Georgia Redemption

Georgia Redemption Miss Adams

Bourbon Triumvirate • Refers to the three Georgia leaders who held office and power during Georgia’s redemption years. • Joseph E. Brown • Alfred H. Colquitt • John B. Gordon

Joseph E. Brown • Raised in Union Co. • Wanted Georgia to go along with radical Reconstructionists • Lawyer • Graduate of Yale • Judge • Governor of Georgia • Appointed to John Gordon’s seat in U.S. Senate by Gov. Colquitt • Trustee of University of Georgia • Headed company that leased railroads • Believed in white supremacy • Believed in educational improvements • President, Atlanta Board of Education

Alfred H. Colquitt • Born in Walton Co. • Fought in Mexican-American War • Military leader in Civil War • Close friend of Joseph E. Brown • Elected to U.S. Senate • Governor of Georgia • Believed in white supremacy • Helped reduce state debt • Appointed a close friend to U.S. Senate • Graduate of Princeton

John B. Gordon • • • • • • • • • • •

Born in Upson Co. Attended University of Georgia Newspaper correspondent Coal mine manager Governor of Georgia Civil War military leader Wrote a book about the war Helped reduce state debt Believed in white supremacy Brought new business to state Had a college in Georgia named after him

The Felton’s •

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William Felton was a doctor, farmer, Methodist Preacher, and public speaker He was married to Rebecca Latimer Felton The Felton's dedicated most of their time to supporting political causes – mostly attacking the Bourbons. They used their familyowned newspaper to argue that the leaders of the Democratic Party in Georgia were ignoring the poor and lower middle class. They were especially critical of the Bourbons for the Convict Lease Program.

Rebecca Latimer Felton

• She was deeply involved in many causes but was also a leader in the suffrage and temperance movement (antialcohol). • Long before women were supposed to have views and opinions she was delivering her platform through her newspaper. Folks listened to her. • Atlanta Journal and Constitution eventually asked her to become a colonists. She was a popular writer who shared her ideals and views through the newspaper for 41 years.

• This Georgia woman goes on to become the first female Senator in the United States history.

The Convict Lease Program • Prisoners were leased (hired out) to people who provided them with housing and food in exchange for labor. 90% were Black • At first it was great because they were building courthouses and stuff. • As it turned out, the three largest companies in Georgia were getting the prisoners and giving the state only $25,000 a year no matter how many convicts worked. • Companies that leased convicts agreed to pay for medical care, to allow prisoners to rest on Sundays, to see that prisoners had adequate housing, clothes and food. These rules were widely ignored. • Some companies literally worked prisoners to death and then would simply lease more.

The Convict Lease Program – Hurting the White Man Now • Convicts were doing the jobs that the other folks normally would have been paid to do. This increased the number of unemployed and poor. This continued for 30 years until the convicts law was changed by a legislative committee who also established a separate prison farm for females.

The New South • While the Bourbon Triumvirate was controlling the political arena – Henry W. Grady, the leading journalist of the time and brilliant speaker, was leading another movement in Georgia that would being about much needed change. • In one of his writing in the Atlanta Daily Herald, Grady described the need for a “New South” that would become much more like the industrialized north.

Henry W. Grady • Henry W. Grady, the "Spokesman of the New South," served as managing editor for the Atlanta Constitution in the 1880s. A member of the Atlanta Ring of Democratic political leaders, Grady used his office and influence to promote a New South program of northern investment, southern industrial growth, diversified farming, and white supremacy. Grady County, created in 1905, is named in his honor.

Grady’s New South • Invited to speak at the 1886 meeting of the New England Society in New York City, Grady preached the promises of a New South. Though the idea was not original with Grady, his advocacy of unity and trust between the North and South helped to spur northern investment in Atlanta industries. • Upon returning to Atlanta, Grady published in the Constitution numerous articles proclaiming the superiority of Atlanta for its diversified small industry and "willing" labor force. Grady infuriated competitors in Augusta, Macon, and Athens with these claims, but his promotional efforts brought results. In 1887 he successfully lobbied for the establishment in Atlanta of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), a state school devoted to vocational and industrial education. In 1881, 1887, and 1895 Atlanta hosted cotton expositions, industrial fairs that attracted millions of investment dollars and provided new jobs to the city's growing population. • Grady caught pneumonia at the age of 39 and died. He is forever remembered as the “Voice of the New South”

International Cotton Expositions

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In the late nineteenth century, fairs and expositions were an important way for cities to attract visitors who, in an era before radio and television, were eager to see new technological marvels on display. These events provided civic leaders with a showcase to lure visitors, who were urged to come and do business in the host location. In the years following the Civil War (1861-65), Atlanta's leaders hosted a series of three "cotton expositions" that were important to the city's recovery and economic development. These expositions helped Atlanta stake its claim as the center of the New South. The great promoter of the first two expositions was Henry W. Grady, the managing editor of the Atlanta Constitution and one of the framers of a new vision for the South and its economy.

• The International Cotton Exposition did showcase Atlanta as a regional business center and helped to attract investment. Although most of the 1895 exposition's buildings were torn down so that the materials could be sold for scrap, the city eventually purchased the grounds, which became the present-day Piedmont Park.

The Development of Industry in Georgia • In the late 1800’s, much of Georgia was mainly agricultural. However, Grady’s dream of a New South based on business and industry was coming to pass. The expanding railroad lines was the key to the development of these industries that used the railroad to transport their products.

Textiles

• One of the first industries in the state. Textile mills take raw materials, such as sheep’s wool, cashmere from the Indian cashmere goat, angora from a poor rabbit, grass, hemp, cotton, etc.. and create the textiles such as shirts and pants, rugs, curtains – any type of woven fabric.

• The major manufacturing centers in Georgia were in cities along the Fall Line (Macon, Augusta and Columbus). There were major rivers there for making waterpower. Northern investors built most of them and got rich off of the cheap labor on the part of women mostly.

Timber • Timber was a huge source for industrial growth. Lumber was used to replace buildings destroyed during the war and to build new factories, mills and housing for the people who worked in them. Forests also provided furniture, pulp, paper, and naval stores used in ship building. • Naval stores are products derived from pine sap – such as turpentine, rosin, tar, pitch, soap, paint, varnish, show polish, roofing materials, etc… • Sawmills popped up everywhere, railroads followed to transport the goods and soon sawmills towns and more jobs were all over Georgia.

Minerals • Georgia has rich stores of kaolin (white clay used to make paper), gold, coal, iron, and bauxite.

Art in the New South

Joel Chandler Harris Author of Uncle Remus •

Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton (Putnam County), Georgia to a poor unwed mother somewhere between the years of 1845 and 1848. He left home at the age of thirteen and became an apprentice to Joseph Addison Turner, a newspaper publisher and plantation owner. It is at this plantation that Harris first heard the black folktales when he befriended one of the older slaves on the plantation. In 1879 Harris published his first tale in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. It was called “Story of Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox as told by Uncle Remus. Within months, magazines across the country were reprinting his tales, and after more than 1,000 written requests for a collection, the first Uncle Remus book was published in November, 1880.

Sidney Lanier •

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Sidney Clopton Lanier was born in Macon, Georgia in 1842. He grew up playing the flute and became an accomplished musician later on. He attended Oglethorpe University and graduated first in his class shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. He fought in the war during battles in Virginia and piloted blockade runners with his brother later in the war. On one of these voyages, his ship was boarded. Refusing to take the advice of the British officers on board to don one of their uniforms and pretend to be one of them, he was captured. He was incarcerated in a military prison in Maryland, where he contracted tuberculosis. He suffered greatly from this affliction for the rest of his life. Sidney Lanier is one of the most famous poets in the United States history. His most popular poems include: “Corn,” “The Marshes of Glyn.”, and “Song of the Chattahoochee” – in which he speaks of White County.