The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Governor Nathan Deal, elected in 2010, delivers the State of the State address in January 2011. Deal served as governor from 2011 to 2019.
Courtesy of georgia.gov
Nathan Deal (right) was sworn in as Georgia's eighty-second governor on January 10, 2011, in Atlanta. He is pictured with his predecessor, Governor Sonny Perdue (left), and Georgia secretary of state Brian Kemp. Deal served as governor from 2011 to 2019.
Courtesy of Georgia.gov
Three companies of the British Sixtieth Regiment of Foot were sent to the Georgia colony in 1763 by King George III to strengthen the defense of colonial garrisons against attack by the French and Spanish.
Courtesy of The Company of Military Historians
During the 1730s, Scottish settler Patrick Tailfer led a group of colonists, knowns as the Malcontents, in protest of various laws and policies enforced by the Georgia Trustees. His 1740 tract, entitled A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia, was read in influential circles but failed to make a substantial impact on the circumstances of the Malcontents.
From A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia in America, by P. Tailfer
This tree-lined drive marks the entrance to Beaulieu Plantation, the estate of William Stephens, who came to Savannah in 1737 to serve as secretary of Trustee Georgia. Beaulieu was one of the leading river plantations, and Stephens experimented with grape and cotton cultivation.
Photograph by Carol Ebel
One face of the 1733 seal of the Georgia Trustees features two figures resting upon urns. They represent the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, which formed the northwestern and southeastern boundaries of the province. The genius of the colony is seated beside a cornucopia, with a cap of liberty on her head and a spear in one hand. The abbreviated Latin phrase Colonia Georgia Aug means "May the colony of Georgia prosper."
Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society.
Henry McDaniel was elected governor in 1883 to replace Alexander Stephens, who died while in office. McDaniel was subsequently reelected to a full term in 1884. During his tenure, he oversaw a substantial reduction of the state's debt, the construction of the state capitol, and the establishment of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
David B. Mitchell served three terms as governor of Georgia early in the nineteenth century. Before his election to the governor's office, he served as mayor as Savannah. Mitchell resigned in 1817 from his third gubernatorial term to accept the post of U.S. Agent to the Creek Indians.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
E. D. Rivers, credited with bringing a "Little New Deal" to the state, served two terms as Georgia's governor, from 1937 until 1941. During his first term, Rivers instituted numerous reforms in education, the penal system, and public health. His second term was plagued by accusations of corruption and an inability to finance the measures enacted during his first term.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
E. D. Rivers speaks in 1939, during his second gubernatorial term, at a gathering in Union County, located in the north Georgia mountains. During his first term, Rivers secured federal funding to support public housing and rural electrification in the state.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #uni005.
The front side of a promotional card outlining E. D. Rivers's 1938 gubernatorial platform. Rivers was reelected in 1938, but by the end of his second term, his administration was awash in charges of corruption.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Ephemera Collection.
The back side of a promotional card outlining E. D. Rivers's 1938 gubernatorial platform.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Ephemera Collection.
James Johnson served as the provisional governor of Georgia, appointed by U.S. president Andrew Johnson, for most of 1865. A native of North Carolina, Johnson lived much of his life in Columbus, Georgia, where he established a law practice.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
George R. Gilmer served two terms as the governor of Georgia, first from 1829 to 1831, and again from 1837 to 1839. Relations with the Cherokees following the discovery of gold in north Georgia dominated his first term, while skirmishes with Seminoles in south Georgia occupied much of his second. Gilmer County, in the north Georgia mountains, is named in his honor.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Georgia governor George R. Gilmer's childhood home originally stood in the Goose Pond community of Oglethorpe County. The house is now located at the Calloway Plantation in Wilkes County.
Photograph by Carol Ebel
Jared Irwin served two terms as the governor of Georgia, first from 1796 to 1798, and again from 1807 to 1809. During his first term, Irwin signed the Rescinding Act, which nullified the Yazoo Act of 1795, in which the state illegally sold lands in Georgia's western territory. A colonel during the Revolutionary War, Irwin also served as brigadier general in the state militia and several terms as a state legislator.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Thomas Ruger, a Union officer, was appointed military provisional governor of Georgia in 1868, during Reconstruction. During his six-month tenure, Ruger instituted the state's convict lease system.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Charles McDonald, a lawyer and businessman, was elected governor of Georgia in 1839 and served until 1843. As governor, McDonald worked to improve the state's precarious financial situation, brought about by the panic of 1837.
From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery
Thomas Hardwick, pictured circa 1912, became governor of Georgia in 1921. A native of Thomasville, Hardwick also served in the state legislature and in both houses of the U.S. Congress during his political career.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
James M. Smith, a Confederate veteran and native of Twiggs County, served as the governor of Georgia from 1872 to 1877. Smith's election marked the end of Reconstruction in the state.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Henry Alexander's lithograph Infantry: Continental Army, 1779-1783 depicts the uniforms and weapons used by the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Clifford Walker, a native of Monroe, was elected as the state's sixty-first governor in 1923. He served two consecutive terms, during which time his ties to the Ku Klux Klan were uncovered by journalist Julian Harris, son of writer Joel Chandler Harris.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Harris & Ewing Collection.
Clifford Walker, the governor of Georgia from 1923 to 1927, was born in Monroe and lived there for much of his life. Walker also began his political career in Monroe, where he was elected mayor in 1902.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
wlt004.
Clifford Walker, the sixty-first governor of Georgia, achieved little legislatively during his tenure and is best remembered for his ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries, Capitol Art Collection (Capitol Museum Collection), #1992.23.0058.
James Jackson, a U.S. senator from Georgia, destroys records connected with the Yazoo land fraud in 1796, after the passage of the Yazoo Rescinding Act. Josiah Tattnall Sr., a state representative, helped Jackson secure the votes necessary in the legislature to pass the act.
From A History of Georgia for Use in Schools, by L. B. Evans
William Schley served as the governor of Georgia from 1835 to 1837. Before his gubernatorial term, Schley was elected judge of the Superior Court of the Middle District in Georgia and U.S. representative from the state.
From A History of Georgia for Use in Schools, by L. B. Evans
Joseph M. Terrell, a native of Meriwether County, was known as Georgia's "education governor." He served two consecutive terms, from 1902 to 1907, during which time he passed legislation creating eleven district agricultural and mechanical schools. Terrell also served as the state attorney general and as a U.S. senator during his political career.
Peter Early, governor of Georgia from 1813 to 1815, also served as a U.S. congressman, state superior court judge, and state senator during his political career. A trustee of the University of Georgia, Early served as the school's interim president in 1817.
From A History of Georgia for Use in Schools, by L. B. Evans
George W. Towns served as the governor of Georgia from 1847 to 1851. Earlier in his career, Towns served as both a state legislator and a U.S. congressman. Although he entered politics as a Unionist, Towns was known as an ardent states' rights secessionist during his governorship.
As the governor of Georgia from 1894 to 1898, Democrat William Y. Atkinson condemned lynching, reformed the convict lease system, and decreased the state's debt. The portrait of Atkinson, painted by James Pope Field, hangs in the state capitol in Atlanta.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Students on the campus of Georgia Normal and Industrial College (later Georgia College and State University) in Milledgeville walk past Atkinson Hall, circa 1900. The first college for women in the state, the school was named for Georgia governor William Y. Atkinson, who was instrumental in its founding.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # bal098.
George Cooke's Tallulah Falls (1841) features elements typical of the Hudson River School of landscape painting, particularly in its depiction of the picturesque and sublime. Tallulah Falls, located in the northeast Georgia mountains, comprises four waterfalls, three of which Cooke captures in his painting. Oil on canvas (35 3/4" x 28 3/4").
Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; gift of Mrs. William Lorenzo Moss. GMOA 1959.646
Allen D. Candler served as governor of Georgia from 1898 to 1902 and was a resident of Banks County. Candler County, created in southeast Georgia in 1914, was named for him.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Nathaniel E. Harris served as the governor of Georgia from 1915 to 1917. His primary focus was on the improvement of public services and social welfare. A strong advocate for public education, Harris also instituted compulsory education and reformed teacher pay during his tenure.
Courtesy of Georgia Captiol Museum, Office of Secretary of State
John Forsyth served as a U.S. congressman and senator and as the minister to Spain before becoming the governor of Georgia in 1827. In 1833 U.S. president Andrew Jackson named Forsyth secretary of state, making him the only Georgian to hold the office until Dean Rusk in 1961.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
John Milledge, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, served as the state attorney general and in the state legislature before being elected governor of Georgia in 1802. Milledgeville, which served as the state capital for much of the nineteenth century, was named in his honor.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Alfred H. Colquitt joined the Confederate army as a captain in 1861 and rose to the rank of major general by the end of the Civil War. Although his service during the 1863 battle at Chancellorsville, Virginia, was considered questionable, Colquitt redeemed himself the following year at the Battle of Olustee in Florida.
Reprinted by permission of Alabama Department of Archives and History
Alfred H. Colquitt, a veteran officer of the Civil War, was a native of Walton County. Before the war, Colquitt served in the U.S. Congress, and in 1876 he was elected governor of Georgia. In 1883 he returned to Congress as a senator.
Portrait of Brigadier-General Alfred Holt Colquitt, Southern Illustrated News, 1863. Image from Wikimedia.
Alfred H. Colquitt, a member of the Bourbon Triumvirate, was elected governor of Georgia in 1876. Although his tenure was marked by controversial finances and other scandals, Colquitt is credited with advocating industrialization in the state as a means of recovering from the economic hardships of the Civil War.
From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery
Sarah Gibbons was born into one of the wealthiest families in the Georgia colony. In 1774 she married Edward Telfair, a prominent planter and merchant in Savannah, and the couple had seven children who survived infancy. Portrait by unknown artist, oil on board (8 1/4" x 7"), date unknown.
Courtesy of Telfair Museums.
Charles Jones Jenkins accepts a scroll bearing the governor's seal and the motto In Arduis Fidelis (Steadfast in Adversity) in this portrait by Poindexter Page Carter. In 1872 the state presented the seal and motto to the former governor in appreciation for his resistance to the dictates of the federal government during Reconstruction.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
The Georgia Platform established Georgia's conditional acceptance of the Compromise of 1850. Much of the document followed a draft written by Charles Jones Jenkins, who later served as Georgia's governor from 1865 to 1868.
Joseph M. Brown (hatless man in back of carriage) and others return to Atlanta from a racetrack in Eatonton, circa 1907. Brown served on the Georgia State Railroad Commission from 1904 until 1907 and was elected to his first term as governor in 1909.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
put146.
Railroad commissioner and author Joseph M. Brown served two terms as governor, in 1909-11 and in 1912-13. He was the son of Georgia's Civil War governor, Joseph E. Brown.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
The frontispiece to Joseph M. Brown's Astyanax (1907), illustrated by William Lincoln Hudson, depicts the novel's warrior hero, Astyanax, telling a little girl that "sunbeams are hard to catch." Brown, a governor of Georgia, also wrote The Mountain Campaigns in Georgia (1886), a Civil War military history.
From Astyanax, by J. M. Brown
George Troup served two terms, from 1823 to 1827, as the governor of Georgia. During his tenure, Troup removed the majority of Creek Indians from the state and opened their lands to white settlement.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
John Clark, a Revolutionary War veteran, was the governor of Georgia from 1819 to 1823. During the war, Clark served under the command of his father, Elijah Clarke, at the battles of Kettle Creek and Musgrove Mill.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
During his sixteen years as lieutenant governor, Zell Miller sparred regularly with Tom Murphy, the longitime Speaker of the state house.
Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.
Zell Miller is officially sworn in as Georgia's eighth Lieutenant Governor in 1975. He served for four consecutive four-year terms.
Zell Miller, pictured here during his tenure as lieutentant governor, was elected to that office in 1975 and held it for sixteen years. Miller began his political career in 1959, when he became mayor of Young Harris, his hometown. By the 1970s, Miller had served as a state senator for two terms and as the executive secretary to Governor Lester Maddox.
Image from Georgia Secretary of State
Herschel Johnson, a nineteenth-century Georgia politician, is pictured in an 1860 Currier and Ives portrait. That same year, Johnson was the vice-presidential running mate for Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas, who lost the election to Abraham Lincoln.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln, with running mate Hannibal Hamlin, steams toward a wagon named "Democratic Platform" that is trapped on the tracks between two teams of candidates. Stephen Douglas and Hershel Johnson pull toward the left, while John Breckinridge and Joseph Lane pull toward the right.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Governor Hoke Smith is perhaps the figure most associated with Progressive era reform in the state. During his governorship reforms were seen in education and railroad regulation; the convict lease system was abolished; and a major public health project, a state sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, was undertaken.
Residents of Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County gather for a political rally for Hoke Smith, owner of the Atlanta Journal, during the gubernatorial race of 1906. Smith, the Democratic candidate, won the election over Clark Howell, his rival publisher at the Atlanta Constitution.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ben121.
Hoke Smith poses for a portrait in 1912, the year after his second term as Georgia's governor had ended. Smith served as governor first from 1907 to 1909 and then again in 1911, until he was selected to fill the empty U.S. Senate seat of Joseph M. Terrell. He remained in this seat until 1921.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
George W. Crawford was the first and only Whig to be elected governor of Georgia. He served two terms, from 1843 to 1847. A native of Columbia County, Crawford also served as a state representative and as Georgia's attorney general.
From The History of the State of Georgia, by I. W. Avery
In 1849 George W. Crawford, a former governor of Georgia, joined U.S. president Zachary Taylor's cabinet as secretary of war. From left, Reverdy Johnson, William M. Meredith, William B. Preston, Zachary Taylor, Crawford, Jacob Collamer, Thomas Ewing, and John M. Clayton.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
During his tenure as governor, from 1890 to 1894, William J. Northen limited the workday for railroad employees to thirteen hours and granted the Georgia Railroad Commission power to regulate telegraph companies. He also advanced agricultural inspection and education.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
William J. Northen began teaching at Mount Zion Academy in Hancock County soon after his graduation from Mercer University in about 1853. Over time, he rose to assistant principal and finally became headmaster of the school, a post he held until his health forced him into retirement in 1874.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
A U.S. senator from Georgia for thirty-eight years, Richard B. Russell Jr. became one of the most influential senators of his time. From 1935 until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Russell used his clout as leader of the Southern Bloc in the Senate to prevent the passage of national civil rights legislation.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Richard B. Russell Jr. became one of the youngest members of the Georgia House of Representatives upon his election in 1920. By the time of this 1928 photograph, he was serving as Speaker of the House. Russell would later take office in 1931 as Georgia's youngest governor, and he entered national politics as a U.S. senator in 1933.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
In 1918, following his graduation from the University of Georgia law school, Richard B. Russell Jr. enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve Forces. Russell began practicing law the following year, and in 1920 began his political career as a state representative.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Richard B. Russell Jr. announced his candidacy for governor in April 1930 and took the oath of office in June 1931. Russell ran a strong grassroots campaign to win the election over several more experienced candidates.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Richard B. Russell Jr. was sworn in as the youngest governor of Georgia by his father, Richard B. Russell Sr., in June 1931. During his eighteen-month tenure, Russell reduced the size of state government, balanced the state budget, and organized the University System of Georgia.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Volunteers gather beside a campaign wagon used during Richard B. Russell Jr.'s 1936 campaign against Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge for a seat in the U.S. Senate. This campaign was one of only two contested elections for Russell during his tenure as a U.S. senator, from 1933 until his death in 1971.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Richard B. Russell Jr. (right) campaigns in Warm Springs for U.S. presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Russell, upon his election to the U.S. Senate in 1933, helped to ensure passage of Roosevelt's New Deal programs throughout the 1930s.
Richard B. Russell Jr. participates in a 1933 festival with his mother (left) and sister (right). During this year Russell was elected to the U.S. Senate and appointed to the Naval Affairs Committee, the first of many powerful committee appointments during his long tenure as senator.
Richard B. Russell Jr. (left), who served from 1933 to 1971 as a U.S. senator from Georgia, stands with fellow senators Carl Hayden of Arizona (center) and Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin (right) in 1955.
Photograph by Abbie Rowe, National Park Service. Courtesy of Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, National Archives and Records Administration
U.S. senator Richard B. Russell Jr. (left) converses with U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. Russell, an early supporter of and mentor to Johnson, criticized the Johnson administration's escalation of the war in Vietnam during the 1960s.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Supporters campaign at the 1952 Democratic National Convention for the presidential nomination of Richard B. Russell Jr., a U.S. senator from Georgia. Russell won the Florida primary after announcing his candidacy but lost the party's nomination to Adlai Stevenson during the convention.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
A graduate of the law school at the University of Georgia, U.S. senator Richard B. Russell Jr. visits the school's football team at Sanford Stadium in 1969.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Richard B. Russell Jr. of Georgia, for whom this building was renamed in 1972, became a prominent and respected senator during his thirty-eight-year tenure in the U.S. Senate. Completed in 1908, this oldest of the Senate office buildings is designed in the Beaux-Arts style and is constructed with marble, limestone, and granite.
Photograph by Larry Lamsa
Richard B. Russell Jr. throws the first pitch at an Atlanta Crackers game in 1931, the same year in which he took the oath of office as Georgia's youngest governor.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Richard B. Russell Jr., a U.S. senator from Georgia, greets U.S. president Richard Nixon.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Richard B. Russell Jr. Collection.
Issued in 1984, this 10 cent postage stamp honors Richard B. Russell, the youngest governor in Georgia's history.
Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum
Georgia Governor from 1927 to 1931, Lamertine Hardman pictured on a horse holding a rifle. Hardman was one of the wealthiest men in Georgia at the turn of the twentieth century and strove to make governmental processes more efficient
Emma Wiley Griffin, a Valdosta native, married Georgia state representative and future governor Lamartine Hardman in 1907. The couple had four children, three daughters and one son, who are pictured here with their mother in this undated photograph.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Lamartine G. Hardman Collection.
Atlanta businessman and booster Ivan Allen Sr. cofounded the office supply firm later known as the Ivan Allen Company. He also served a brief stint in 1917 as president of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and headed a commission on goverment efficiency for Governor Lamartine Hardman during the early 1930s.
Georgia Govenor Lamartine Hardman with President Calvin Coolidge.
Larmartine Hardman (second from right) pictured with the daughter of Crawford Long (to the left of the stone marker) at a tribute to Long in 1922. Long was a Georgian physician who is credited with the discovery of anethesia in 1879.
John B. Gordon rose to prominence during the Civil War, entering as a captain and emerging as a major general. He later served as a U.S. senator and as the governor of Georgia.
Photograph by Wikimedia
John B. Gordon, a renowned Confederate officer and political leader, was a member of the Farmers' Alliance in Georgia until the organization's split with the Democratic Party in 1892. A member of the Bourbon Triumvirate, Gordon served multiple terms in the U.S. Senate and, from 1886 to 1890, as governor of the state.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Brady-Handy Photograph Collection.
General John B. Gordon, for whom Gordon State College is named, was a Confederate officer during the Civil War and later served as governor of Georgia and as a U.S. senator.
Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society collection of photographs, #GHS 1361PH-24-09-4694.
John Slaton served two terms as governor of Georgia. He is perhaps best known today for his decision to commute the death sentence of Leo Frank in 1915.
A lifelong politician, Alexander Stephens is perhaps best remembered as the vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute
Alexander Stephens was selected in 1866 by the Georgia legislature to represent the state, along with Herschel Johnson, in the U.S. Senate. Because he had served as vice president of the Confederacy, however, the Senate did not allow Stephens to take his seat.
Alexander Stephens, a native of Taliaferro County, was a prominent member of the Whig Party during the sectional crisis that arose in the wake of the Mexican War (1846-48). He later joined the ranks of the Democratic party and served as vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War (1861-65).
Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president and a Georgia native, was a master at managing relations with journalists, and he used his stable of press supporters, including the Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel and the Southern Confederacy of Atlanta, to spread his peace doctrine.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Alexander Stephens. After the Civil War Stephens was elected to the U.S. Senate, but that body refused to seat the former vice president of the Confederacy. He then was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives and finally as governor, an office he held for only a few months before he died.
Image from Clement Anselm Evans
Liberty Hall in Taliaferro County, home of Alexander H. Stephens, is pictured in 1936.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey, #HABS GA,133-CRAWV,1--2.
In this political cartoon, a Union officer (unidentified) swings a club labeled "Union" in defense against a many-headed serpent labeled "Secession." The serpent's heads are: Floyd, Pickens, Beauregard, Twiggs, Davis, Stephens, and Toombs, all leaders of the Southern secession movement and the resulting Confederacy.
Courtesy of Civil War Treasures, New York Historical Society
The A. H. Stephens Historic Park, in Crawfordville, is part of the Georgia state park system. The park includes Alexander Stephens's restored home, Liberty Hall, as well a museum containing Civil War artifacts.
Courtesy of Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Photograph from Georgia State Parks.
Wilson Lumpkin served as governor of Georgia from 1831 to 1835. During his long political career, Lumpkin was also elected to office in the U.S. House and Senate and held the position of U.S. commissioner to the Cherokee Indians. Painting by J. T. Moore.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Tours
Before embarking on his political career, Wilson Lumpkin also worked as a farmer and as a teacher. Upon his death in 1870, Lumpkin's daughter deeded his farm in Athens to the University of Georgia.
From The Removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia, by Wilson Lumpkin
In Governor Eugene Talmadge, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal found one of its most vigorous opponents. In Talmadge's first two terms as governor (1933-37), Georgia state government subverted many of the early New Deal programs.
Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.
Eugene Talmadge served as governor of Georgia from 1933 to 1937 and again from 1941 to 1943. His personality and actions polarized voters into Talmadge and anti-Talmadge factions in the state's one-party politics of that era. His death in 1946 touched off the unprecedented "three governors controversy."
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Talmadge's impassioned rhetoric and animated delivery on the campaign trail endeared him to rural and small-town Georgia voters and accounted for much of his political success.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Telamon Cuyler Collection.
Talmadge ran for governor for a fourth term in 1946, promising to restore the white primary and to keep Blacks in their place in Jim Crow Georgia. Talmadge, who had very strong support in rural areas, won the gubernatorial nomination by obtaining a majority of the county unit votes.
Roy Barnes served eight terms as a Georgia state senator (1974-1990). After his second term he was named chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and also served as floor leader for Governor Joe Frank Harris.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Rufus Bullock was Georgia's first Republican governor (1868-71) and a staunch supporter of African American equality.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Lestor Maddox locks the doors to the Pickrick restaurant rather than integrating it in 1965. Toward the end of his life, Governor Lester Maddox expressed few regrets and made no apologies for his segregationist beliefs or any of the other political stances he had taken over his career.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Governor Lester Maddox performs his signature trick: riding a bicycle backward.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Lester Maddox is photographed shaking hands inside his souvenir store in Underground Atlanta.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Lester Maddox and his wife, Virginia Cox, were married in 1936. Their union lasted sixty-one years, until Virginia's death. The picture is autographed by Maddox.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Sonny Perdue, a native of Houston County, became Georgia's first Republican governor in 130 years when he was inaugurated on January 13, 2003. He served two terms, leaving office in 2011.
Courtesy of University of Georgia Photographic Services
Nathan Brownson served as Georgia's governor in 1781-82, toward the end of the American Revolution. He also was elected to the state legislature and was a member of the convention that ratified the U.S. constitution as well as the convention that rewrote Georgia's constitution in 1789. He was the first physician to serve as governor.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Button Gwinnett served in Georgia's colonial legislature, in the Second Continental Congress, and as president of Georgia's Revolutionary Council of Safety. He was one of three Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Button Gwinnett's signature is said to be one of the rarest and most valuable of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The signature is housed at the Georgia Archives in Morrow.
Image from Wikimedia
The burning of the Yazoo Act, which resulted in the Yazoo land fraud of 1795, took place on the grounds of the capitol building in Louisville. Louisville served as the state capital from 1796 until 1806, when the legislature moved to Milledgeville.
The leading Jeffersonian Republican in post-Revolutionary Georgia, U.S. senator James Jackson resigned his seat and returned home to handle the Yazoo land fraud scandal in 1795. The following year he led a successful effort in the Georgia legislature to pass the Yazoo Rescinding Act, which nullified the corrupt land sales.
The Creek Indians meet with James Oglethorpe. By the time Oglethorpe and his Georgia colonists arrived in 1733, relations between the Creeks and the English were already well established and centered mainly on trade.
James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, was a forward-thinking visionary who demonstrated great skill as a social reformer and military leader. This portrait is a copy of Oglethorpe University's oval portrait of Oglethorpe, which was painted in 1744. The portrait was discovered in England by Thornwell Jacobs and brought back to Atlanta to hang in the president's office at Oglethorpe University.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
James Oglethorpe, a leader in the British movement to found a new colony in America, set sail for the new world on November 17, 1732, accompanied by Georgia's first settlers.
James Oglethorpe, along with a twenty-one-member Board of Trustees, founded the colony of Georgia in 1733 and directed its development for nearly a decade. Although the board appointed Anglican clergy to the new colony, Oglethorpe welcomed settlers of a variety of religious persuasions.
Courtesy of Oglethorpe University
James Oglethorpe defended the new colony of Georgia militarily, holding the titles of general and commander in chief.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Georgians have honored founder James Oglethorpe by naming a county, two cities, a university, and numerous schools, streets, parks, and businesses for him.
Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society collection of portraits, #GHS 1361-AF-327.
The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Georgia founder James Oglethorpe for the state's bicentennial anniversary in 1933.
Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum
The original caption of this print by Paul Fourdrinier reads: "A View of Savannah as it stood on the 29th of March 1734. To the Hon[orable] Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America. This View of the Town of Savannah is humbly dedicated by their Honours Obliged and most Obedient Servant, Peter Gordon."
Since retiring as governor of Georgia in 1991, Harris has published a book and served as vice chair and chair of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents, which oversees the state's public colleges and universities.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Joe Frank Harris, Democrat, served as governor of Georgia from 1983 to 1991. By the end of his term Harris had helped secure education reform, the Georgia Dome, the 1996 Olympics, and a more diversified state economy.
Governor Joe Frank Harris addressing the Georgia senate in 1985. Harris served as governor of Georgia from 1983 to 1991.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Harris's most visible achievement as governor was a sweeping reform of public education. The program, known as Quality Basic Education, sought to improve funding for Georgia public schools by expanding student testing, introducing new programs for students with disabilities, and increasing teacher salaries.
Marvin Griffin, governor of Georgia from 1955 to 1959, ran for office on a staunch segregationist platform. Before being elected governor Griffin served as the state's first lieutenant governor.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Georgia governor Marvin Griffin is pictured speaking at his inauguration in 1954. The Griffin administration accomplished a great deal for Georgia, paving nearly 12,000 miles of rural roads, increasing appropriations for education, and raising teacher salaries.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Georgia governor Hugh M. Dorsey brought both youth and progressive ideas to the office in 1917. He is best known, however, as the prosecutor in the notorious Leo Frank case.
Melvin E. Thompson claimed a few triumphs during his brief tenure as governor: he increased state spending without new taxes, raised teachers' salaries, increased spending for education, expanded the roads and bridges building program, improved the state's park system, and purchased Jekyll Island.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Ed Friend Visual Materials.
John Wereat served briefly as de facto governor of Georgia in 1779 and is best known for his attempt in 1795 to thwart the Yazoo land fraud, a corrupt deal between the state legislature and land speculators.
Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, John Wereat letter to John Gibbons, #GHS 0854-AF-006.
Archibald Bulloch was a Revolutionary soldier, a leader of Georgia's Liberty Party, and the state's first chief executive and commander in chief. Bulloch County in southeast Georgia was named for him upon its creation in 1796.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Architect William Jay built this villa on Orleans Square in Savannah in 1819 for Archibald Bulloch. The house was razed in 1916, and the Savannah Municipal Auditorium was constructed on the site. In turn, the Savannah Civic Center was built on the site, replacing the auditorium, in the 1970s.
Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Foltz Photography Studio (Savannah, Ga.), photographs, 1899-1960, #GHS 1360-08-08-01.
In February 1777 Treutlen, Button Gwinnett, and George Wells were on the drafting committee of Georgia's first constitution.
Image from Dsdugan
John Treutlen was a leader in Georgia during the American Revolution and helped to write Georgia's first constitution. In 1777 he became Georgia's first elected governor.
Image from Internet Archive Book Images
John Houstoun served twice as the governor of Georgia, as well as the mayor of Savannah.
John Houstoun was twice governor of Georgia, the first mayor of the city of Savannah, and an early supporter of independence from Britain.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
An honored Revolutionary War soldier turned politician, John Martin was governor of Georgia from 1782 to 1783. It was during his term of office that Georgia retook Savannah from the British and the Revolutionary War in Georgia came to an end.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, both from Plains, discuss their experiences working together with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center in a book they coauthored in 1987, Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life.
Courtesy of the Carter Center
Jimmy Carter, the only Georgian ever elected president of the United States, held the office for one term, from 1977 to 1981.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
As governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975, Carter sought to reorganize state government, upgrade the state's weak educational system, reform the criminal justice system, initiate significant new mental health programs, and promote civil rights and equal opportunity for women and minorities. In 1976 he was elected president of the United States and served for one term.
U.S. president Jimmy Carter wears an American Legion cap in Plains, in 1977. Carter is a member of the American Legion, a mutual-aid veterans organization formed in 1919.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #sum047.
The new president and first lady, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, make the walk from the Capitol Building to the White House on Inauguration Day in January 1977.
Courtesy of Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.
Jimmy Carter, the only Georgian ever elected president of the United States, held the office for one term, from 1977 to 1981.
Courtesy of the Carter Center
Governor Jimmy, Rosalynn, and Amy Carter during a celebratory parade in 1971.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter's boyhood home in Plains has been designated a national historic site.
Photograph by OZinOH
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are pictured in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 1977, the day of his inauguration as U.S. president.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
U.S. president Jimmy Carter, a prominent volunteer for Habitiat for Humanity, speaks with Habitat founder Millard Fuller in 1985 at Ellijay, in Gilmer County.
Before his governorship of Georgia in 1785, Savannahian Samuel Elbert served as commander of both Georgia's militia and Continental Line during the Revolutionary War.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
James Wright replaced Henry Ellis as royal governor of Georgia in 1760 and proved to be an efficient and popular administrator. During his tenure in office (1760-76) Georgia enjoyed a period of remarkable growth.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
In December 1778, British troops under Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell captured Savannah as part of their campaign to restore the colony of Georgia to British rule. This drawing details the town of Savannah at the time of the British invasion.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Rare Maps Collection.
Through his 1778 Georgia campaign, particularly his capture of Savannah and Augusta, Archibald Campbell achieved one of the few unqualified British successes in the American Revolution.
Image from Wikimedia
One of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence, George Walton served in numerous capacities for the state of Georgia after the American Revolution, including governor of Georgia in 1779.
Lyman Hall was one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence. He served as a representative to the Continental Congress and as governor of Georgia from 1783 to 1784.
Carl Sanders is best remembered as Georgia's first New South governor, a Democrat who provided progressive leadership for the state from 1963 to 1967.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
As governor, Sanders was committed to education and governmental reform, and he created a more moderate racial climate in Georgia during the turbulent later years of the civil rights movement.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Ed Friend Visual Materials.
The Civil War governor of Georgia, Joseph E. Brown was one of the most successful politicians in the state's history. A member of the Bourbon Triumvirate, Brown served as a U.S. senator from 1880 to 1890.
In 1857 Joseph E. Brown edged aside better-known politicians to become the Democrats' gubernatorial candidate. He won decisively, and from then on he was unbeatable in statewide elections.
Georgia native Howell Cobb served as congressman (1843-51; 1855-57), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1849-51), governor of Georgia (1851-53), and secretary of the treasury (1857-60).
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Following Georgia's secession from the Union in 1861, Howell Cobb served as president of the Confederate Provisional Congress (1861-62) and a major general of the Confederate army.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Under Ernest Vandiver's governorship, from 1959 to 1963, the legislature implemented sweeping changes in the segregation policies of Georgia's public schools. The county unit system for nominating officeholders was also revised during his tenure.
Ernest Vandiver ran for governor in 1958 by promising to restore the state's image, which had been tarnished by scandals associated with the administration of Marvin Griffin.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Ellis Arnall, far left, shakes hands with Herman Talmadge, who is obscured, on January 7, 1947. Running for office on the heels of the Cocking affair, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Eugene Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Herman E. Talmadge Collection.
Ellis Arnall signs a statement in Atlanta in 1947 as Georgia secretary of state Ben W. Fortson and others look on. At the far right is Albert Riley, a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
geo035.
George Busbee was the first Georgia governor to serve two consecutive four-year terms (1975-83). He gave the state eight years of effective, low-key leadership and ranks among the most popular and least controversial of modern Georgia governors. The portrait, which hangs in the state capitol in Atlanta, was painted by Everette Raymond Kinstler.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
George Busbee began his political career in 1956 by winning a seat in the Georgia legislature. Intending to serve only two years, he wound up serving eighteen years in the Georgia House of Representatives and eight years as governor before retiring from politics in 1983.
Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.
As governor, Busbee provided solid leadership to a state experiencing rapid population, economic, and urban growth. His popularity with legislators and voters led to a constitutional amendment allowing the governor of Georgia to serve two successive terms, a change Busbee benefited from when he was again elected governor in 1978.
Image from Georgia Official and Statistical Register 1975-1976
After his inauguration in 1948, Talmadge enacted Georgia's first sales tax, which helped fund a vast improvement in the state's public education system. Talmadge also helped attract new industry to the state and was an early advocate for the burgeoning timber industry.
After practicing law for several years, Talmadge joined the navy, where he saw extensive combat duty in the South Pacific during World War II and eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant commander.
Herman Talmadge, son of Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge, took the governor's office briefly in 1947, and again after a special election in 1948.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Talmadge received national attention during his service on the Ervin Committee (officially, the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities), which investigated Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal in 1973 and 1974.
Herman Talmadge served as governor of Georgia from 1948 to 1954. In 1956 Talmadge was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his defeat in 1980.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Ed Friend Visual Materials.
A lifelong Democrat, Talmadge helped effect a great deal of progressive change in Georgia government and public education, and he was a key national figure in the formation of legislation aimed at aiding rural America.
.jpg){kind=link}
