Friday 10 January 2014

Georgia (state)


I INTRODUCTION
Georgia (state), one of the South Atlantic states of the United States. Founded in 1733, Georgia was the last of the 13 original English colonies to be established in what is now the United States. Georgia emerged as a state during the American Revolution (1775-1783), and Georgians were among the first signers of the Declaration of Independence. On January 2, 1788, Georgia became the fourth state, and the first Southern one, to ratify the Constitution of the Constitution of the United States. Georgia developed slowly and did not begin to prosper until late in the 18th century. However, during the first half of the 19th century Georgia flourished as an agricultural state, with vast cotton and rice plantations. By 1860 Georgia was one of the wealthiest Southern states, and stately plantation homes graced the rolling hills of the coastal and central sections of the state.
The American Civil War (1861-1865) and its aftermath were major turning points in the economic and social life of Georgia. The state was devastated during the war, and after the abolition of slavery the plantation system was replaced by tenant farming, which still focused on traditional agricultural products such as cotton, tobacco, peanuts, and grain crops. The state remained poor, and during the Great Depression of the 1930s it was particularly devastated as the boll weevil decimated the cotton economy. Migration to other states seemed to be one of the few ways of overcoming poverty. The state remained primarily agricultural in nature until the early 1950s, when the development of industry began to accelerate. By the early 1960s, industrial production far outranked agriculture as the chief source of income. In the late 1990s Georgia had an economy based on manufacturing and service industries. Atlanta, the largest city and capital of the state, serves as an important economic center of the South and the nation.
The early colony was named in honor of King George II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Over the years the state has acquired many nicknames. Nicknames include the Buzzard State, in commemoration of an early state law to protect buzzards; and the Goober State, for the state’s enormous annual peanut crop. Two nicknames, however, are gaining frequency in use. Georgia is known as the Peach State, for the famous peaches grown there, and the peach emblem is on the state’s automobile license plates. Georgia is also known as the Empire State of the South. This nickname alludes to New York, which is known as the Empire State, and reflects Georgia’s size and the rapid development of its economy.
II PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
Georgia has a total area of 153,910 sq km (59,425 sq mi), including 2,631 sq km (1,016 sq mi) of inland water and 124 sq km (48 sq mi) of coastal waters over which the state has jurisdiction. The state is the 24th largest in the country and has the largest land area of any state east of the Mississippi River. Georgia has a maximum dimension north to south of 515 km (320 mi) and east to west of 441 km (274 mi). The mean elevation is about 180 m (600 ft).
A Natural Regions
Georgia occupies parts of six natural regions, or physiographic provinces. They are the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Gulf Coastal Plain, the Piedmont, the Blue Ridge province, the Ridge and Valley province, and the Appalachian Plateaus.
The six natural regions are parts of two major physiographic divisions of the United States. The Atlantic Coastal Plain and Gulf Coastal Plain are parts of the Coastal Plain, a lowland that extends around the coast of the eastern United States from New York to Texas. The four other natural regions are parts of the Appalachian Region, or Appalachian Highland.
The boundary between the Coastal Plain and the Appalachian Highland is marked by the Fall Line, or more accurately a zone along which the rivers and streams of the Piedmont flow across resistant rocks that mark the boundary with the Coastal Plain. Rapids and small waterfalls are numerous along the Fall Line. The falls provided waterpower for early industry, but impeded navigation above the Fall Line. Cities such as Columbus, Macon, and Augusta developed on the Fall Line at the head of navigation on the rivers and became major manufacturing centers due to the availability of water power.
The Atlantic Coastal Plain and the adjoining Gulf Coastal Plain occupy about 60 percent of Georgia. The Atlantic Coastal Plain rises gradually from sea level along the coast to an elevation of nearly 240 m (800 ft) near the Fall Line. Most of the plain is generally flat. Near the Fall Line, however, it becomes quite rolling and hilly. All rivers on the plain flow generally eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. Extensive salt marshes, which become flooded at high tide, are found in the coastal areas. There are also many freshwater swamps on the plain. Okefenokee Swamp, a vast watery region teeming with life, covers the extreme southeastern corner of the state and extends into the Gulf Coastal Plain and into Florida. Except for the swamps and the pine-covered hilly areas, most of the Atlantic Coastal Plain is covered by farmlands.
The Gulf Coastal Plain in Georgia differs little from the Atlantic Coastal Plain except that its rivers drain southward to the Gulf of Mexico. Underlain by soft limestone, the extensive pumping of groundwater in this region to irrigate agricultural land has resulted in many sinkholes.
The Piedmont, or Piedmont Plateau, which occupies about 30 percent of Georgia, is a rolling upland region. It lies between the lowlands of the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains and the truly mountainous land of the Appalachians farther north. Rolling hills are characteristic of the Piedmont, and many of them rise high above the surrounding countryside. One of the most prominent is Stone Mountain, a steep-sided, whale-back-shaped mountain near Atlanta. Stone Mountain, 514 m (1,686 ft) above sea level, is a great mass of exposed granite. The gently rolling areas of the Piedmont are generally cultivated, but the more hilly sections are usually covered by forests, mainly of pine.
The Blue Ridge province, or Blue Ridge region, includes, in Georgia, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the neighboring valley. It occupies only about 5 percent of the state. Mount Oglethorpe, which reaches an elevation of 1,003 m (3,290 ft), is the southernmost point of the Blue Ridge. Brasstown Bald Mountain, which rises to 1,458 m (4,784 ft), is the highest point in the state. Several other peaks are more than 1,200 m (4,000 ft) above sea level. The region is a sparsely populated rural area, and heavily forested. It is one of the most scenic areas in Georgia, and has many deep and steep-sided river valleys and small waterfalls. Amicalola Falls, the state’s highest falls, drop 222 m (729 ft).
The Ridge and Valley province is characterized by a series of prominent ridges and narrow lowlands, which extend across the northwest in a southwest to northeast direction. The ridges mark outcrops of resistant rocks, and the lowlands are formed on softer rocks. The principal lowland is the Rome Valley. The most prominent ridges are Taylor Ridge and Pigeon Mountain. Most of the ridges, which reach elevations of 460 m (1,500 ft), are forested, and the valleys are used for farming.
The Appalachian Plateaus in Georgia are made up of part of the section known as the Cumberland Plateau. This plateau occupies the extreme northwestern corner of Georgia. Lookout Mountain is a long ridge that lies partly in Alabama and Tennessee and cuts across Georgia’s portion of the Cumberland Plateau. Sand Mountain, 460 m (1,500 ft) in elevation, forms the eastern edge of the plateau. The north Georgia mountain country has experienced population growth in recent years as residents of Atlanta favor the area for locating second homes and Floridians seek cooler locales to spend their summers. The fragile ecosystem in the area makes it increasingly vulnerable as development proceeds.
B Rivers and Lakes
Most of the rivers of Georgia drain eastward to the Atlantic Ocean proper or southward to the Gulf of Mexico. Only a few flow northward to the Tennessee River, which is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. Most of the rivers flowing to the coasts are navigable by barges and small craft as far upstream as the Fall Line.
The major river flowing to the Atlantic is the Savannah River, which, with the Tugaloo River, one of its headwaters, forms most of the state’s eastern border with South Carolina. Other rivers are the Ogeechee; the Altamaha and its tributaries the Ocmulgee and Oconee; the Satilla; and the Saint Marys, which forms part of the state boundary with Florida.
The major river flowing to the Gulf of Mexico is the Chattahoochee River, which rises in the Blue Ridge. It forms part of Georgia’s western border with Alabama. Near the Florida state line the Chattahoochee is joined by the Flint River, the longest river wholly within Georgia, to form the Apalachicola River, which flows southward through Florida to the gulf. More than 800 km (500 mi) long, the Chattahoochee-Apalachicola is one of the longest river systems in the eastern United States. Northwestern Georgia is drained by the Coosa River and its tributaries, flowing roughly southward to join the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. Other rivers flowing to the gulf include the Ochlockonee and the Suwannee and its tributaries, all rising in the Coastal Plain. The Ocoee (called Toccoa in Georgia), Nottely, and Hiwassee flow north from the Blue Ridge to the Tennessee River in Tennessee.
Most of Georgia’s large lakes are artificial bodies of water constructed by utility companies for power generation, or by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for flood control. Major reservoirs on the Savannah River, on the Georgia-South Carolina state line, are Hartwell and Clark Hill reservoirs. On the Chattahoochee River and only partly in Florida are Walter F. George and Jim Woodruff reservoirs. Lake Sidney Lanier, on the upper Chattahoochee, covers 186 sq km (72 sq mi) and is the largest lake wholly within the state. Other major lakes are Lake Sinclair on the Oconee River, Lake Allatoona on the Etowah River, a Coosa tributary, and Tobesofkee, near Macon.
C Coastline
The state’s coastline along the Atlantic Ocean is 161 km (100 mi) long. However, when all the river estuaries, bays, and islands are included, the shoreline measures 3,772 km (2,344 mi) long. Saltwater tidal marshes are found in most river estuaries. Just off the mainland, separated from it by a narrow and sheltered waterway, lies a chain of low islands. The islands, which continue along the coast of South Carolina, are called the Sea Islands. Sandy beaches fringe the seaward sides of many of the islands. Several of these islands are now developed, but two, Sapelo and Cumberland, are mostly owned by the state and largely remain in a natural condition.
D Climate
Along the Coastal Plain and in much of the Piedmont, summers are generally hot, and winters are mild. The relative humidity is generally high throughout the year. In the mountains, in northern Georgia, cooler conditions prevail.
D1 Temperature
The average January temperature on the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont ranges from about 7° C (about 44° F) in the north to about 12° C (54° F) in the south. In the mountains, winter temperatures are in the middle single digits C (lower 40°s F) in the valleys and considerably lower on the hills and more exposed mountain slopes. Occasionally in winter masses of colder air sweep into Georgia from the north. On such occasions, temperatures have dropped to the lower 20°s C (lower 10°s F).
Average July temperatures are in the upper 20°s C (lower 80°s F) on the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont, and range from about 23° to 26° C (about 74° to 78° F) in the mountains. Daytime temperatures are often in the upper 30°s C (lower 100°s F) and have risen occasionally to the middle 40°s Celsius (lower 110°s F). The high humidity makes very hot days exceedingly uncomfortable.
D2 Precipitation
The Coastal Plain and Piedmont receive between 1,170 and 1,320 mm (46 and 52 in) of precipitation (both rainfall and snowfall) a year, and the mountains receive between 1,420 and 1,930 mm (56 and 76 in). However, the amount of precipitation varies greatly from year to year, and prolonged dry spells, although infrequent, occasionally cause crop failures and water shortages. More than half of all annual precipitation falls during the spring and summer. Snow is rare in the lowlands, but there are sometimes heavy snowfalls in the mountains.
D3 Growing Season
The growing season, or period between the last killing frost in the spring and the first killing frost in the fall, may range from more than 300 days in some of the Sea Islands to fewer than 190 days in the northern mountain valleys. The last spring frost usually occurs at the end of February along the southeastern coast and in the middle of April in the northern mountain valleys. The first autumn frost may be expected around the end of September in the north and around the beginning of December along the coast.
E Soils
The soils of the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains include clays, loams, and large areas of gray, sandy soils. The clays and loams are productive when farmed. The sandy soils are generally too dry and too poor in organic matter for farming unless large amounts of fertilizer are used. The soils of the Piedmont and the other Appalachian regions range from light-colored sandy loams, which are underlain by clay subsoils, to reddish clay loams and sticky red clays. Soil erosion has been especially severe in the hilly sections of the Piedmont. In many areas the sandy loams have been completely removed by erosion and the underlying clay subsoils exposed. Parts of the Cumberland Plateau, which is underlain mainly by limestones and shales, have fertile red or brown loams, but only the more level sections are farmed.
F Plant Life
Almost the entire area of Georgia was forested in early colonial times, and 66 percent of the land is still covered by forests and woodlands. Mixed forests of deciduous and coniferous trees cover most of the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountain areas. Common trees in these areas include species of ash, beech, birch, hemlock, hickory, poplar, sweetgum, sycamore, red oak, white oak, and Virginia, shortleaf, and loblolly pines. Pines which predominate on the Piedmont are loblolly and shortleaf. On the coastal plains, slash, loblolly, and longleaf pines are found. The live oak, the state tree, flourishes in the southern part of the coastal plains. Palmettos are found in areas of sandy soil, and bald cypresses and tupelo gums are common in swampy and poorly drained areas. Spanish moss festoons many of the cypresses in Okefenokee Swamp. Other trees found in the state include the red maple, sweet bay, black cherry, butternut, sassafras, southern magnolia, cottonwood, locust, and elm.
Okefenokee Swamp is a unique part of Georgia, a vast wilderness of marshlands, floating green lily pads, wild orchids, and bald cypresses draped in Spanish moss.
Flowering plants grow in great profusion in Georgia. Those native to the state include the trillium, galax, bellwort, hepatica, mayapple, bloodroot, violet, columbine, lady slipper, and Cherokee rose, which is the state flower. Among the many shrubs and small flowering trees common in Georgia are species of laurel, mimosa, redbud, flowering dogwood, rhododendron, and flame azalea.
G Animal Life
White-tailed deer are the most abundant of the larger animals found in the state. There are black bears in the northern mountains and in Okefenokee Swamp, and bobcats prowl many of the rural areas. Red foxes, gray foxes, muskrats, raccoons, opossums, flying squirrels, foxes and gray squirrels are abundant in the forested areas, and otter and beaver are found in many swamps and rivers.
Most of the more than 300 species of birds found east of the Mississippi can be sighted in Georgia. Some 160 species are permanent residents; 120 of them breed below the Fall Line, which not only sharply divides the species of birds but of plants and trees as well. Many migratory birds from the northern United States and Canada spend the winter in Georgia. Along the coast and in marshes and swamps inland are found the anhinga, wood ibis, least bittern, wood duck, clapper rail, and many species of herons and egrets. Hawks, black vultures, and turkey vultures are found throughout the state, and mourning doves and bobwhite quail are common in cultivated areas. The distinctive calls of the catbird, the mockingbird, and the brown thrasher, the state bird, ring out from brushy thickets. Other birds include the towhee, blue jay, meadowlark, cardinal, robin, crow, and ruby-throated hummingbird. There are also numerous species of warblers, vireos, wrens, and sparrows. The ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct, was sighted in Georgia (as well as other places) in 1967.
Georgia’s largest reptile is the alligator, which is found in coastal swamps and in the great Okefenokee Swamp. The six venomous snakes found in the state are the coral snake, the water moccasin, or cottonmouth, the copperhead, the pygmy rattlesnake, timber or canebreak rattlesnake, and the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake. There are also many nonpoisonous snakes. Saltwater game fish include the channel bass, spotted weakfish, tarpon, and sailfish. Shrimp, crabs, and oysters are also found along the coastal regions. In the lakes and streams of northern and central Georgia are mountain trout, bream, bass, and catfish. Redfish, bass, mullet, drum, shad, and mackerel are plentiful along the coast.
H Conservation
The prevention of soil erosion is the state’s primary concern in the field of conservation. Much topsoil has been lost as a result of the excess runoff of rainwater and floodwater. It is estimated that since colonial times, parts of the Piedmont and the Atlantic Coastal Plain have lost between 18 and 38 cm (7 and 15 in) of topsoil. Soil fertility has also been reduced. Until about the 1930s a major factor in the destruction of Georgia’s soils was the cotton grower, whose poor farming techniques encouraged excessive water runoff and soil depletion. Another important factor has been the hilly, sloping nature of much of the land. When left bare, the hillslopes are soon gullied and stripped of their soil by heavy rains.
Since the 1930s much of the eroded cotton-growing acreage has been converted to pastureland or woodland. On the hilly lands still under cultivation, contour plowing, terracing, strip cropping, and crop rotation techniques are now used to help reduce runoff and maintain soil fertility. As part of the efforts to reduce runoff and flooding, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) operates two dams in northern Georgia.
Reforestation, which has been carried on extensively throughout the state, has helped reduce runoff on eroded lands. It has also stimulated the growth of the wood pulp and paper industry in the state. The Georgia forestry commission and the United States Forest Service are the two principal agencies active in the conservation of Georgia’s forest resources. The commission operates tree nurseries where pine seedlings are raised for use in both public and private reforestation programs throughout the state. In addition, a number of timber companies have carried out extensive reforestation programs.
The Georgia game and fish commission is responsible for the protection and development of wildlife resources in the state. The commission operates a system of game management areas where hunting and fishing are regulated to help protect the state’s wildlife. In 2006 the state had 15 hazardous waste sites on a national priority list for cleanup due to their severity or proximity to people. Between 1995 and 2000, the amount of toxic chemicals discharged into the environment increased by 2 percent.
III ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
During the 18th century, indigo (a source of blue dye), rice, and sugarcane were grown on plantations in Georgia. Cotton was introduced in 1786. Indigo and sugar cultivation all but vanished early in the 19th century, and rice production had gravely declined by 1870. Cotton, however, remained to dominate the Georgian farm economy until the 1920s. Beginning in the 1890s, agriculture in the state was diversified. Manufacturing was of minor importance in the state before the Civil War. The textile industry, Georgia’s oldest, began to develop in the 1830s and again in the 1880s after the Reconstruction period. Modern large-scale development of the textile industry dates only from the 1920s. World War II (1939-1945) greatly stimulated both the growth and the diversification of manufacturing in the state. Manufacturing now ranks as the most valuable branch of the economy and is a leading source of jobs.
Georgia had a work force of 4,742,000 in 2006. The largest share of those, 34 percent, were employed in the diverse services sector, doing such jobs as giving legal advice or working in restaurants. Another 20 percent worked in wholesale or retail trade; 16 percent in federal, state, or local government, including those in the military; 10 percent in manufacturing; 19 percent in finance, insurance, or real estate; 21 percent in transportation or public utilities; 5 percent in construction; 2 percent in farming (including agricultural services), forestry, or fishing; and just 0.3 percent in mining. In 2005, 5 percent of Georgia’s workers were members of a labor union.
A Agriculture
In 2005 there were 49,000 farms in Georgia. Only 35 percent had annual sales of $10,000 or more. Many of the rest of the farms were sidelines for operators who held other jobs. Farmland occupied 4.2 million hectares (10.5 million acres). Crops were planted on 44 percent of all farmland. The rest was mostly pasture or woodland.
The sale of livestock and livestock products accounts for 67 percent of total annual farm income. The sale of crops accounts for the rest. Poultry, and especially broilers (young chickens raised for meat), are the state’s most valuable farm product, earning four-fifths of the income from livestock sales. The state’s other major farm products include eggs, hogs, milk, vegetables, greenhouse seedlings, tobacco, soybeans, corn, pecans, and cotton. Georgia leads all other states in the production of broilers, peanuts, and pecans.
During most of the 19th century, cotton was the chief crop. Until the Civil War, nearly all the cotton was grown on plantations by black slaves, who picked it by hand. After slavery was abolished most blacks, having no land of their own, became sharecroppers, who got their farm and household supplies on credit from the planters and were in theory paid a share of the crop income. Under this system, cotton dominated the economy more than ever.
However, during the 1920s the boll weevil, a tiny beetle that feeds on the growing cotton boll, destroyed much of the cotton crop and infested great areas of the cotton-growing lands of the South. Moreover, at about that same time, crop yields began to decline, and it became clear that nearly 200 years of continuous cotton cultivation had impoverished the soil. Efforts were made to diversify the state’s farm economy. As a result, many cotton lands were planted in other crops or converted to pasture. Cotton cultivation was resumed after methods were found to control the boll weevil, but cotton acreage was greatly reduced.
Beginning in the 1940s, thousands of farms were consolidated and mechanized and the demand for farm workers decreased. As farms consolidated their size increased, and by the mid-1990s each averaged 114 hectares (281 acres). In the late 1990s a new trend toward more farms each with smaller acreage was noticeable. In 2005 the average Georgian farm operated on 87 hectares (214 acres) of land.
A1 Crops
Peanuts, one of the state’s chief crops, are raised as a rotation crop on many cotton farms, and they are also a specialty on other farms. Peanuts are grown in Georgia for human consumption, for hog feed, and for a variety of industrial and commercial uses. Tobacco cultivation is concentrated in central and southern Georgia. Corn, used mainly for livestock feed, is grown throughout the state. Cotton is grown on the Coastal Plain and in the Piedmont. Formerly the primary crop, cotton is now planted in rotation with other crops important to the state’s economy. Cotton production increased rapidly in the 1990s, reaching levels not seen since the late 1920s. Recent harvest levels are attributed to a growing demand for cotton as well as the higher costs of production on irrigated lands in the West. Machinery has replaced much of the hand labor once needed in the cotton fields. Pecans are grown around Albany, and tung nuts, used in making paints and varnishes, are produced from tung trees grown around Thomasville.
Watermelons are a specialty of farmers in the warmer coastal areas, and Macon and Fort Valley are the centers of a prosperous peach-growing industry, the state’s principal fruit-growing activity. Other fruit and vegetables grown in Georgia include apples, grapes, pears, plums, strawberries, asparagus, beans, celery, cucumbers, onions, peas, peppers, and tomatoes.
A2 Livestock and Livestock Products
Poultry raising, centered on Gainesville and other parts of the Piedmont and the Appalachians, has expanded rapidly since the 1930s. Most of the poultry farmers specialize in the production of broilers. Beef and dairy cattle are raised in the Ridge and Valley province and the Piedmont. Some hogs are also raised on dairy farms in these regions. However, most hogs are raised in peanut-growing areas in the Coastal Plain, where they are fattened on peanuts and peanut vines.
B Fisheries
Georgia has only a minor commercial fishing industry, compared with most other seaboard states. However, Brunswick ranks as one of the foremost seafood-processing centers in the Southeast. Shrimps, crabs, and oysters are processed at the port and also at Darien and Savannah. In 2004 the value of the fish catch was $12 million.
C Forestry
Forestry is a wide-spread activity in Georgia and provides raw materials for numerous industries. Georgia is a leading state for production of turpentine and rosin. It is also the leading state east of the Mississippi in the production of lumber (logs and boards) and pulpwood. Longleaf pine and slash pine are the principal sources of lumber and wood pulp. Pulp and paper companies own vast tracts of forest, and pulpwood production is an important industry because of the rapid regeneration of pine forests in favorable growing conditions. Many an abandoned cotton field is now forested and supplies its owners with valuable income from lumbering.
D Mining
Mining contributes less than one percent of Georgia’s overall economy as measured by the gross state product. However, several minerals are of national importance. Clays and clay products and stone are the most valuable minerals produced. Georgia ranks first among the states in kaolin output and second in the production of barite. Kaolin, a type of white clay used in making paper, paint, plastics, rubber, and hundreds of other products, is mined in great open pits near Macon and Augusta. One-fourth of the nations’s clay production–much of it kaolin–came from Georgia in the late 1990s. Mined and processed by multinational firms for the world market, Georgia’s clay is exported from the Port of Savannah. Fuller’s earth and ocher, both of which are used in refining vegetable and mineral oils, are also produced in great quantity. Georgia is among the nation’s leading producers of ocher and fuller’s earth. The marble is quarried near Tate City and Elberton. Georgia marble is a popular building material and widely used for gravestones. Georgia also quarries a considerable amount of granite for use as dimensional stone. Other valuable minerals include mica and bauxite. Some coal is mined in northwestern Georgia.
E Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the state’s leading economic activity. In 1996 the leading industrial activity, in terms of its contribution to income in the state, was the production of textiles, including the manufacture of apparel. The manufacture of transportation equipment, including automobiles and aircraft, also was important to the state. Other leading activities were food processing, the production of chemicals, paper and pulp milling, printing and publishing, lumber and wood production, and the manufacture of rubber and plastic items. Georgia is a leading national producer of paper and board, tufted textile products, and processed chicken. Atlanta and Savannah are the major industrial centers, but a noteworthy feature of industry in Georgia is the dispersal of factories in small centers throughout the state.
Augusta, Columbus, Macon, and Rome are the leading centers of the textile industry in Georgia. In addition, there are mills and factories in many smaller towns and cities throughout the state. In the early days of the textile industry, Georgia specialized in the production of coarse cloths, such as duck and drill. To those traditional lines have been added more specialized kinds of textiles. These include velvets, corduroys, denim, terry cloth, rugs, carpets, and synthetic fibers. Some woolen cloth is also produced. While many smaller textile plants closed in recent years, others have expanded. Employment levels have declined as production facilities have become more automated and require fewer workers.
A wide variety of foodstuffs is processed in Georgia. Among the leading processed food products are beverages, frozen shrimp, oven-ready broilers, canned vegetables and fruits, biscuits and crackers, peanut butter, pecan pralines, and other candy. Gainesville ranks among the leading poultry-processing centers. Brunswick is a leading center for the canning and freezing of seafood and vegetables. Savannah has large sugar refineries, and in Atlanta soft drinks and a variety of foodstuffs are produced. Local farm produce is processed in trade centers throughout the state.
There are shipyards and boatyards at Savannah and Brunswick, and two automobile assembly plants in the Atlanta area. At the large Lockheed-Georgia aircraft plant at Marietta, jet transports are manufactured for the United States Air Force. The manufacture of paper, paperboard, kraft paper (a paper made from wood pulp), and containers is centered chiefly in Atlanta, Savannah, and Macon. Chemical plants and related industrial facilities are located mainly in the Atlanta and the Savannah areas, as well as in other cities. The hardwood forests of the Blue Ridge province support a furniture industry in Toccoa. In addition, small wood-processing factories are scattered throughout the state’s forested areas.
F Electricity
In 2005 Georgia generated 72 percent of its electricity in steam plants fueled by fossil fuels. Another 23 percent came from nuclear power plants, and the remainder came from hydroelectric power plants. Hydroelectric power is generated by plants on the Chattahoochee, Savannah, Tallulah, and other major rivers. Georgia has 4 nuclear power plants. Most of the power plants in the state are owned and operated by private companies, notably the Georgia Power Company. A few hydroelectric facilities are under the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
G Tourist Industry
Tourism is a major economic activity, with visitors spending $15.3 billion in the state. Tourists contribute significantly to Georgians’ incomes in the popular resorts of the sandy coastal areas, the scenic Blue Ridge area, and around Atlanta.
H Transportation
The early Georgian colonists relied mainly on water transportation. By 1812 a primitive system of roads had been built, but the roads were little more than streaks of red mud or dust across the land. Most of the roads converged on Savannah, which has always been the chief port of Georgia. Railroad construction was begun early in the 1830s, and by 1850, Georgia had a more extensive railroad network than any other Southeastern state.
Today, Atlanta is the focal point of railroad, highway, and air transportation routes in Georgia and in most of the Southeast. In 2005 Georgia had 189,330 km (117,644 mi) of roads, including 2,000 km (1,243 mi) of interstate highways. The rail system included 7,691 km (4,779 mi) of track. Georgia had 10 civilian airports, only one of which, in Atlanta, was in the largest classification category. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport ranked as the chief airport of the Southeast and the busiest airport in the country. The number of international flights through Atlanta rapidly expanded in the 1990s.
I Trade
The sheltered passage between the Sea Islands and the mainland is part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Savannah and Brunswick handle Georgia’s foreign trade, with the leading exports being clay, wood pulp, and paper products. Savannah is the nation’s leading port for the shipment of naval stores and is an important trade outlet for Tennessee. Savannah now boasts one of the largest ocean port facilities on the South Atlantic Coast, which is having a tremendous impact on opening Georgia to international markets. Among ports in the region, the Port of Savannah ranks second, after Charleston, South Carolina, as the largest container port and first in terms of overall tonnage handled. More than 1,700 ships call at the port annually. Kaolin, wood pulp, linerboard (a thin paperboard used as a lining), and machinery are major exports while iron, steels, food products, petroleum, and chemicals are major imports.
IV THE PEOPLE OF GEORGIA
A Population Patterns
According to the 2000 federal census, Georgia ranked 10th among the states, with a total population of 8,186,453. This represented an increase of 26.4 percent over the 1990 census figure of 6,478,216.
The population density for the state as a whole was 62 persons per sq km (162 per sq mi) in 2006. However, the population is not evenly distributed. About one-half of the population lives in metropolitan Atlanta while the other half is widely dispersed throughout the state. Atlanta ranks among the largest urban areas in the country.
The 1960 census was the first to record more people living in urban than in rural areas. In 2000 some 72 percent of the state’s total population lived in towns and cities.
Most white Georgians are of British descent. The first settlers in Georgia came mainly from England but also included some Germans, Austrians, and Swiss. They settled mainly along the coast. Northern Georgia was settled during the 1830s, mostly by people of Scottish and Irish descent, who came mainly from North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
By 1860, blacks, most of them slaves, accounted for nearly one-half of the state’s population. They lived mainly on plantations in the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont. After the Civil War many blacks were unable to survive as farmers and moved to Northern cities. The black portion of the population of Georgia declined, until they represented only about one-quarter of the people. By the 1970s, however, a trend of reverse migration began, with many blacks returning to the cities of Georgia seeking industrial and service employment, and the percentage of blacks in the state began increasing.
In 2000 whites made up 65.1 percent of the population and blacks 28.7 percent. The percentage of black residents is much higher in some cities. In Atlanta they are nearly two-thirds of the people, in Savannah more than one-half. Asians are 2.1 percent of the population, Native Americans 0.3 percent, Native Hawaiians and othe Pacific Islanders 0.1 percent, and those of mixed heritage or not reporting race 3.8 percent. Hispanics, who may be of any race, are 5.3 percent of the people.
B Principal Cities
Atlanta, with a population of 486,411 (2006) in the city and 5,138,223 (2006) in the metropolitan area, is the capital, largest city, and leading commercial center of the state. It is also the principal city of the entire southeastern United States. Growth in the white-collar service economy, led by expansion of corporate headquarters and services such as giving legal advice, computing, and advertising, accounts for a large part of Atlanta’s recent expansion. The metropolitan area centered on the city now contains three suburban cores in addition to the original central business district. These suburban cities, sometimes called edge cities, each possess an impressive skyline of tall buildings and major retail shopping centers. The Atlanta region’s economy was also boosted when the city hosted the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.
Georgia’s second largest city is Columbus, with 188,660 (2006) people, which grew initially as an industrial city. Fort Benning, a large United States Army infantry base, is near the city. Savannah, with a population of 127,889, was the largest city in Georgia until the rise of Atlanta in the 20th century. A bustling industrial center and seaport, Savannah is the oldest city in the state and has retained much of the aura of its gracious past. Other major cities include Macon, with 93,665 inhabitants, Albany, with 75,335 people, and Augusta, with 195,769 inhabitants.
C Religion
Protestant faiths have predominated in Georgia since colonial times. In 1733 a congregation of the Church of England was organized at Savannah. By 1735, Presbyterians from Scotland and Lutherans and other German Protestants had settled in Georgia. Although Jews and Roman Catholics were to be excluded from the colony, a small group of English Jews organized a synagogue at Savannah in 1733. Near the end of the 18th century a Roman Catholic church was founded by English settlers from Maryland. Georgia’s first Baptist church was organized in 1772. Methodism flourished in the state after the American Revolution.
Today, more than half the church members in Georgia are Baptists. Methodists are the second largest religious group. There are Roman Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues in most of the larger communities in Georgia.
V EDUCATION AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
A Education
The Georgia constitution of 1777 provided for state-supported schools in each county, but no funds were appropriated to implement the plan. In the 1780s a few academies were established with state endowments of land. In the 1830s religious groups founded manual labor schools where students worked to help pay for their education. A system of public education was finally organized in 1872 by Gustavus John Orr, the state school commissioner. State-supported education was limited to elementary schools and the state university until 1912, when high schools were included. In 1949 a foundation program was authorized to expand educational facilities. Some 8 percent of the state’s students attend private schools.
School attendance is compulsory for children between the ages of 6 and 16. The public school system is supervised by the state board of education. There are also numerous private educational institutions in Georgia.
Until the 1960s whites and blacks had to attend separate schools. In 1954, however, the Supreme Court of the United States had outlawed segregation in public schools. After several years of officially-sanctioned resistance, integration of high schools was begun in Atlanta in 1961 and in Athens, Macon, and Savannah in 1964. Integration spread slowly thereafter.
In the  2002–2003 school year Georgia spent $9,041 on each student’s education, compared with a national average of $9,299. There were 15.7 students for every teacher (the national average was 15.9 students). Of those older than 25 years of age in the state, 82.2 percent had a high school diploma, compared to the nation’s average of 84.1 percent.
A1 Higher Education
The state university system includes four research universities, two regional universities, many four-year colleges, several junior colleges, agricultural experimental stations, and an agricultural extension service. The University of Georgia, in Athens, is the largest school in the system and the oldest state-chartered university in the United States. The university was incorporated in 1785, although classes were not begun until 1801. Other major state-supported schools include Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta; Medical College of Georgia, in Augusta; Georgia State University, in Atlanta; and Georgia Southern University, in Statesboro.
Georgia also has a number of distinguished private colleges and universities. Wesleyan College in Macon, founded in 1836, is the world’s oldest chartered women’s college. Atlanta University Center, a consortium of historically black institutions, is comprised of Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Morris Brown College, Spelman College, and the Interdenominational Theological Center, all in Atlanta. Other private colleges and universities in Georgia include Emory University, in Atlanta; Mercer University, in Macon; and Oglethorpe University, in Atlanta. In 2004–2005 Georgia had 74 public and 54 private institutions of higher learning.
B Libraries
Georgia’s 58 public library systems serve numerous communities and rural areas. One of the largest public libraries in the state is the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, which was first opened to the public in 1902 as the Carnegie Library. Other notable libraries include the state archives, in Atlanta; the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the University of Georgia, at Athens; and the Georgia Historical Society Library at Savannah. The Office of Public Library Services in Atlanta functions as the state library. Public libraries each year circulate an average of 4.8 books for every resident.
C Museums
The noted High Museum of Art, in Atlanta, has an important collection of works by European masters, in addition to paintings by early and contemporary American artists. There are also collections of American paintings in the Georgia Museum of Art of the University of Georgia and in the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, in Savannah. Other notable museums in the state include the Atlanta History Center and SciTrek, a science and technology museum, both in Atlanta, and the Augusta Museum of History, in Augusta. The Atlanta History Center maintains one of the largest urban museums in the country, with permanent exhibits on the Civil War and the history of the city. Atlanta is also home to the Carter Presidential Center, dedicated to the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The center includes a library and museum.
D Communications
In 2002 there were 256 newspapers published in Georgia. Most of them were weeklies, but 32 of them were published daily. The first newspaper published in Georgia was the Georgia Gazette, which was founded in Savannah in 1763 by James Johnston, the official printer of the colony. In 1783, after the American Revolution, Johnston published another newspaper, the Gazette of the State of Georgia. Today the oldest continuously published newspaper in Georgia is the Augusta Chronicle, which was begun as the Georgia State Gazette or Independent Register in 1785. The Christian Index, a weekly newspaper published in Atlanta, dates from 1822 and is the South’s oldest Baptist publication. The state’s most widely circulated newspaper is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Georgia’s first radio station, WSB, was founded in Atlanta in 1922. The first television station, WSB-TV, began operations in Atlanta in 1948. In 2002 there were 127 AM and 130 FM radio stations located in the state and 32 television stations. Atlanta is the headquarters of Turner Broadcasting System, a cable-television company reaching an international audience. Established by Ted Turner, the cable system includes the Cable News Network (CNN).
E Music and Theater
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in the South. In addition, several of the larger cities and most of the colleges and universities in the state support symphony orchestras. The Atlanta Ballet performs at the Fox Theatre. Many community and university theaters are active in the state, and midtown Atlanta has numerous live performance theaters.
VI RECREATION AND PLACES OF INTEREST
Georgia’s scenic mountains, lakes, rivers, and coastal areas offer a wide range of recreational opportunities. Many of the recreational facilities are located in the numerous state parks. There are also a number of historic places of interest in Georgia, many of them associated with the American Civil War (1861-1865). Other tourist attractions include the picturesque Sea Islands, the Blue Ridge, and the health resort of Warm Springs.
A National Parks
The National Park Service administers several units in Georgia. Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park lies in northwestern Georgia and in southeastern Tennessee. The Georgia section marks the site of the Civil War Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. Another Civil War engagement, the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, in 1864, is commemorated in Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, near Atlanta. Fort Pulaski National Monument, near Savannah, contains the restored walls of a Confederate stronghold. Andersonville National Historic Site, in west-central Georgia, commemorates the thousands of Union soldiers who were imprisoned and died at the infamous Andersonville prison during the Civil War. In 1998 the National Prisoner of War Museum was opened at the Andersonville National Historic Site. The new museum examines the experiences of prisoners in the Civil War as well as many other conflicts.
In Ocmulgee National Monument, near Macon, are the ruins of Native American villages and prehistoric ceremonial mounds. Fort Frederica National Monument, on Saint Simons Island, one of the Sea Islands, contains the ruin of an early 18th-century British military post. The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site, in Atlanta, contains the birthplace, church, and grave of the civil rights leader. A visitor center at the site offers films and exhibits on Dr. King and his involvement in movements for racial justice. The Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, in Plains, contains the 39th president’s residence, boyhood home, and high school in addition to exhibiting rural southern culture.
Other areas within the state that are administered by the federal government include the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, a wilderness tract 1,600 sq km (620 sq mi) in area in Okefenokee Swamp. Seven wildlife refuges are administered under the umbrella of the Savannah Coastal National Wildlife Refuges, protecting wildlife environments from Hilton Head, South Carolina, to Wolf Island near Darien, Georgia. Wassaw Island and Little Wassaw Island, situated at the mouth of the Savannah River, is a wildlife refuge restricted to those doing scientific observation. Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge, near Round Oak, is a reforested tract near the center of the state containing a complex environment of wetlands. The Cumberland Island National Seashore, accessible only by tour boat, preserves a large section of coastal island, including unspoiled beaches, marshes, and freshwater lakes.
B National Forests
The two national forests in Georgia contain numerous recreational areas, many of them with facilities for swimming, picnicking, and camping. Chattahoochee National Forest is a scenic area of mountains, lakes, and forests in northern Georgia. Within the park lies Brasstown Bald Mountain, which is the highest peak in the state. Oconee National Forest is situated in central Georgia.
C State Parks
Georgia has 59 state parks and historic sites. Most of the parks have been developed as recreational areas with picnicking sites, cottages, bathhouses, and playgrounds. The largest state parks, each with an area of more than 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres), are Hard Labor Creek State Park in north central Georgia and Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park in western Georgia. Vogel State Park, which is within Chattahochee National Forest, is crossed by the Appalachian Trail. It lies in a scenic area of the Blue Ridge that was once inhabited by the Cherokee. Indian Springs State Park in north central Georgia is the site of a mineral spring once used by the Creek and from which people still collect water daily.
Alexander H. Stephens Memorial State Historic Park, in north central Georgia, was named in honor of a famous Georgian statesman who was vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Among other state parks are Magnolia Springs State Park, and Georgia Veterans Memorial State Park. Kolomoki Mounds State Park centers on a huge Native American mound and is the site of other mounds. There is also a museum in the park (see Mound Builders).
D Other Places to Visit
The Cyclorama Building, in Atlanta, contains a three-dimensional painting-in-the-round some 109 m (385 ft) long of the Battle of Atlanta. The painting, said to be one of the largest murals in the world, depicts a panoramic view of the Civil War battle and forms the background for lifelike models of soldiers arranged in a battle setting. Stone Mountain Memorial Park, northeast of Atlanta, is the site of a huge memorial to the Confederacy, with images of Confederate leaders carved on the face of Stone Mountain. Also in the park are a museum and a scenic railroad.
The African-American Panoramic Experience (APEX) is a museum dedicated to black American history. It is noted for its rare collection of records and documents on black history.
Jefferson Davis Memorial Park, north of Irwinville, marks the site where Davis, president of the Confederacy, was captured by Union troops in 1865. In addition to the home of native Jimmy Carter, Georgia also contains another well-known site associated with a U.S. president. The Little White House, at the city of Warm Springs, was built for the use of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He died there, and the structure and grounds, including a museum, now serve as a memorial in his honor. The Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta includes a full-size replica of the White House’s Oval Office.
Other sites associated with famous people include the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace in Savannah, which is maintained by the Girl Scouts as a memorial to the organization’s founder. Wren’s Nest, in Atlanta, was the home of Joel Chandler Harris, author of the popular Uncle Remus stories. Zoo Atlanta was completely renovated in the 1980s and now features animal exhibits in natural settings. Callaway Gardens is a botanical garden open year-round for educational as well as recreational use. The large garden complex is located north of Columbus in Pine Mountain.
Dahlonega, in northern Georgia, was the site of one of the country’s first important gold discoveries. It is now the site of a museum where gold-mining equipment is displayed. Visitors may try panning for gold.
Etowah Indian Mounds, near Cartersville, is the site of at least six large mounds and other remains of a Native American village. One mound, covering about 1.2 hectares (about 3 acres) is one of the nation’s largest known.
E Annual Events
The birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., nationally commemorated on the third Monday of January each year, has become a day of celebration and volunteer work in the state. Georgia Day, February 12, is a legal holiday in the state. It marks the anniversary of the founding of Savannah in 1733. The birthdays of Robert E. Lee (January 19) and Jefferson Davis (June 3) are also legal holidays. One of the most famous U.S. golf events, the Masters invitational tournament, is held at the Augusta National Golf Course every April. Other spring events include Riverfest Weekend in Columbus, in April, and the Andersonville Historic Fair, in May. Each July Polk County organizes the Homespun Festival, while the Barnesville Buggy Days are held each September. Helen, an alpine-village re-creation, celebrates Oktoberfest with German food and music, while the barbecue is honored each October at the Big Pig Jig in Vienna. The Georgia National Fair is held in Perry in October.
F Sports
Georgia is home to several professional sports teams, including the Atlanta Falcons (football), the Atlanta Braves (baseball), and the Atlanta Hawks (basketball). Atlanta also hosted the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Some of the events were held in the new Olympic Stadium, which is now the home of the Atlanta Braves.
VII GOVERNMENT
Georgia has had ten state constitutions. They were adopted in 1777, 1789, 1798, 1861, 1865, 1868, 1877, 1945, 1976, and 1982. The constitution of 1976 had so many amendments, many of which affected only localities, that it became unwieldy. The constitution adopted in 1982, which became effective in 1983, prohibits the passage of merely local amendments. All constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority vote in each house of the legislature and ratification by a majority of the voters.
A Executive
The governor of Georgia is the state’s chief executive, elected for a four-year term, and who may not serve more than two consecutive terms. The governor may veto proposed legislation, but the legislature can override the veto by a two-thirds majority vote. The principal officers of the executive branch are the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, comptroller general, treasurer, commissioner of agriculture, commissioner of labor, and state superintendent of schools. All are elected for four-year terms. The heads of several other state departments are appointed by the governor. The public service commission, one of the state’s eight executive boards, is elected. The other seven boards are appointed by the governor. The state auditor is chosen by the state house of representatives but its choice must be approved by the senate.
B Legislative
The state legislature, which is called the General Assembly, is composed of a Senate, with 56 members, and a House of Representatives, with 180 members. Both the senators and the representatives are elected for two-year terms. The general assembly meets annually at Atlanta, beginning on the second Monday in January. This regular session lasts for no longer than 40 days. However, special sessions of up to 30 or 70 days may be convened by the governor or by a three-fifths vote of the legislature.
C Judicial
The supreme court of Georgia is the highest court in the state. It is the final court of appeal in all cases except those in which state law and federal law conflict. The seven supreme court justices are elected for six-year terms. The justices elect one of their members to be chief justice. The state’s second highest court is the court of appeals. The court’s judges are also elected for six years. Judges are elected to four-year terms in the state’s superior courts and in the county-wide probate courts. Justices of the peace are elected for four years and juvenile court judges for six years. There are also county courts and juvenile courts.
D Local Government
Georgia is divided into 159 counties, most governed by boards of elected commissioners. In the others, local government is the responsibility of the probate court judge. The most common type of municipal government in Georgia is the mayor and council plan. Government by council and manager has become increasingly popular. A few cities still use a modified version of the commission form of municipal government.
E National Representation
Georgia elects 13 representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives and two senators. The state has 15 electoral votes.
VIII HISTORY
A Early Inhabitants
Native Americans are known to have lived in Georgia for more than 10,000 years. About 4,000 years ago they began making pottery vessels, which allowed them to store food year round. Agriculture began in the area about 3,000 years ago. About 1,200 years ago the people of the Mississippian culture, also called Mound Builders, were building great temple mounds, as can be seen today at Ocmulgee National Monument or Kolomoki Mounds State Park. By the time Europeans arrived in the 1500s, more than 1 million people lived in the American South. Unfortunately, the newcomers brought diseases against which the residents had no immunity. The death toll from smallpox, diphtheria, measles, and other illnesses was tremendous. It is estimated that the Native American population dropped by at least half between 1500 and 1700. By the time the British colonized Georgia in the 1730s the Cherokee and Creek, who then occupied it, were much fewer in number than their predecessors.
B European Discovery and Exploration
The Spanish were the first Europeans in Georgia. Explorer Hernando de Soto landed in Florida in 1539, and in 1540 his expedition crossed the Savannah and Ocmulgee rivers. In 1566 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded a mission and fort on Saint Catherines Island. Over the next 100 years the Spanish built forts and missions along the coast of Georgia, which they called Guale.
Franciscan friars, members of a Roman Catholic religious order, were the central agents of Spanish civilization. In the mid-1590s a dozen priests and lay brothers, supported by a few Spanish soldiers, established missions to convert the Native Americans along the Atlantic Coast from Florida to South Carolina. About half were located in the principal villages of Guale. Their efforts were rewarded with many converts, but also the first major conflict with Native Americans in Georgia. In 1597 a young Guale man named Juanillo, angry that a priest had blocked his selection as mico (chief), killed the meddling cleric. He then launched a war that left most of the Franciscans dead. The war continued about ten months and ended only after a Spanish army arrived from Florida. Afterward the Franciscans returned, and in the first half of the 17th century they were highly successful. At one time they had 25,000 converts in 38 missions. This was the golden age of Spanish influence in the South.
Spain claimed the right to govern Guale, but its claim was contested. England asserted a claim in 1629, when King Charles I included the area in a land grant of “Carolana” to Sir Robert Heath. However, because Heath failed to establish a settlement there, King Charles II regranted Carolana—changing its name slightly to Carolina—to eight lords proprietors in 1663. After founding a colony at Charleston (now in South Carolina) in 1670, the Carolinians pushed southward along the Atlantic coast. In 1680, with Native American allies, they attacked the Spanish missions and outposts and forced the Spanish to give up Saint Catherines Island. By 1686 the Spanish abandoned Guale, but for more than 70 years they continued to fight for possession from their bases in Florida.
C The 18th Century
C1 Founding of the Colony
As England’s power grew, the countries of Scotland and Wales were united under the English king in a nation called Great Britain, which continued the policy of granting proprietary colonies in America. In 1732 Great Britain’s king, George II, granted to James E. Oglethorpe, John Perceval, and others a charter for a colony to be called Georgia. Georgia was to include all the land between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, extending west to the Pacific Ocean. Oglethorpe and his associates, who were called the “trustees” of Georgia, planned to found a refuge for the poor, especially those in debtors’ prisons, and the victims of religious persecution in Europe. In addition, the king wanted a buffer colony to protect the Carolinas from the Spanish in Florida and the French in Louisiana. It was also hoped that the colony would produce silk, wine, and other goods for the British market.
Early in 1733, Oglethorpe sailed up the Savannah River and landed at Yamacraw Bluff, 27 km (17 mi) upstream. There he met the Yamacraw people, a friendly Native American band of outlaw Creek, who ceded the site to him. On February 12, 1733, he returned with more than 100 colonists and laid out the town of Savannah, the first permanent European settlement in Georgia. In 1736 Oglethorpe founded Augusta at the Fall Line, the southern end of the Piedmont Plateau, 320 km (200 mi) up the Savannah River. Next Oglethorpe journeyed to the southern border, where he built Fort Frederica on Saint Simons Island to defend against the Spanish in Florida.
In 1739 the War of Jenkins’s Ear broke out between Great Britain and Spain, and there was skirmishing on the southern frontier. In 1742 a Spanish force invaded Georgia. In the subsequent Battle of Bloody Marsh, near Fort Frederica, Oglethorpe and his troops defeated the invaders. This ended Spanish attempts to capture Georgia.
Over the next two decades the colonists were joined by German Lutherans and members of other persecuted religious groups from central Europe, as well as by Scots, Welsh, northern Italians, and Swiss. Oglethorpe hoped to create a model society, where none would be rich or poor. Those sent to Georgia at the trustees’ expense received 20.2 hectares (50 acres) of land and supplies to get them started. Individuals paying their own way received up to 202 hectares (500 acres). But no family was allowed to sell, lease, or even will the land away. They were expected to support themselves off the land through their own labor. To ensure that everyone was a sober, hard worker, the trustees in 1735 prohibited strong drink and outlawed slavery. Georgia was the only British colony in North America to have such laws. Although many of Georgia’s first settlers were poor or otherwise unfortunate, few of them came from debtors’ prisons.
C2 Change to a Royal Colony
The objectives of the trustees were soon called into question. The settlers were less interested in the security the trustees provided than in the opportunity to grow rich. “Clamorous malcontents” maintained that the colony would never grow until people could buy and sell all the land they wanted and have slaves to work the fields. They asserted they could not compete successfully against other colonies because wage labor cost the farm owner much more than slave labor. The trustees countered that the presence of slavery would make free workers lazy and would make defense more difficult. A few who sided with Oglethorpe also raised the issue of human rights, declaring it “shocking to human Nature, that any Race of Mankind, and their Posterity, should be sentenced to perpetual Slavery.”
In the end the malcontents won and the trustees had to abandon their plans. By 1750 slavery was legal, land could be transferred, liquor could be made and sold, and Georgia had lost the features that made it unique. In 1752 the trustees surrendered their charter to the king, and two years later Georgia became a royal colony. The government now consisted of a governor and royal council, appointed by the king, and a legislature elected by the colonists.
The colony began to prosper. A profitable plantation economy developed, based on slavery. Rice, indigo, and wheat were cultivated, and cattle and hogs were raised. The fur trade with the Native Americans flourished, lumber was cut, and naval stores (pitch and tar) were produced. Georgia exported food and other goods to Great Britain in return for British manufactures and for slaves, sugar, rum, and molasses from the West Indies. The settler population, which was less than 5,000 in 1752, grew rapidly after the French and Indian War ended in 1763.
After that war, which ended French competition in North America and transferred Florida to British control, Georgia’s western limit was set at the Mississippi River; its southern boundary with Florida was extended to the Saint Marys River. However, only the eastern part of the colony was settled. All the area west of the Appalachians was set aside by the king’s proclamation as a Native American reservation. By 1776 Georgia’s settler population was about 40,000, half of them black slaves.
C3 Colonial Women
In the colonial era women had far fewer rights than men and were generally expected to stay out of the public eye. Nonetheless, a few women gained respect for their achievements. Mary Musgrove was a half-Creek, half-English merchant who ran a trading post near Savannah when Oglethorpe arrived. As a broker in the fur trade, she played a major role in preserving the peace between the Native Americans and the colonists. She helped Oglethorpe as an interpreter and negotiator. She also extended supplies on credit to the colonists, and even helped recruit Native American warriors for Oglethorpe’s battles with the Spanish. Musgrove was rewarded when the colony recognized her title to Saint Catherines Island.
One of the wealthiest white settlers was Abigail Minis, a Jewish resident of Savannah, who arrived in 1733 with her husband Abraham. Their son Philip was born a year later, one of the first white babies born in Georgia. Abraham died in 1757 after building a modest fortune from agriculture and trade. His widow lived another 37 years and greatly increased the family holdings. She strongly supported the patriot cause in the American Revolution (1775-1783), assisting the patriots’ Continental Army with provisions and supplies. By the time she died in 1794, she owned 20 slaves and several thousand acres of land spread through at least four counties. In addition to an active involvement in trade, she owned a tavern in Savannah.
Mary Musgrove and Abigail Minis could not vote or hold office and had few civil rights. They were widely respected, however, for the extraordinary talents they employed in service to early Georgia.
C4 The American Revolution
Before the revolution, Georgia depended more than any of the other 12 rebelling colonies on financial aid and protection from Great Britain. The last royal governor, James Wright, was widely admired as an effective administrator who negotiated Native American treaties in 1763 and 1773, opening 2.4 million hectares (6 million acres) of land to settlement. Thus, many Georgians believed that British rule was to their advantage and were less opposed than other colonials to British taxes and regulations. For example, when Great Britain imposed the Stamp Act tax in 1765, many Americans objected because they had had no voice in the legislative process. In 12 colonies the Sons of Liberty, a secret patriotic society, were so effective in terrorizing British officials that the measure was never enforced. The one exception was Georgia, where for a short time Governor Wright was able to collect the tax.
Due in part to Native American troubles, Georgia was the only colony not to send delegates in 1774 to the First Continental Congress, where the colonies pondered strategies of resistance to Great Britain. However, after resistance turned into battle at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, in April 1775, pro-independence Georgians seized control of their government and chose delegates to the Second Continental Congress. At the Continental Congress in 1776, Lyman Hall, George Walton, and Button Gwinnett signed the Declaration of Independence for Georgia. In the same year, Georgia’s revolutionary government adopted a temporary constitution, the Rules and Regulations, and elected a president, Archibald Bulloch, and a council of safety. Early in 1777 a permanent state constitution was adopted. It provided for a unicameral (single-house) legislature and for a governor and executive council elected by the legislature. John A. Treutlen was elected as the first governor. In 1789 a new constitution changed the legislature to a bicameral (two-house) body.
In 1778 the British captured Savannah, and within a few months they overran most of Georgia and reestablished British rule. The Continental Army failed to dislodge them from Savannah, but bloody guerrilla fighting continued in outlying areas. Augusta was finally liberated in 1781, and the British troops evacuated Savannah in 1782.
C5 After the Revolution
On January 2, 1788, a state convention meeting at Augusta voted unanimously to adopt the Constitution of the United States; Georgia was the fourth state and the first Southern state to do so. Most Georgians supported a strong, central federal Union to protect them against the Native Americans and the Spanish, who had repossessed Florida in 1783. Within a few years, however, conflicts arose between the state and federal authorities. Georgia became a leading advocate of states’ rights, the doctrine that federal powers over the states are strictly limited. Nevertheless, the state supported the Union.
In the early years of the Union, thousands of settlers from Virginia, North Carolina, and other nearby states migrated to Georgia. Between 1790 and 1810 the state’s population tripled, from 82,548 to 252,433. Most of the newcomers settled north and west of Savannah. In 1783 Augusta succeeded Savannah as the state capital. As settlement pushed westward, the capital was moved west to Louisville in 1796 and to Milledgeville in 1806.
C6 Land Speculation
During the 1790s there was widespread speculation in land in Georgia. Corrupt state and local officials made grants of millions more acres than actually existed in the state. Much of the nonexistent land was then sold to outside speculators and companies. The most infamous land scam was the Yazoo Fraud of 1795. The legislature authorized the sale of a vast tract near the Yazoo River to four land companies in which most of the legislators held shares. There was a public outcry, and a new legislature, elected in 1796, canceled the sale and offered refunds to the land companies. However, much of the land had already been resold, and the new buyers insisted on keeping it. In 1802 Georgia ceded the territory to the federal government, which agreed to settle the claims. After the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Yazoo sale valid, Congress in 1814 authorized payment of $4.3 million to the claimants.
D The 19th Century
D1 The War of 1812
Georgians saw the War of 1812, between the United States and Britain, as an opportunity to open up more land. On the eve of the war a former governor, George Mathews, led a private army on an abortive invasion of Florida. Despite the fact that the war was with Britain, not Spain, Georgia’s Governor David Mitchell used the excuse of war to lead the Georgia militia on another unauthorized attack on Saint Augustine, Florida, in 1812. The invasion failed, however, and the troops withdrew to Georgia soil.
Meanwhile, the Upper Creek, living mainly in Alabama, joined the British against the United States. Georgia volunteers under General John Floyd rushed into the Creek country of southwest Georgia. At the same time, General Andrew Jackson led an army into Alabama and defeated the Upper Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Jackson was supported by 500 Cherokee, who swam the Tallapoosa River to attack the Creek forces from the rear. After the victory Jackson forced the Upper Creek to sign a treaty giving up a large portion of Alabama and Georgia.
D2 Acquisition of Native American Lands
After the revolution, the United States had made treaties with the Creek and Cherokee recognizing their right to occupy their lands in Georgia forever. At the same time, the federal government sent agents to encourage these nations to adopt white lifestyles. Nevertheless, the administration of President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 made a compact with Georgia that seemed to contradict the treaties. In exchange for Georgia’s claims to Alabama and Mississippi, Georgia was given $1,250,000 and a promise that the federal government would remove the Native Americans as soon as this could be done peacefully and on reasonable terms. When the federal government moved too slowly for impatient Georgians, Governor George Troup in 1825 threatened to remove the Creek by force. By 1827 the Creek signed treaties ceding their remaining lands in Georgia. They then moved west across the Mississippi River to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
With the Creek gone, Georgians turned their attention to the Cherokee nation of north Georgia. The Cherokee had transformed their society to emulate many practices of the whites. In 1821 Sequoyah, a Cherokee scholar, invented a syllabary (alphabet) for writing the Cherokee language. Within a few years the nation adopted a constitution, creating a government that was at least as democratic as that of the surrounding states. They then started a national newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, printed in both Cherokee and English. Commerce and agriculture flourished, and the wealthier Cherokee even used black slaves in their fields.
Nonetheless, when gold was discovered in north Georgia in 1828, whites rushed into Cherokee country to try to get rich. The Georgia government illegally extended its authority over north Georgia, and in 1832 held a lottery distributing the Cherokee lands among white citizens of the state. In 1835 the administration of President Andrew Jackson produced a fraudulent treaty, signed by a handful of Cherokee but repudiated by the great majority of the nation. According to this Treaty of New Echota, the Cherokee were to move west to Indian Territory. They refused to go, so federal troops were sent in 1838 to move them out. About 4000 out of more than 18,000 Cherokee forced from their homes died in stockades or during the journey to the west, known as the “Trail of Tears.”
D3 Economic Development
The cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney in Georgia in 1793, stimulated the extensive cultivation of cotton. The cotton plantation system and slavery spread throughout the state, especially into central and southwest Georgia. In the northern part of the state, subsistence agriculture predominated, with individual farm families doing their own labor. Most commonly they grew corn, wheat, and other food crops. Relatively little cotton was grown in this part of the state before the Civil War. The slave proportion in these counties ranged from about one-quarter of the population to as low as 4 percent in the Blue Ridge Mountain counties. In contrast, by 1860 most of the region between Atlanta and Macon and most of southwest Georgia had majority black populations and grew cotton as well as corn and other staples. Not all of Georgia was highly developed at the time of the Civil War. South-central Georgia, known as the Wiregrass Country, was largely a cattle frontier. In contrast, the Atlantic coast and the Sea Islands had Georgia’s largest plantations, growing large quantities of rice and cotton.
For the state as a whole in 1860, four of every nine persons were slaves. While the treatment of slaves varied, all were oppressed by a system that denied them basic rights and liberties. Slavery was perhaps at its worst in its impact on the family, where slave marriages had no legal standing, sexual abuse of women was frequent, and families could be broken up on the master’s whim. Many white families also lived a spartan existence in that era. It is estimated that in 1860 about half of the free families owned no land and three-fifths owned no slaves. Property became increasingly concentrated in a few hands and, by the time of the Civil War, about one-tenth of the people held nine-tenths of the wealth.
Georgians not only grew cotton, they also turned it into cloth. The first cotton mill in Georgia was built in 1829 on the Oconee River at White Hall. By the Civil War, Georgia was the South’s leading producer of cotton goods with almost 3,000 workers, 60 percent of whom were women. In addition to cotton cloth, Georgia produced woolen and leather goods, pig iron, paper, shoes, carriages, and a variety of other products. Slavery moved from the field to the factory. In 1860 about 5 percent of the slave labor force was used in industry.
Transportation facilities were also expanded throughout the state. Georgia’s first rail line, the Georgia Railroad, chartered in 1833, ran about 160 km (100 mi) from Athens to Augusta. Atlanta began as the starting point of the state-owned Western & Atlantic (W&A) Railroad, chartered in 1836 to run through the old Cherokee country from Atlanta to Chattanooga. Soon the W&A was linked to three other lines: the Georgia Railroad ran a branch from Union Point to Atlanta; the Central of Georgia came up from Savannah through Macon to Atlanta; and the Atlanta and West Point Railroad carried passengers and freight to Alabama.
Georgia’s booming economy fueled a population explosion. Between 1820 and 1840 the population more than doubled, from 341,000 to 691,000. In the 1840s and 1850s it grew by almost half again, passing 1 million by the time of the Civil War. In per-capita wealth, Georgia in 1860 was one of the ten richest states in the Union.
D4 The Civil War
Slavery was one of the most divisive political issues in Congress in the 19th century. Many Congress members from the Northern states pressed to end slavery, both because it was considered immoral and because white labor could not compete with unpaid black labor. Members from the Deep South (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida) believed that slavery was essential to their cotton-based agricultural system and that the North was trying to dominate the national economy.
By the 1850s, the Southern states were united in bitter opposition to proposed congressional legislation barring slavery from the country’s new Western territories. Many in the South were coming to believe that secession from the Union was the only way to protect “Southern rights,” including the right to own slaves. Yet many of Georgia’s leaders urged compromise. Largely through the efforts of three Georgians, Representatives Alexander H. Stephens, Robert Toombs, and Howell Cobb, the Southern states accepted the Compromise Measures of 1850, a series of acts that temporarily settled the issue.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected president as the candidate of the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of slavery. South Carolina had threatened to secede if the Republicans won, and in December 1860 it did so. Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown immediately advocated secession on the basis of the states’ rights doctrine. Stephens argued against it. While he conceded that Georgia had been treated poorly, he asserted that there was nothing to fear from Lincoln. Stephens had known Lincoln for years and argued that he was no enemy of the South. Moreover, Stephens pointed out that Lincoln as a Republican could do little to interfere with slavery because the Democratic Party controlled Congress and did not agree with the Republicans on the issue. Finally, Stephens pleaded for caution, since Georgia was doing well economically within the Union and might do worse if secession led to civil war.
Despite Stephens’s best efforts, Georgians voted narrowly for secession in January 1861 and joined other Southern states in forming the Confederate States of America. Stephens pledged to support his state regardless of its decision, and was chosen as vice president of the Confederacy. The American Civil War began officially on April 12, 1861, when South Carolina militia bombarded a federal fort in Charleston harbor.
During the war, Georgia was a major source of food, arms, and other supplies for the South until 1864. During the early part of the war the only military action in Georgia occurred along the coast, which was blockaded by Union gunboats. In 1862 Union troops captured Fort Pulaski. The first major battle in Georgia was in September 1863, when Union troops were routed at the Battle of Chickamauga.
At Andersonville Prison, near Andersonville, captured Union Army soldiers were confined between February 1864 and April 1865. Out of a total of 49,485 prisoners, about one-fourth of them died from constant exposure to the elements, inadequate food, impure water, congestion, and filth. After the war the prison superintendent, Major Henry Wirz, was tried for war crimes by a U.S. military court and hanged.
In the spring of 1864 a Union force, led by General William T. Sherman, invaded Georgia from Tennessee. Sherman and his men took Atlanta in September. After setting fire to the city in November, they resumed their famous march to the sea. Houses in their path were looted, and bridges, railroads, factories, mills, and warehouses were dismantled or burned. Sherman captured Savannah in December and then turned northward and marched into the Carolinas. The Confederacy finally surrendered in April 1865.
With men gone off to war, women successfully ran farms and plantations and supported the Confederacy in a variety of other ways. Women as well as men suffered from the invasion of their homes by conquering armies. Writing shortly after the war, Frances Howard of Bartow County noted that: “By the light of their burning homes, Southern women saw their children die of cold and hunger, and they heard the incendiaries laugh as they quoted the words of one of their leaders: ‘The seed of the serpent must be crushed from the land.’ Are these things easily forgotten?”
The Civil War brought profound change to Georgia. The most positive result was the end of slavery. Blacks were still denied opportunity at every turn, however, and most found their economic condition only slightly better than under slavery. The war had a devastating effect on white Georgians. Thousands of men failed to return home. The abolition of slavery and destruction of factories and fields wiped out much of the South’s capital.
D5 Reconstruction
Within a few months of the surrender, white Georgians regained their political rights: President Andrew Johnson permitted them to elect delegates to a state constitutional convention. Johnson’s plan of restoration, or Reconstruction, of the Union was to reestablish the state governments and then readmit the states to Congress. The delegates duly repealed the 1861 ordinance of secession and recognized the abolition of slavery. They failed, however, to give blacks the right to vote or to testify against whites in court. In general, the new constitution maintained white supremacy. Constitutions drafted in the other Confederate states were similar. The legislatures of Georgia and the other states also passed black codes, a series of laws severely restricting the liberties of the newly freed blacks.
Partly because of these acts by the Southern states, the radical wing of the Republican Party in Congress wrested control of Reconstruction from President Johnson and imposed the harsher regime called Radical Reconstruction. In March 1867 Congress put all the ex-Confederate states except Tennessee under military rule. Readmission to the Union was made conditional on their adoption of new constitutions acceptable to Congress. They were required to extend the vote and basic civil rights to all men, regardless of race. The Republican Party now gained control in Georgia, based on a coalition of blacks, businessmen, and white small farmers from the northern mountain counties. This coalition in 1868 elected a Republican governor, Rufus B. Bullock, and a legislature that ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment extended citizenship to anyone born in the United States and promised all people the equal protection of the laws. Georgia was readmitted to the Union in 1870.
Republican rule was soon undermined, however, by the violence of a secret terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, which acted as a clandestine arm of the state Democratic Party. In 1868 alone, more than 300 Georgia blacks were murdered or assaulted by white terrorists. It was soon apparent that most white Republicans in Georgia were not strongly committed to equal rights. Several months into the 1868 legislative session, many Republicans joined with the Democrats in expelling black legislators although they had been fairly elected. The following year the legislature failed to ratify the 15th Amendment, which prohibited race from being used as a requirement for voting.
Despite a feeble attempt by the U.S. Army to restore order, the Republican Party in Georgia was finished. When a new legislature took office in 1871, Governor Bullock fled the state to avoid being impeached. Despite charges of corruption against the Republicans, it is clear that Democrats were also involved in dirty dealings; and corruption did not end with the return of Democratic rule. The state was under one-party rule by the Democrats for almost the next 100 years.
D6 Recovery and Growth
Economically as well as politically, Georgia was greatly disrupted by the war and its aftermath. The state slowly recovered during the latter part of the 19th century. With the aid of Northern as well as Southern capital, new banks and businesses were founded, and railroad and business facilities were restored. After Reconstruction, almost all prominent politicians in Georgia were Democrats. One faction was known as the New Departure, or Bourbon, Democrats, who encouraged industrialization. The cotton textile industry was expanded; the production of cottonseed oil, cattle feed, and fertilizer was undertaken. In the 1870s, Georgia became a major source of naval stores, and other natural resources were developed. Atlanta, which became the state capital in 1868, grew into a prosperous manufacturing and commercial center.
The hands of the Bourbons were tied, however, by a new constitution in 1877, which prohibited state debt, limited state funding of public schools to the elementary grades, prevented most forms of aid to business, and guaranteed rural control of the legislature. In general, farmers wanted low property taxes and few government services, so the state was prevented from doing much to attract industry. Southern businesses were further handicapped by discriminatory railroad rates, which favored Northern over Southern shippers. Not surprisingly, Georgia and the South lagged far behind the rest of the country economically.
Agriculture remained the chief economic activity, but many large cotton and rice plantations, formerly dependent on slave labor, were broken up into smaller farms operated by tenant farmers or sharecroppers. Rice production ceased, but the production of cotton, emphasized under the sharecropping system, continued to increase. A modest trend toward diversified farming began in the 1890s with the introduction of peach trees. Soon Georgia was noted for its peach, apple, and pecan orchards. Still, Georgia remained dependent on the cotton crop. A symptom of Georgia’s agricultural stagnation was the high rate of sharecropping and tenant farming. By 1910 half the white farmers and 87 percent of the blacks did not own the farms they operated.
Sharecropping and tenant farming were substitutes for paid farm labor where little cash was available to pay wages. A sharecropper raised part of the landlord’s crop and was paid a share of the profits after deductions for living expenses and the cost of tools and supplies. A tenant farmer sold what he raised and paid the landlord a share of the profits as rent. The landlord chose the crop to raise and either owned it (in sharecropping) or had a lien on it (in tenant farming). If the profit was low, the landlord’s share was paid first. The cropper or tenant took what was left or, if none was left, got an advance to keep going for another year.
In the effort to recover financially, landowners relied almost exclusively on their traditional cash crop, cotton. However, the price of cotton was low through the rest of the century, while living costs rose. Mounting debt forced small farmers to give up their land and become tenants or sharecroppers. Once in that system, they were forced to remain because they could seldom earn enough to pay off their yearly advances. Not until World War II (1939-1945), when widespread mechanization of agriculture made sharecropping unprofitable, did the system begin to disappear.
Some impoverished whites were able to escape from the fields to the factories. However, Georgia industry demanded low skills and paid low wages. Company paternalism protected workers to some degree, as mill owners typically provided housing, schools, hospitals, and churches. Nonetheless, even young women in the Georgia mills were described in 1891 by an observer as carrying “the weight of a century on their bowed backs ... a slouching gait; a drooping chest ... yellow, blotched complexion; dead-looking hair; stained lips, destitute of color and revealing broken teeth—these are the dower of girlhood in the mills.” During the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, industry offered little opportunity for Georgia workers to rise in society.
D7 The Agrarian Revolt
As elsewhere in the nation, small farmers suffered as wealth created by commerce and manufacturing was concentrated in the hands of a few business barons. Among the causes of unrest were the declining prices of farm products, the growing indebtedness of farmers to merchants and banks, and discriminatory freight rates imposed on farmers by the railroads. In the 1870s and 1880s American farmers in the Midwest formed self-help groups such as the Grange and Farmers’ Alliance. The movement spread nationwide and was called populism. When these organizations decided that agricultural grievances had to be addressed with political action, they formed an important third political party, the People’s Party.
A leading spokesperson for both the Alliance and the People’s Party was Congressman Thomas Watson of Georgia. His radical views, his willingness to appeal to black farmers, and his outspoken attacks on the two major parties made the 1892 election in his Tenth District a focus of national attention. The dominance of the state Democratic Party, which stood for white power, was seriously threatened, and they stole the election using a variety of methods. Watson’s opponent, Major James Black, publicly warned of the specter of black “domination.” Newspapers inveighed against “anarchy and communism.” Ballot box stuffing, intimidation, and bribery were used flagrantly. In one county the election judges accepted a total vote, overwhelmingly for Black, that was far beyond the number of registered voters in the county. Watson fought through several bitter losing campaigns for the People’s Party, running for vice president and president, among other offices, before the party faded in 1908. Ironically, in his embittered old age, when he had turned into an anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic white supremacist, he was finally elected a Democratic U.S. senator from Georgia in 1920. He died in office in 1922.
The populists’ coalition of black and white farmers had fallen apart after 1896 as a result of intimidation and white susceptibility to racist Democratic appeals. Segregation of the races, through separate public facilities for whites and blacks, became a basic rule in Georgia and all Southern society in the last two decades of the 19th century. Blacks had to live in different parts of towns, go to separate schools, eat at separate restaurants, and use different laundries, restrooms, and even drinking fountains. The facilities provided for blacks were never as good as those provided for whites. The poll tax and other devices were instituted to prevent most blacks from voting.
E The 20th Century
E1 World War I and After
During World War I (1914-1918) the country’s needs stimulated growth in Georgia’s industries, and Georgia farmers profited from high wartime prices for their crops. Good times continued into the 1920s for Atlanta, Georgia’s largest city. Atlanta’s growth was largely a product of Georgia’s excellent network of railroads, which brought trade and tourist dollars to Atlanta. The Coca-Cola Company, started in the 1880s, was the city’s best known industrial concern. Under the leadership of Robert Woodruff, Coca-Cola in the 1920s began to expand its markets throughout the world. Atlanta was also a banking and insurance center. During the early part of the 20th century, Atlanta became a premier cultural center for the Deep South. It was the home of a symphony orchestra, numerous blues and country music performers, and a number of colleges for blacks and whites.
In rural areas, however, prosperity did not last long after the war. During the early 1920s much of the state’s cotton crop was destroyed by the boll weevil. In addition, the soil in many areas was exhausted by overproduction and erosion. Thousands abandoned the farms and migrated to cities and towns. So many blacks left the region for Northern cities that their exodus is called the Great Migration. The hard times of the 1920s were followed by the even harder times of the Great Depression, which lasted through the 1930s. By the 1940s, the old plantation system was gone. The number of farms had declined and the remaining farmers consolidated their holdings and began to operate increasingly with machinery. Diversification became a necessity, with peanuts, soybeans, cattle, poultry, and tree farms replacing cotton.
E2 Political Developments, 1930s-1940s
During the early 1930s, Governor Richard B. Russell, Jr., was instrumental in reorganizing some branches of the state government. One major change was the placing of all of the separate state-supported institutions of higher learning under the administration of a single state board of regents. Eugene Talmadge, who succeeded Russell as governor in 1933, was the major figure in Georgia politics for the next 12 years. In his first two terms he strenuously opposed the attempt of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to establish its New Deal programs of economic relief in the state. However, Talmadge’s successor, Eurith D. Rivers, was a Roosevelt supporter, and various federal and state relief programs were carried out in Georgia during his two terms. The state’s revenues failed to meet the cost of its relief services, however, and Talmadge was elected again in 1940 on a platform of economy in state government. He continued most of Rivers’s programs despite his past opposition to them.
After Governor Ellis Arnall took office in 1943, Georgia entered a period of progressive change. It became the first state in the nation to lower the voting age to 18. Before most Deep South states, Georgia in 1945 abolished the poll tax. A merit system was instituted for jobs in state government, and a new constitution was adopted. Arnall went to the U.S. Supreme Court with a case against the railroads, forcing them to charge the same freight rates in the South as they did in other parts of the nation. Between 1943 and 1947, Arnall achieved the most remarkable record of progressive reform that Georgia had seen to that time.
Rapid change, however, was not favored by all, and provoked a backlash in “Gene Talmadge country,” the rural areas of south Georgia. Talmadge was elected governor for the fourth time in 1946, but died before inauguration. The legislature then chose his son, Herman, as governor on the grounds that he had received the largest number of write-in votes in the election. Arnall, maintaining that the governorship should go to the lieutenant governor-elect, Melvin E. Thompson, refused to leave his office on inauguration day. Talmadge then forcibly occupied the office. Thompson set up a government in exile in downtown Atlanta, and for 67 days Georgia had two governors. Finally the state supreme court ruled in favor of Thompson, and he was sworn in. In a special election in 1948, however, Herman Talmadge defeated Thompson and served the last two years of his father’s term. Talmadge was reelected in 1950, and later represented the state in the U.S. Senate for 24 years.
E3 Economic Growth During World War II and the 1950s
From the Civil War to the mid-20th century, Georgia was one of the poorest states in the Union; the only states as poor were other Southern states. Indeed, during the Great Depression, President Roosevelt made a speech in Georgia declaring the South to be “the Nation’s No. 1 economic problem.” In 1940 the average Georgia family earned only 57 percent as much as the typical family nationwide. The American entry into World War II in 1941 began the economic revival of Georgia and the South. Military bases were created or expanded near virtually all sizable Georgia towns. Federal dollars poured into the region to build airplanes, ships, and munitions for the war effort. Suddenly there were more good jobs at decent pay than Georgians had ever known.
A good example of the economic impact of the war is the Bell Aircraft Company, which converted Marietta from a sleepy town to a booming industrial center. Bell built a plant in Marietta in 1942 to build B-29 bombers for the war effort. A town of about 8,000 in 1940, Marietta became the home of a business employing almost 29,000 workers, and at much higher wages than Southerners were accustomed to earning. With a large number of men off fighting, a significant part of the workforce consisted of women. Despite Southern customs of segregation, Bell also provided some opportunities for blacks. Although the Bell plant closed at the end of the war, it was reopened by Lockheed Corporation in 1950 with the outbreak of the Korean War. In the 1990s, Lockheed continued to be a major employer, relying primarily on government contracts.
When the war ended, soldiers returned home to households with much more spending money than in the past. By 1950 the average Georgia family income was 70 percent of the national average, and Georgians continued to narrow the income gap during the next several decades. National corporations, noting the healthier economy of the South, established regional headquarters in cities such as Atlanta. The availability of air conditioning made the hot, humid Southern summers less of a deterrent to Northerners. The war also improved the training of Georgia’s industrial workforce. A number of Northern industries moved south, attracted by the large labor pool, low wage scale, lack of unions, low taxes, and favorable climate. National migration patterns began to reverse. For decades many of the South’s brightest young people had deserted the region for the greater opportunities of the North. By the mid-1950s more whites were moving into Georgia each year than were departing, and by the mid-1970s the same was true for blacks. Moreover, those arriving tended to be better educated and skilled than those leaving, so that the net gain for Georgia was large.
Some sluggish older industries became more dynamic as they moved to the South. For example, for more than 100 years, carpet manufacturers had made beautiful, high-quality woven rugs in Northern plants. The floor coverings were so expensive, however, that only the affluent could afford wall-to-wall carpeting. The typical prewar house had a hardwood floor because wood was cheaper than carpets. But in the Dalton area of north Georgia, local entrepreneurs in the 1940s built machines to produce carpeting by a new, cheaper technique called tufting. After they discovered in the 1950s that durable, inexpensive rugs could be made with nylon thread, the carpet industry experienced unparalleled growth. Within a generation of the war’s end, United States home builders had virtually stopped installing hardwood floors, and wall-to-wall carpeting was nearly universal. In the late 1990s north Georgia continues to be the center of the world carpet industry.
E4 The Civil Rights Movement
The transformation of the South’s economy was coupled with an even more remarkable alteration of society in the area of race relations. Black soldiers returning home from World War II were often in the forefront in demanding change. In general, young people were no longer willing to tolerate the indignities their parents had suffered. Soon the white politicians found themselves confronted with a movement demanding an end to racial segregation and discrimination.
In 1946 a federal court knocked down Georgia’s white primary law, a device to ensure white control of party machinery. That February the vote of Atlanta blacks made the difference in sending to Washington a white liberal, Helen Douglas Mankin, the first Georgia woman elected to Congress. Police departments began to hire black officers, first in Savannah in 1947, then in Atlanta the next year; at that time, however, black police were only allowed to arrest fellow blacks.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 decided, in Brown v. Board of Education, that segregated schools were unconstitutional. Soon Georgia blacks filed a number of cases in federal courts to force public schools and colleges to abide by the Brown decision. In January 1961 two students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, forced the University of Georgia to open its doors to black students. That fall, following a federal court order in the case of Calhoun v. Latimer, the Atlanta public schools began to desegregate. Over the next decade the tradition of segregated education was fundamentally altered.
The civil rights movement in the United States was centered in Atlanta, which was the home of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In March 1960 black college students in Atlanta, and soon other Georgia cities, began holding sit-ins at segregated restaurants, lunch counters, parks, and churches. The nonviolent protests also included marching, picketing, and occasional boycotting of stores. While demonstrators were usually met with hostility, they sometimes got results. In Atlanta, for instance, business leaders feared the negative publicity the city received when it arrested or harmed peaceful demonstrators. Progressive mayors such as William B. Hartsfield and Ivan Allen, Jr., had worked hard to build Atlanta into the commercial and transportation center of the South. They advertised Atlanta as “the city too busy to hate.” By 1961 they were willing to end segregation at lunch counters and negotiate with civil rights leaders on other reforms.
At the same time, many Georgia politicians in the 1950s and 1960s engaged in massive resistance to integration of public facilities. Following Brown v. Board of Education the state threatened to cut off public funding to any school that integrated. In 1956 the state flag was changed to include the Confederate battle flag. For some this was merely a way to honor the memory of the brave soldiers who fought for the Confederacy, but for others it represented resistance to federal attempts to change the racist laws and customs of the past. In 1964 Congress passed a civil rights act that ended segregation in public places. Lester Maddox became a folk hero to some whites by closing his Atlanta restaurant rather than admit black customers. Two years later he was elected governor. While his record as governor was more progressive than his image, he nevertheless symbolized a defiant Georgia that stood outside the national mainstream.
In 1971 Maddox was succeeded by a man who projected a much different image—Jimmy Carter. In his inaugural address Carter said something that Georgians had not heard a governor utter since Reconstruction. The achievement of the civil rights movement in transforming attitudes was apparent when Carter announced: “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over. Our people have already made this major and difficult decision, but we cannot underestimate the challenge of hundreds of minor decisions yet to be made.” Carter went on to call for equal opportunity for all. Five years later, he was elected president of the United States. Carter himself has often credited the civil rights movement with making it possible for statesmen from the Deep South to ascend to the presidency. He represented a new generation of Southern leaders who no longer had to defend segregation and thus could appeal to the majority of Americans outside the region.
Carter was perhaps correct that the majority of Georgians, sometime in the 1960s and 1970s, stopped trying to defend segregation and white supremacy. A change in practices, to some degree, led to a change in attitudes. Yet a backlash against the civil rights movement was also apparent. The integration of the Atlanta public schools, a high crime rate, high taxes, and the high cost of housing, were contributing factors to white flight, the movement of white residents from the city to the suburbs. Atlanta went quickly from being a majority-white to a majority-black city, encircled by a ring of white communities. In 1968 Georgians were so disenchanted with both the Democrats and the Republicans that they cast their presidential ballots for third-party candidate George Wallace of Alabama, the onetime symbol of Southern resistance to school integration.
E5 Modern Georgia After 1970
Georgia in the last quarter of the 20th century has continued to be a place of contrasts and contradictions. On one hand it is a state of remarkable promise, an economic powerhouse with a thriving economy. On the other hand it remains a state with immense social problems, where opportunity is often far from equal for those in rural areas or inner cities.
Atlanta has continued to symbolize modern, progressive Georgia. As far back as the 1920s, visionary Atlantans promoted the development of the city’s airport as the key to future growth. Following World War II, as air traffic increasingly supplanted passenger trains, the Atlanta airport grew into one of the nation’s busiest. The end of segregation allowed Atlanta in the 1960s to become the home of major league sports teams, first in baseball, then football and basketball. In the 1970s blacks rose to political power. In 1972 Andrew Young, one of Martin Luther King’s chief lieutenants, became the state’s first black congressman since Reconstruction, and he was elected from a majority-white district. The next year Maynard Jackson became Atlanta’s first black mayor. When Carter became president, he named Young to represent the United States at the United Nations, where the former civil rights leader gained international influence.
The most visible example of modern Atlanta business leadership has been Ted Turner, who inherited a small outdoor advertising company and turned it into a communications empire, first through a cable television station, Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), then through the Cable News Network (CNN). In the meantime Turner became owner of two of the town’s sports teams, the Braves and the Hawks. While CNN carried Atlanta’s name abroad, state and local leaders put much money and energy into attracting foreign companies to the Atlanta area. In large part due to Atlanta’s success in becoming an international city and to the prestige throughout the world of leaders such as Carter, King, and Young, the Georgia capital was able to attract the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. The event was held during July and August 1996. The Olympic Games were generally considered a success, despite some logistical problems and a still-unsolved bombing that killed two people.
While Georgia has grown in prosperity, it has also experienced with the rest of the South an amazing political transformation away from one-party rule by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party generally dominated state and local politics in Georgia after Reconstruction. Successful candidates in Democratic primary elections were often assured of winning office. However, the perceived liberalism of the national Democrats on race issues was part of white Georgians’ alienation from the party.
The South’s economic recovery produced a more affluent, better educated population, with more people living in suburbs. These voters tended to identify with the Republicans’ commitment to low taxes. They favored limiting the growth of federal welfare programs, and they considered the Republicans to be more pro-family than the Democrats.
The Republican Party became important in presidential politics in the state in the 1960s. Republican Barry Goldwater carried Georgia in the 1964 presidential election and that same year Howard (“Bo”) Callaway became the first Republican elected to Congress from Georgia since Reconstruction. In the 1968 presidential election Georgia supported George C. Wallace of Alabama, the candidate of the ultra-conservative American Independent Party. Republican Richard Nixon won Georgia in the 1972 presidential election. In 1976 Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate and a former Georgia governor, carried both the state and the nation, becoming the first native Georgian to win the presidency. In the 1980 election, however, Georgia was one of only six states to support Carter. In that election, Republicans achieved their next major breakthrough in Georgia. Mack Mattingly defeated Georgia’s senior U.S. senator, Herman Talmadge. Georgia went for Republicans Ronald Reagan in 1984 and George Bush in 1988 but supported Democrat Bill Clinton of Arkansas in 1992. Although the Republicans lost their Senate seat in 1986, they won it back in 1992 with the election of Paul Coverdell. Greater success came in 1994 when Republicans captured 7 of Georgia’s 11 seats in the House. The Republicans not only seized control in Georgia, but for the first time in 40 years gained national control of Congress. Georgian Newt Gingrich, who helped mastermind the Republican takeover, became Speaker of the House.
In 1995 the state’s U.S. congressional districts were redrawn for the second time in three years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the 11th District, which had been gerrymandered to produce a black majority, was unconstitutional. The 11th had been redrawn in 1992 to link black communities after the U.S. Justice Department told Georgia it was not in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The high court, however, disagreed with the Justice Department and held that race could not be used as a predominant factor in drawing district boundaries. In 1996 the court upheld Georgia’s new districting map, which reduced the number of majority-black districts from three to one. Despite the redrawing, Georgia’s three black U.S. congressional representatives all won reelection in November 1996.
E6 Georgia at the Millennium
Toward the end of the 20th century Georgia was growing much more rapidly than the nation as a whole. The state added a million residents in the 1980s, then another 723,000 between 1990 and 1995. Georgia’s 1995 population was approximately 7.2 million, making it the tenth largest state in the nation. People in other states and countries obviously found Georgia to be an attractive place to live: In the first half of the 1990s about 360,000 more people moved in to the state than moved away. The black population at mid-decade was growing slightly faster than the white population. Some 28 percent of Georgians had black ancestry, compared to 13 percent nationwide. By 1994 per-capita personal income in Georgia was 93 percent of the national average, while in the metropolitan Atlanta area it was 109 percent.
These positive indicators, however, masked the fact that not everyone participated in the good times. Georgia in the 1990s had one of the worst records of any state for the percentage of births to teenage and unwed mothers. The infant mortality rate in 1993 was 10.4 per 1,000 live births, compared to 8.4 per 1,000 nationwide. Twenty-nine percent of all Georgians age 25 or older lacked a high school diploma in 1990, compared to 25 percent in the rest of the country. The gap between whites and blacks was especially great. In 1989 per-capita income for Georgia’s black population was only 51 percent of that for whites, almost unchanged in 20 years and very close to what it was before the civil rights movement. Nevertheless, as the century comes to a close, Georgia is much closer to national norms than it once was.
The history section of this article was contributed by Thomas A. Scott. The remainder of the article was contributed by Truman A. Hartshorn.

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