Life of the Peoplein a Changing

Society

Georgia HistoryChapter 16

Mrs. Stephanie Holland

Georgia’s heavy dependence on cotton and the lack of factory jobs held the people back.

Two thirds of Georgia workers were farmers.

The average yearly income in 1900 for Georgians was $259.00. Georgia farmers were among the poorest people in the nation.

Georgia could not industrialize because they had no capital to build the factories and mills.

Textile mills had existed in Georgia before the Civil War, but they were small and located mainly along the Fall Line. Georgians had to buy most of their

manufactured goods from outside the state.

Fairs and Expositions In 1881, Atlanta held the World’s Fair and

Great International Cotton Exposition. Its purpose was to bring people to Georgia and encourage businesses to build industry in the state.

Its success prompted a second fair in 1887 where President Grover Cleveland attended. The location later became Piedmont Park.

In 1895, the Exposition displayed other resources and achievements.

Booker T. Washington spoke on the role of black people in the South’s economic life as he saw it.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show entertained that year.

As a result of the expositions and other efforts, textile manufacturing became Georgia’s leading industry.

Northern companies built textile mills in Georgia because the mills were closer to cotton fields, which cut transportation costs, taxes were lower, and the climate was milder. The main reason was the availability of cheap labor in the South.

Other Industry Iron, coal, gold and clay were mined Marble and granite quarries were

developed. New factories and mills (steam and water

powered)

New towns grew up around the railroads and resources. Wherever a manufacturing plant might be built and jobs available.

Agriculture Georgia’s Black Belt region was located

along the Fall Line. It was called the Black Belt region because

of its high percentage of black residents.

More cotton was produced now, than in the antebellum years.

Also raised were peaches, pecans, corn, cattle and hogs.

Land owners had a dire need for laborers and the poor had a dire need for land to farm. There were several solutions.

Tenant farming – The farmer had no land, but was willing to live on and work someone elses land. Some were “renters” and paid the landowner an agreed upon amount in cash or crops when the season ended.

If the renter mismanaged the farm or lost the crop due to bad weather, HE suffered ALL the loss and still owed his rent.

Some Georgians were too poor to rent and landowners in need of labor made a different arrangement for them. Sharecropping. Landowners provided land, a house, plows, mules, seed and other supplies and in return, he received a share of the crop raised on the land.

Sharecroppers and Tenant farmers ALWAYS supplied the labor in these arrangements

Credit A farmer needed money to farm and could

not often get money from a bank. This meant that stores sometimes allowed them to buy on credit. The crop was the only security the farmer had to put up. This was called a crop lien. If he could not make payment, he could loose his land.

The most valuable possession for a farmer was his crop.

Help for the Farmer The Grange – a nationwide self help

farmers organization came to Georgia in 1872. They pressed the General Assembly to create

the Department of Agriculture which assisted the farmer by distributing information about new seed, how to use fertilizer and new products.

It set up cooperative stores that were run by and for farmers. Members bout directly from producers, cutting out the middle man and decreasing cost.

UGA established a College of Agriculture The state set up agricultural experiment

station to help determine what plants and animals grew best in Georgia.

When Grange membership dropped, the Farmers’ Alliance stepped in to help, offering lower interest on loans, set up more farmer “co-ops” and organized boycotts of stores with high prices.

Growth of Towns and Cities

By 1910, one out of every three residents of Georgia lived in a village, town or city.

Atlanta was developed around a railroad. Businesses were drawn to the area because of the availability of transportation and people were drawn there for jobs.

In Atlanta, the area around Auburn Avenue developed as a social and commercial center for African Americans.

Georgia Society Populists sought to grant blacks political

equality. But not social equality. Few black leaders accepted the places that whites believed they should occupy.

Niagara Movement – first national effort to end Jim Crow laws.

NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“Atlanta Compromise” – Booker T. Washington’s message. Blacks should accept their status for the time being. They should learn a skill, acquire a home and become self sufficient, then political equality would come.

Race Riots in Atlanta – Typical of violence by whites against blacks. Left 25 blacks and 1 white dead.

Lynchings – typically whites murdering blacks.

Ku Klux Klan – reborn in Stone Mountain in 1915.

As a result of the racial discrimination and violence in the 1900’s, many African Americans began leaving in large numbers for jobs up north.

Education Early public education in Georgia included

elementary education and universities. State funds were not spent on high schools. Until 1912, if an area wanted a high school, it had to find the funding itself.

The schools (white and black) were separated. More money was spent on the education of white students than black students.

In 1916, the state passed a law for compulsory attendance. Children 8-14 must go to school 4 months per

year. Children who lived more than 3 miles from the

closest school did not have to attend. Children could be excused for seasonal labor in

agriculture.

Terms to know! Black belt – heart of the cotton growing

region, along the Fall Line. Crop lien – legal claim to a farmer’s crop

as payment for a loan given to grow that crop.

Dry goods – textiles and ready made clothing.

Sharecropping –the farmer works someone else’s land for a portion of the crops.

Tenant farming – the farmer is renting the land or works for wages or a share of the crops he produces.

People to know Three leaders of the early 1900’s that are

most closely associated with education and efforts to improve the lives of African Americans were DuBois, Hope and Washington.

William E.B. DuBois – organized the Niagara movement and helped establish the NAACP.

John Hope – President of Morehouse College and later Atlanta University. Spoke out against Booker T. Washington’s message.

Booker T. Washington – Founder of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama where he stressed technical training, learning a trade and agriculture. His message at the Cotton States and International Exposition was called the “Atlanta Compromise.”

Henry Grady – Enthusiastic booster of the New South Movement. He gave a funeral speech that illustrated Georgia’s dependence on the North. He believed that the key to breaking that dependence and poverty was to use Georgia’s own natural resources, build new factories and mills. He travelled thru the north urging businesses to invest in the south.

Gustavus Orr – Father of the common school system. Encouraged citizens to tax themselves to pay for schools.

Morris Rich – Immigrant from Hungary who established Rich’s department store as a “dry goods” store.. It was called “Atlanta’s department store”.

John Pemberton – druggist who created Coca Cola as a headache remedy.

Asa Candler – emphasized the refreshing qualities of Coca cola rather than its medicinal values, established a more popular product.

Ernest Woodruff – President of the Trust Company of Georgia which bought the Cola product for $25 million. Under his management, it became an international product before WWII.

Alonzo Herndon – former slave from Walton Country. Opened several barbershops the largest of which served an all white clientele. Later owned the Atlanta Life Insurance Company.

Tom Watson – Originally spoke out for black people because he needed their votes. When he realized racial issues were intense and that he needed the votes of the poor, uneducated whites to succeed, he began to preach racial hatred and violence. In order to He told the readers of his newspaper that Jews and Catholics were also their enemies.

Leo M. Frank – Jewish factory worker accused of killing a 14 year old girl at a pencil factory in 1913. He was convicted and condemned to hang based on evidence many suspected as false.

John Slaton – Georgia governor who was so troubled over the sentence of Leo M. Frank that he changed sentence to life in prison. At the urging of Tom Watson, a lynch mob took

Mr. Frank from the state prison and lynched himi themselves.

Martha Lumpkin – started the first garden club in Athens.

Martha Berry – Began a school in Rome for under-privileged children. They worked to earn their education. Berry college continues this tradition.

Juliette Gordon Lowe – Formed the Girl Guides, that later became the Girl Scouts of America. The program was to help young women become productive and self-sufficient.