseph Habersham

Joseph Habersham became a zealous revolutionary in 1774 and was appointed to the Confederation Congress in the 1780s.

Cherokee Phoenix

Cherokee Phoenix

The Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper in the United States, was first printed in 1828 in New Echota, Georgia, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. The paper was published weekly until May 1834, when the Cherokee annuity was not paid and the presses came to a stop. This issue is dated January 28, 1829.

Nineteenth-Century Newspapers

Nineteenth-Century Newspapers

Antebellum newspapers were mostly political in nature. Editors commonly harassed and abused other journalists, politicians, and even private citizens who were of a different political persuasion, with scathing editorials or editorial cartoons.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Woman Suffrage Button

Woman Suffrage Button

A political button, circa 1918, promotes woman suffrage.

The Suffragist

The Suffragist

A cartoon by Nina Evans Allender from a May 1919 issue of The Suffragist.

Battle of Chickamauga

Battle of Chickamauga

Chickamauga was an extremely costly battle for both armies. The Union lost more than 16,000 men killed, wounded, and missing, while the Confederate troops of roughly 68,000 men sustained more than 18,000 casualties.

From Battles and Leaders of the Civil War

Chickamauga Military Park

Chickamauga Military Park

The Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park was established in 1895 to commemorate the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga. Both Union and Confederate forces sustained some of their heaviest casualties in this battle, which was a victory for the Confederacy.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia.

General Braxton Bragg

General Braxton Bragg

The campaign that brought the Union and Confederate armies to Chickamauga began in late June 1863, when the Union Army of the Cumberland under Major General William S. Rosecrans advanced southwestward from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, against the Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by General Braxton Bragg.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Battle of Chickamauga

Battle of Chickamauga

Union troops set out from the Kelly Farm on the second day of the Battle of Chickamauga (1863) and were surprised to encounter such a large number of Confederate soldiers.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection.

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Major General George H. Thomas

Major General George H. Thomas

Thomas was a corps commander under the Union's Major General William S. Rosecrans in the crucial Battle of Chickamauga.

Sherman’s Headquarters in Savannah

Sherman’s Headquarters in Savannah

General William T. Sherman captured Savannah in December 1864 and presented the city along with 25,000 bales of cotton to President Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas present. Sherman set up temporary headquarters in the Green-Meldrin House.

From The Great South, by E. King

Sherman’s Commanders

Sherman’s Commanders

General William T. Sherman's commanders on the March to the Sea were: (standing left to right) Oliver O. Howard, William B. Hazen, Jefferson C. Davis, Joseph A. Mower, (seated left to right) John A. Logan, Sherman, Henry W. Slocum, Francis P. Blair Jr.

Fort McAllister Panorama

Fort McAllister Panorama

Fort McAllister, a Confederate earthwork fortification near the mouth of the Ogeechee River, was designed by military engineers to absorb considerable punishment from Union bombardment. The fort was built chiefly for defense against naval attacks.

Photograph from Wikimedia

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis

After the Confederacy's surrender at Appomatox Courthouse in Virginia and the assassination of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln in 1865, Jefferson Davis was forced to flee the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia.

Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site

Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site

Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, was captured by Union troops in Irwin County near the close of the Civil War in 1865. The location is marked today by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site, which includes a museum and a thirteen-acre park.

Courtesy of Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site

Thomas Nast Cartoon

Thomas Nast Cartoon

This political Thomas Nast cartoon from Harper's Weekly depicts Mitchell County whites holding freed Blacks down after the Camilla Massacre in 1868. The massacre was one of the more violent episodes in Reconstruction Georgia.

From Harper's Weekly

Hermitage Plantation

Hermitage Plantation

The Hermitage Plantation (1830), outside of Savannah, was owned by the French settler the Marquis de Montalet. Architect Charles Cluskey designed the house. Handmade bricks made at the plantation in the 1840s can be seen in some Savannah houses.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Joseph Henry Lumpkin

Joseph Henry Lumpkin

Joseph Henry Lumpkin served on the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1846 until his death in 1867. An active supporter of education, he cofounded the University of Georgia law school, which now bears his name.

Wartime Education

Wartime Education

An engraving published in 1863 depicts a teacher instructing African American children in Virginia during the Civil War. Schools for Black students in Georgia were operated secretly before the war, when teaching enslaved people to read was against the law.

Image from American Antiquarian Society

Asa Griggs Candler

Asa Griggs Candler

Asa Griggs Candler, founder of the Coca-Cola Company, was also a banker and real estate developer and was noted for his philanthropy. His best-known philanthropy was in the form of a personal check for $1 million, donated to defray the costs of establishing Emory University in Atlanta as a Southern Methodist institution.

Asa Griggs Candler

Asa Griggs Candler

In 1916 Candler was elected as a reform mayor to sort out Atlanta's chaotic fiscal situation. At this point he handed over control of most of his business enterprises, including The Coca-Cola Company, to his children.

Elias Boudinot

Elias Boudinot

A formally educated Cherokee who became the editor of the first Native American newspaper in the United States, Elias Boudinot ultimately signed the New Echota Treaty (1835), which required the Cherokees to relinquish all remaining land east of the Mississippi River.

Image from Oklahoma Historical Society, Muriel Wright Collection.

Mark Anthony Cooper

Mark Anthony Cooper

A soldier, lawyer, politician, farmer, and entrepreneur, Cooper is best remembered as an industrialist and founder of the town of Etowah in Bartow County, Georgia.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

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Thomas Butler King

Thomas Butler King

Thomas Butler King is remembered primarily as a planter/politician from coastal Georgia who labored to improve the nation's nascent transportation and communication networks.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Cordray-Foltz Photography Studio photographs, #GHS 1360-25-11-10.

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Thomas Butler King

Thomas Butler King

Elected to the Georgia legislature in 1832 as a senator from Glynn County, King served almost continuously until his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1838.

William Craft

William Craft

After escaping slavery in 1848, William Craft and his wife Ellen lived in Boston and England before returning to Georgia in 1870.

Courtesy of The New York Public Library Digital Collections, Image from The Underground Rail Road, by W. Still..

Old Governor’s Mansion

Old Governor’s Mansion

The Old Governor's Mansion is located in Milledgeville, the state's capital from 1807 to 1868. Construction on the mansion began in 1836 and was completed in 1838 or 1839. It is considered one of the finest examples of Greek revival style in the nation.

Courtesy of Georgia College and State University

Fort McAllister State Historic Park

Fort McAllister State Historic Park

Present-day view of Fort McAllister State Historic Park, in Bryan County.

Photograph by Wikimedia

Fort McAllister

Fort McAllister

A Union land assault on December 13, 1864, overwhelmed the heavily outnumbered Confederate defenders in a brief, but very intense, battle. Fort McAllister is now maintained by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as a state historic park.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs collection, #LC-B8184-3287.

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Earthworks, Fort McAllister

Earthworks, Fort McAllister

Fort McAllister earthworks and abatis from the Civil War, ca. 1864.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Cherokee Syllabary

Cherokee Syllabary

Sequoyah invented a system of eighty-four to eighty-six characters that represented syllables in spoken Cherokee. Completed in 1821, the syllabary was rapidly adopted by a large number of Cherokees.

Sequoyah Statue

Sequoyah Statue

This statue of Sequoyah, pictured in 1930, is located in a small park at the intersection of U.S. Highway 41 and Georgia Highway 225, north of Calhoun. The Calhoun Woman's Club erected the statue in the 1920s.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
gor219.

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Print Shop, New Echota Historic Site

Print Shop, New Echota Historic Site

The Cherokee Phoenix, a dual-language newspaper, was produced in a print shop similar to this reconstruction at the New Echota Historic Site.

Image from George Puvvada

Syllabary Pronunciation Chart

Syllabary Pronunciation Chart

A chart on the syllabary shows how to pronounce the different symbols.

Sequoyah Postage Stamp

Sequoyah Postage Stamp

This 1980 Great Americans Series postage stamp honors Sequoyah, the only member of an illiterate group in human history to have single-handedly devised a successful system of writing.

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Butler Family

Butler Family

The Butlers of South Carolina and Philadelphia owned extensive rice and cotton plantations on the Sea Islands of Georgia.

Fort Peach Tree Replica

Fort Peach Tree Replica

A replica of Fort Peach Tree, which was erected on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in 1814 during the War of 1812, stands in Atlanta. The fort was used as a construction yard for the flatboats that carried shipments along the river to Fort Mitchell, in present-day Alabama.

Courtesy of Susan Barnard

General John Floyd

General John Floyd

General John Floyd was given command of Georgia's troops in the War of 1812 against Great Britain. Floyd established Fort Mitchell, just across the Chattahoochee River in present-day Alabama.

Mary Nuttall De Renne

Mary Nuttall De Renne

During the last decade of her life, Mary De Renne collected a notable array of Civil War relics, as well as an immense collection of Confederate books and pamphlets, which are now housed in the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia.

Courtesy of Eudora De Renne Roebling

Mary Nuttall De Renne

Mary Nuttall De Renne

When George Wymberly Jones De Renne died in 1880, his wife, Mary, determined to bring to print a work that had absorbed him for several years, a compendium of Georgia's unpublished colonial laws. The volume appeared in 1881 as the fifth of the Wormsloe Quartos.

Courtesy of Eudora De Renne Roebling

Wymberley Jones De Renne

Wymberley Jones De Renne

The eldest son of Mary Nuttall and George Wymberly Jones De Renne, Wymberley Jones De Renne became a more noted collector than either of his parents were. His library comprised mainly historical works, supplemented by a large collection of Georgia governmental and institutional publications, legal codes, digests, session laws, maps, pamphlets, and newspapers.

Wymberley Jones De Renne

Wymberley Jones De Renne

Wymberley Jones De Renne is pictured in a portrait by Gari Melchers (ca. 1915).

Courtesy of the Wormsloe Foundation

Nelson Tift

Nelson Tift

In 1836 northern merchant and entrepreneur Nelson Tift founded Albany, Georgia, a place later referred to as the heart of the state's Cotton Kingdom.

Print Shop, New Echota Historic Site

Print Shop, New Echota Historic Site

The reconstructed print shop at the New Echota Historic Site is where the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper in the United States, was published. The New Echota Historic Site, located in Calhoun, commemorates the former capital of the Cherokee Nation.

Image from George Puvvada

Fort Pulaski

Fort Pulaski

On April 11, 1862, the Union bombardment opened two thirty-foot holes in the southeast face of Fort Pulaski. In less than thirty-six hours the Union's new rifled cannon had brought the surrender of a fort that took eighteen years to build.

Fort Pulaski

Fort Pulaski

Fort Pulaski, completed in 1847, could mount 146 cannons, some on the parapet atop the seven-and-a-half-foot-wide walls and others in casemates inside the walls. The fort is positioned at the mouth of the Savannah River, across from Tybee Island.

Fort Pulaski

Fort Pulaski

The Union attack on Fort Pulaski began at 8:15 a.m. on April 10, 1862. The Union guns maintained a slow, steady fire all day, and by afternoon it became apparent that the heavy shells from the rifled cannons would be able to break through the walls of Fort Pulaski.

Fort Pulaski National Monument

Fort Pulaski National Monument

The government designated Fort Pulaski a national monument in 1924. Nine years later it became a unit of the National Park Service, which continues to maintain it.

Image from Ron Cogswell

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Joseph K. Mansfield

Joseph K. Mansfield

In 1831 Lieutenant Joseph K. Mansfield took charge of Fort Pulaski's construction and oversaw the project for the next fourteen years.

Antebellum Artisan

Antebellum Artisan

An anonymous Savannah artisan (ca. 1850s) took pride in his skill as a brick maker and posed for posterity bearing the tools of his trade, dressed in his best suit.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Benjamin Remington Armstrong papers, #GHS 25-01-VM01-02.

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William B. Hartsfield

William B. Hartsfield

William B. Hartsfield served as mayor of Atlanta for six terms (1937-41, 1942-61), longer than any other person in the city's history. He is credited with developing Atlanta into an aviation powerhouse and with building its image as "A City Too Busy to Hate."

William B. Hartsfield, 1960

William B. Hartsfield, 1960

In 1951 Hartsfield was elected vice president of the American Municipal Association, the national organization of mayors, and later served as its president. Following his retirement from public service in 1961, he was named mayor emeritus of Atlanta.

William B. Hartsfield, 1913

William B. Hartsfield, 1913

Hartsfield was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1922, and served as a member of a subcommittee of the finance committee. During this time he began what became his lifelong goal of making Atlanta the aviation hub of the Southeast.

William B. Hartsfield

William B. Hartsfield

William B. Hartsfield served as Atlanta's mayor for six terms (1937-41, 1942-61). After his retirement, he served as a consultant to several corporations, an editorial commentator for WSB television, and president of the Southeastern Fair Association.

Aerial View of Hartsfield-Jackson

Aerial View of Hartsfield-Jackson

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is named for former Atlanta mayors William B. Hartsfield and Maynard Jackson. This image shows the airport's five runways and seven terminal concourses.

Photograph by David

Herman Talmadge and Ellis Arnall

Herman Talmadge and Ellis Arnall

Ellis Arnall, far left, shakes hands with Herman Talmadge, who is obscured, on January 7, 1947. Running for office on the heels of the Cocking affair, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Eugene Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.

Ellis Arnall

Ellis Arnall

Ellis Arnall signs a statement in Atlanta in 1947 as Georgia secretary of state Ben W. Fortson and others look on. At the far right is Albert Riley, a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
geo035.

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POWs Arriving at Camp

POWs Arriving at Camp

The officers and crew of the German submarine U.58, captured by the U.S.S. Fanning, enter the War Prison Camp at Fort McPherson, 1918.

Herman Talmadge

Herman Talmadge

After his inauguration in 1948, Talmadge enacted Georgia's first sales tax, which helped fund a vast improvement in the state's public education system. Talmadge also helped attract new industry to the state and was an early advocate for the burgeoning timber industry.

Herman Talmadge

Herman Talmadge

After practicing law for several years, Talmadge joined the navy, where he saw extensive combat duty in the South Pacific during World War II and eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant commander.

Herman Talmadge

Herman Talmadge

Herman Talmadge, son of Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge, took the governor's office briefly in 1947, and again after a special election in 1948.

Herman Talmadge

Herman Talmadge

Talmadge received national attention during his service on the Ervin Committee (officially, the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities), which investigated Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal in 1973 and 1974.

Herman Talmadge

Herman Talmadge

Herman Talmadge served as governor of Georgia from 1948 to 1954. In 1956 Talmadge was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his defeat in 1980.

Herman Talmadge

Herman Talmadge

A lifelong Democrat, Talmadge helped effect a great deal of progressive change in Georgia government and public education, and he was a key national figure in the formation of legislation aimed at aiding rural America.

Herman Talmadge: Reaction to Brown v. Board of Education Decision

Talmadge recalls where he was and how he reacted to news of the Supreme Court's landmark decision to end segregation in public schools, handed down on May 17, 1954.

Swift Creek Culture

Swift Creek Culture

Swift Creek pottery is noted for its distinctive decoration. Complex curvilinear patterns were first carved into a wooden paddle, which was used to stamp the design into the soft clay walls of the pottery before it was fired.

Courtesy of Kennesaw State University

Cane Island Site

Cane Island Site

In 1978 and 1979 the University of Georgia's Department of Anthropology excavated portions of the Cane Island archaeological site before it was flooded. It now lies beneath Lake Oconee in Greene County, Georgia.

Courtesy of W. Dean Wood

Oconee River

Oconee River

Cane Island, the site of one of the earliest Native American farming villages in Georgia, was located in present-day Greene County along a shallow portion of the Oconee River known as Long Shoals. Wild plants and animals around the river likely supplied most of the food for the Cane Island residents.

Courtesy of W. Dean Wood

Sara’s Ridge

Sara’s Ridge

An illustration of what Sara's Ridge probably looked like during the Middle Archaic Period. The woman in the foreground is cooking with soapstone slabs, while hunters carry a deer toward racks where fish are hung over a fire.

From Beneath These Waters, by S. Kane and R. Keeton

Upper Savannah River

Upper Savannah River

Archaeologists excavated a prehistoric Indian village in Rucker's Bottom near the Savannah River about 500 years after the civilization's height.

Etowah Indian Mounds

Etowah Indian Mounds

Modern-day steps lead to the summit of one of the Indian mounds at the Etowah site.

Courtesy of Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Georgia State Parks.

Treaty of Fort Jackson

Treaty of Fort Jackson

A civil war between the United States and the Creeks erupted in 1813. In a final battle in March 1814 at Horseshoe Bend in Alabama, General Andrew Jackson (left) directed the killing of 800 Creeks. The Red Stick War officially ended in August 1814 with the Treaty of Fort Jackson.

Image from the New York Public Library Digital Collections, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection.

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Creek Indians

Creek Indians

A brief conflict between the United States and Creeks in 1836 ended with U.S. troops, assisted by Georgia and Alabama militia, rounding up Creeks and forcibly sending them to Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

Reprinted by permission of The Granger Collection, New York

Kipahalgwa

Kipahalgwa

This watercolor portrait of "General" Kipahalgwa of the Yuchi Indians was painted by the German artist Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck around 1734. Kipahalgwa is depicted wearing an English-style shirt, leggings, and shoes.

Illustration by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck

Yuchi Queen and King

Yuchi Queen and King

Painter Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck identifies this couple as Senkaitschi, a Yuchi king, and his queen. The queen's blanket, which the artist describes as "a British blanket from Charles Town," offers evidence of trade with Europeans.

Illustration by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck

Yuchi Indians of Georgia

Yuchi Indians of Georgia

This illustration shows the Yuchi Indians of Georgia with popular adornments and accessories including: a) ring and pearl worn by some in the nose, b) corals, c) arrows and lines burned into the chest, and d) ladle made from a buffalo horn.

Illustrations by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck

Yuchi Indians of Georgia

Yuchi Indians of Georgia

Georgia's Yuchi Indians were one of many refugee tribes in the area during the eighteenth century. They eventually joined with the Lower Creek Indians. Here the Yuchi Indians are depicted in a war dance.

Illustration by Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck

Macon Trading Post Site

Macon Trading Post Site

A view of the immediate area where the Macon Trading Post was located.

Photograph by Dsdugan / CC0

Etowah Indian Figures

Etowah Indian Figures

Archaeological excavation, carried out intermittently at the site for more than a hundred years, has unearthed artifacts such as these stone figures, which have provided much information life in the Mississippian Period.

Etowah River

Etowah River

The Etowah River, with headwaters near Dahlonega, flows west-southwest for 140 miles to Rome, where it forms the Coosa River when it joins the Oostanaula River.

Image from Kevin Trotman

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Kolomoki Mounds

Kolomoki Mounds

Archaeologists now recognize that the main occupation of the Kolomoki Mounds site dates to the Woodland Period (1000 B.C.-A.D. 900).

Kolomoki Mounds Artifact

Kolomoki Mounds Artifact

Ceramic artifacts were found during excavations of the Kolomoki Mounds in Early County.

Photograph by Bubba73, Wikimedia Commons

Spanish Mission Sites in Georgia

Spanish Mission Sites in Georgia

Courtesy of John Worth

Knights of Labor

Knights of Labor

The Knights of Labor played a pioneering role in organizing American and especially southern laborers. In Georgia the Knights gave workers an outlet for protest against low wages and harsh working conditions in relatively new industries, as well as the means to challenge Democratic dominance of local politics.

From Harper's Weekly

Carl Vinson

Carl Vinson

Carl Vinson, recognized as "the father of the two-ocean navy," served twenty-five consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division