Bill Arp

Charles Henry Smith, 1826-1903

Ed Dodd

1902-1991

Bill Shipp

1933-2023

Updated Recently

Bernie Marcus

Bernie Marcus

7 years ago
Third Day

Third Day

11 years ago

A More Perfect Union

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

1906 composing room of the Atlanta Georgian depicting over a dozen men at various work stations

Atlanta Georgian Composing Room

Famed newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst purchased the Atlanta Georgian in 1912, expanding his media empire into the South for the first time. Hearst brought in staff from his other newspaper holdings across the country to populate the Atlanta newsroom and, by 1914, it had surpassed the Atlanta Constitution in circulation, making it the second most popular newspaper in Atlanta for a brief period.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Edmond Torbush Papers, Southern Labor Archives.

View on partner site

Le Petit Journal

Le Petit Journal

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

Front Page of the Atlanta Georgian on April 28, 1913 with a headline reading "Arrested as Girl's Slayer"

Atlanta Georgian Front Page

The Atlanta Georgian, which circulated daily from 1906 to 1939, was the first newspaper in the South owned by William Randolph Hearst and the most prominent example of yellow journalism in Georgia. Under his ownership, the paper expanded circulation to eight or more editions a day and printed increasingly scandalous headlines and illustrations that dramatized local crimes in Atlanta.

Mildred Seydell

Mildred Seydell

Mildred Seydell was one of the first women in Georgia to work as a professional journalist. A native of Atlanta, Seydell began her career as a correspondent for a West Virginia newspaper before being hired in 1924 as a society-page writer for the Atlanta Georgian.

American Music Show

The American Music Show was a weekly television series created and broadcast in Atlanta from 1981 until 2005. One of the longest-running public access cable television programs, it acquired cult status and helped launch the career of RuPaul, who was an early regular on the show.

From Atlanta Studies

The set of American Music Show with five cast members pictured, including Dick Richards, Duffy Odum, Bud "Beebo" Lowry (on television screen), Potsy Duncan, and Betty Jack Driving. There are paintings, posters, and other ornamentation on the walls and Duncan holds a mic for Driving, who is being interviewed.

American Music Show

The television version of The American Music Show debuted on Atlanta’s People TV cable station in early 1981. Dick Richards and James Bond co-hosted, with camerawork and production by Potsy Duncan. When Bond left the show in the early 1980s, Potsy Duncan took over as co-host alongside Richards, while Bud “Beebo” Lowry ran the camera and simultaneously co-hosted, made visible on a monitor between Richards and Duncan.

Courtesy of Paula Gately Tillman

A young RuPaul leans against a Peachtree Street sign outside of a Krystal restaurant in Atlanta in 1988.

RuPaul

RuPaul Andre Charles was born to Ernestine “Toni” Fontenette and Irving Charles in San Diego, California, on November 17, 1960. His parents, who relocated from the South during the Great Migration, named him after the Creole cooking ingredient “roux.” When he was fifteen RuPaul moved with his sister Renetta to Atlanta. There he attended Northside School of Performing Arts and worked with his brother-in-law transporting and restoring luxury automobiles before pursuing a career in showbusiness.

Courtesy of Paula Gately Tillman

American Music Show character DeAundra Peek sits on set in front of a television and gestures towards it. She is styled in a leopard print dress, heavy makeup, and a blonde wig.

American Music Show

The American Music Show's storylines and characters reflect southern tropes, often outrageously rendered, from the perspective of Atlanta’s urban milieu. The fictional Peek family multiplied comically until the family reached mythological proportions. DeAundra Peek, pictured here, went on to host her own cable access show, “DeAundra Peek’s Teenage Music Club,” and perform regularly in Atlanta throughout the 1990s.

Courtesy of Paula Gately Tillman

Columbus Enquirer

Columbus Enquirer

Mirabeau B. Lamar established the Columbus Enquirer as a four-page weekly newspaper in 1828, the same year the Georgia legislature incorporated the city of Columbus. The issue seen here dates from May of that year. 

Julian Harris

Julian Harris

Julian Harris, editor and co-owner, with his wife, Julia, of the Columbus Enquirer-Sun, reads mail at his desk in the late 1920s. Harris, the son of Georgia folklorist Joel Chandler Harris, and his wife jointly won a Pulitzer Prize in 1926 for their reporting in the Enquirer-Sun on state officials with ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
ful0939-85.

View on partner site

Ledger-Enquirer Building

Ledger-Enquirer Building

The Ledger-Enquirer Building, seen here in the 1930s, was designed by local architecture firm Smith & Biggers. The building was purchased by Columbus State University in 2014. 

Cast of The Walking Dead

Cast of The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead televsion series is adaptated from a comic book created in 2003 by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore. The series premiered on the AMC cable network on October 31, 2010.

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead comic book series, created by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore, was first published in 2003. The popularity of the comic increased dramatically with the premiere of The Walking Dead television series in 2010, and two years later it had become the best-selling independent comic book series.

Georgia Radio Hall of Fame Logo

Georgia Radio Hall of Fame Logo

The Georgia Radio Hall of Fame was founded in 2007 to honor the work of Georgia's radio professionals and to preserve the history of Georgia radio.

Courtesy of the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame

Elmo Ellis

Elmo Ellis

Elmo Ellis's 1950s campaign, "Removing the Rust from Radio," encouraged the revitalization of radio in the wake of television's growing popularity. Ellis was honored with a Peabody Award and was inducted into the Georgia Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Courtesy of History of WSB Radio

Sam Hale

Sam Hale

Sam Hale, cofounder of the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame, welcomes guests to the organization's inaugural induction awards ceremony, held in Atlanta in 2007.

Courtesy of the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame

John Long

John Long

John Long (left), cofounder of the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame, accepts a commendation from Georgia governor Sonny Perdue (not pictured) at the organization's inaugural induction awards ceremony, held in Atlanta in 2007.

Courtesy of Georgia Radio Hall of Fame

DeForest Kelley

DeForest Kelley

DeForest Kelley, an Atlanta native, was an actor best known for playing the role of Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the television series Star Trek and feature films.

From the collections of the Margaret Herrick Library

Gene Patterson

Gene Patterson

Atlanta Constitution journalists and Pulitzer Prize winners Gene Patterson (left), Ralph McGill (center), and Jack Nelson are pictured circa 1967, the year Patterson received the award.

Gene Patterson

Gene Patterson

Gene Patterson, pictured in 2002, was an influential editor of the Atlanta Constitution during the civil rights movement and later founded Georgia Trend magazine.

Paula Deen

Paula Deen

Albany native Paula Deen, a well-known restaurateur and television personality, is the host of Paula's Home Cooking, which premiered on the Food Network in 2002. Her restaurant, The Lady and Sons, is a popular tourist destination in Savannah.

Photograph from Paula Deen

The Lady and Sons Restaurant

The Lady and Sons Restaurant

Paula Deen's iconic restaurant The Lady and Sons opened in downtown Savannah in 1996 and features such southern favorites as fried green tomatoes and hoecakes. In 2004 she opened another restaurant in Savannah, Uncle Bubba's Oyster House, with her younger brother.

Image from Steven Miller

View on source site

The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook

The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook

Paula Deen published her first cookbook, The Lady and Sons: Savannah Country Cookbook, in 1997, one year after opening The Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah. She became well known outside the South by selling the cookbook on QVC, a home-shopping television network.

Good Eats: The Early Years

Good Eats: The Early Years

Atlanta-based Alton Brown, the host and producer of the Food Network's television series Good Eats, has written numerous books about cooking, including I'm Just Here for the Food (2002) and Good Eats: The Early Years (2009).

Alton Brown

Alton Brown

Alton Brown, raised in White County, is a food television personality and producer based in Atlanta. His cooking show, Good Eats, premiered in 1999 and received a George Foster Peabody Award from the University of Georgia in 2007.

Photograph from UGA Today

J. Richardson Jones

J. Richardson Jones

J. Richardson Jones, an Atlanta native, was a journalist, filmmaker, and entertainer whose work both challenged segregation and celebrated African American life during the Jim Crow era.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Thy Will Be Done Handbill

Thy Will Be Done Handbill

J. Richardson Jones, kneeling right, is pictured on a handbill from the 1925 production of his play Thy Will Be Done at the Strand Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida. The play was later produced in July 1926 at the Douglass Theatre in Macon. An Atlanta native, Jones began his career in vaudeville and radio, and later became a journalist for the Atlanta Daily World.

Parade of Negro Progress

Parade of Negro Progress

A poster advertises Parade of Negro Progress, a Technicolor feature film based on a short newsreel produced in 1939 by J. Richardson Jones as an advertisement for the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. The feature played in all-Black theaters around the South in 1941-42.

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

Tyler Perry

Tyler Perry

Tyler Perry, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, is an Atlanta-based filmmaker, playwright, and performer. His Tyler Perry Studios, established in Atlanta in 2008, is the first major film studio in the nation to be solely owned by an African American.

Photograph from AMFM STUDIOS LLC

Deborah Norville

Deborah Norville

Journalist Deborah Norville, pictured in 2007, is a native of Dalton and a graduate of the University of Georgia. She became host of the news and entertainment television program Inside Edition in 1995.

Deborah Norville

Deborah Norville

Deborah Norville is pictured in 1997 at a signing for her self-help book Back on Track. A Georgia native, Norville is the host of the television news program Inside Edition and the author of several books.

The Power of Respect

The Power of Respect

Journalist Deborah Norville, a native of Dalton, published her third motivational book, The Power of Respect, in 2009. Norville has also published knitting and children's books.

Scott Family

Scott Family

Emmeline Southall Scott is surrounded by her sons in a family photograph. From left: Emel Julius, Aurelius Southall, Lewis Augustus, William Alexander (W. A.) II, Cornelius Adolphus (C. A.), and Daniel Marcellus. W. A. Scott founded the Atlanta World (later Atlanta Daily World) in 1928, around the time this photograph was taken. C. A. Scott assumed the editorship in 1934, following his brother's death.

Courtesy of Atlanta Daily World

M. Alexis Scott

M. Alexis Scott

M. Alexis Scott, president of the Atlanta Daily World, speaks at one of three newsstands that opened at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2009. Scott is the granddaughter of W. A. Scott II, who founded the newspaper in 1928.

Courtesy of Atlanta Daily World. Photograph by Willie E. Tucker Jr.

Atlanta Daily World Building

Atlanta Daily World Building

The Atlanta Daily World, Atlanta's oldest African American newspaper, was established in 1928 by W. A. Scott II. The paper has remained in the hands of the Scott family since its founding.

Photograph by Wally Gobetz

View on source site

W. A. Scott II

W. A. Scott II

William Alexander (W. A.) Scott II founded the Atlanta World newspaper in 1928. In 1932 the publication became the Atlanta Daily World, one of the nation's first Black daily newspapers.

Courtesy of Atlanta Daily World

C. A. Scott

C. A. Scott

Cornelius Adolphus (C. A.) Scott served as editor of the Atlanta Daily World from 1934 until his retirement in 1997. Although more conservative than many Black editors of his time, Scott spoke out about Georgia's white primary system and advocated school integration and Black suffrage in the pages of the newspaper.

Courtesy of Atlanta Daily World. Photograph by Griff Davis

M. Alexis Scott

M. Alexis Scott

M. Alexis Scott became president and chair of the board of directors for the Atlanta Daily World in 1997, after twenty years as a journalist with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Cox Enterprises. Her grandfather W. A. Scott founded the publication, Atlanta's oldest Black newspaper, in 1928.

Courtesy of Atlanta Daily World

Butterfly McQueen

Butterfly McQueen

Actress Butterfly McQueen is best known for her portrayal of Prissy in the film Gone With the Wind (1939). McQueen spent her childhood and many of her adult years in Augusta, where she died in 1995.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Native Guard

Native Guard

Natasha Trethewey, a graduate of the University of Georgia and professor at Emory University, won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third collection of poems, Native Guard (2006).

Ralph McGill

Ralph McGill

Journalist Ralph McGill won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1959. As editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, McGill broke the code of silence on the subject of segregation.

Mike Luckovich

Mike Luckovich

Mike Luckovich, a native of Seattle, Washington, became the editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1989. Luckovich has twice won the Pulitzer Prize, in 1995 and 2006, for his nationally syndicated work.

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell

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

John H. Deveaux

John H. Deveaux

John H. Deveaux, a native of Savannah, was the first owner and editor of the Colored Tribune, which he founded in 1875. In 1878 he was forced to close the paper because white printers in the city refused to print it, but he reopened the publication, known today as the Savannah Tribune, in 1886.

Courtesy of Savannah Tribune

Sol C. Johnson

Sol C. Johnson

Sol C. Johnson, the second editor and owner of the Savannah Tribune, was a Savannah native. During his long editorship, from 1889 until 1954, the newspaper covered the injustices of the Jim Crow era, including segregation, lynchings, and the convict lease system.

Courtesy of Savannah Tribune

Colored TribuneMasthead

Colored TribuneMasthead

The Colored Tribune, a weekly newspaper in Savannah, was founded in 1875 as the by John H. Deveaux, whose stated purpose was to defend "the rights of colored people, and their elevation to the highest plane of citizenship."From the Georgia Newspaper Project.

Robert E. James

Robert E. James

In 1973 Robert E. James, pictured in 2008, reestablished the , which had closed in 1960. He served as owner and publisher of the newspaper until 1983, when his wife, Shirley B. James, became the publisher and sole owner.

Courtesy of Savannah Tribune

Shirley B. James

Shirley B. James

Shirley B. James, pictured in 2008, has owned and published the Savannah Tribune since 1983. Under her direction, the newspaper covers local and national news of interest to the African American community in Savannah.

Courtesy of Savannah Tribune

Robert S. Abbott

Robert S. Abbott

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

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

Chicago Defender Newsboy

Chicago Defender Newsboy

A newsboy sells copies in April 1942 of the Chicago Defender, a leading Black newspaper founded in 1905 by Georgia native Robert S. Abbott. The publication covered events and issues in Chicago's Black community, but also reported on racial news from the South and encouraged southern Blacks to move north after World War I.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Abbott Historical Marker

Abbott Historical Marker

The Georgia Historical Society erected a historical marker at the site of newspaper editor Robert S. Abbott's childhood home in Savannah on August 26, 2008. In 1905 Abbott founded the Chicago Defender, which quickly became one of the most important Black newspapers in the first half of the twentieth century.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Historical Marker Program.

View on partner site

John H. Sengstacke

John H. Sengstacke

John H. Sengstacke (right), a Savannah native and nephew of Robert S. Abbott, assumed management of the Chicago Defender in 1940 upon the death of Abbott, who founded the newspaper in 1905. Sengstacke is pictured in March 1942 at the Defender's office in Chicago.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, #LC-USW3-000802-D.

Atlanta Business Chronicle

Atlanta Business Chronicle

The Atlanta Business Chronicle, founded by Bob Gray and Mike Weingart in 1978, is a weekly journal that covers business and industry news in Atlanta. Today the publication is owned by American City Business Journals.

The Great Locomotive Chase

The Great Locomotive Chase

The Great Locomotive Chase, a Disney film released in 1956, depicts the events of the Andrews Raid of 1862, in which Union raiders seized a Confederate train in north Georgia during the Civil War. The film is an adaptation of the written accounts of William Pittenger, a Union participant in the raid.

Courtesy of Library of Congress

View on source site

The General

The General

Silent film comedian Buster Keaton directed and starred in The General (1927), a fictionalized account of the famous Andrews Raid of 1862, in which Union raiders seized a Confederate train in north Georgia during the Civil War.

Photograph from www.filmreference.com

Brumby Chair Company

Brumby Chair Company

Workers at the Brumby Chair Company in Marietta pause for their noon break in the summer of 1903. Under the leadership of Thomas Brumby, who helmed the company from 1888 to 1923, the Brumby Chair Company became one of the largest employers in Marietta and one of the largest chair factories in the Southeast.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cob106.

View on partner site

Brumby Delivery Truck

Brumby Delivery Truck

A Brumby Chair Company delivery truck is pictured, circa 1928. The Brumby Chair Company, based in Marietta, was incorporated in 1884 by brothers Jim and Thomas Brumby. The company, which the family continues to operate, is best known for its iconic rocking chair.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cob299.

View on partner site

Otis Brumby Sr.

Otis Brumby Sr.

Marietta leaders gather in the law office of Rip Blair (seated right) to honor Niles Trammel (seated left), circa 1940. Otis Brumby Sr. (standing far left) was the vice president of Brumby Chair Company. Also standing, from left: Stanton Read, Ed Massey, Jake Northcutt, Eugene McNeel Sr., unknown, Ryburn Clay, J. J. Daniell, Morgan McNeel.

Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
cob498.

View on partner site

Scott Wilson

Scott Wilson

Scott Wilson, an Atlanta native, was an actor with credits in more than fifty feature films and in numerous television productions. His filmography includes In the Heat of the Night (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), The Great Gatsby (1974), Dead Man Walking (1995), Pearl Harbor (2001), and Junebug (2005).

Courtesy of Scott Wilson

Julia Harris

Julia Harris

Julia Harris (left) poses with artist Marcel Lenoir. An Atlanta native, Harris was co-owner of the Columbus Enquirer-Sun, along with her husband, Julian Harris, during the 1920s. The couple's editorials against the Ku Klux Klan won a Pulitzer Prize in 1926, and in 1998 Harris was inducted into Georgia Women of Achievement.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Sherman’s March

Sherman’s March

Sherman's March (1986), a documentary film by Ross McElwee, chronicles the filmmaker's search for love in the modern South while loosely retracing Sherman's 1864 march to the sea. Portions of the film take place on Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, and on the Georgia coast, near Savannah.

Ross McElwee

Ross McElwee

Filmmaker and professor Ross McElwee is pictured during the filming of Bright Leaves. In 1986 McElwee's documentary Sherman's March, much of which was filmed in Georgia, was released to critical acclaim.

Image from AdrianMcElwee

Commercial Production

Commercial Production

A film crew shoots a commercial for Georgia tourism at Stone Mountain in 2006. Commercial production increased dramatically in the state during the first years of the twenty-first century, with such major corporations as Coca-Cola, Delta, Ford Motor Company, and General Electric choosing to film in Georgia.

Film Industry

Film Industry

A camera operator works on a film set in Georgia, where the film industry has generated more than $4 billion for the state's economy since the 1970s. The Georgia Film, Video, and Music Office, established in 1973 by then-governor Jimmy Carter, recruited more than 550 major projects between 1973 and 2007.

Smokey and the Bandit

Smokey and the Bandit

Sally Fields (left) and Burt Reynolds are pictured during the filming of Smokey and the Bandit (1977). An enormous commercial success, the film was one of several projects that Reynolds brought to Georgia during the 1970s.

In the Heat of the Night

In the Heat of the Night

Cast members of the television series In the Heat of the Night pose during the filming of an episode in downtown Covington, circa 1994. From left, Denise Nicholas (Harriet DeLong), Carroll O'Connor (Sheriff Bill Gillespie), and Carl Weathers (Chief Hampton Forbes).

Filming of The Dukes of Hazzard

Filming of The Dukes of Hazzard

Crew members shoot an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard in Covington, circa 1979. The first several episodes of the series were filmed in Covington before production moved to California. The famous shot of the airborne General Lee, the Duke cousins' muscle car, was filmed at nearby Oxford College.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Fried Green Tomatoes

Mary-Louise Parker (left) and Mary Stuart Masterson are pictured during the filming of Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), adapted from a novel by Fannie Flagg. Although set in Alabama, the film was shot in the small town of Juliette, in Monroe County. Portions of the film set, including the Whistle Stop Cafe, are now open to visitors.

The Legend of Bagger Vance

The Legend of Bagger Vance

Robert Redford (right), the director of The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), demonstrates a golf swing to the film's stars, Matt Damon (left) and Will Smith (second from left). The film was shot in the streets and country clubs of Savannah.

Video Students

Video Students

Students in the video production program at West Georgia Technical College in LaGrange work on a class project. In addition to producing three television series, students at the college have won awards for two documentaries, Soaring with Eagles and Helping to Build Hope.

Courtesy of Technical College System of Georgia

Savannah Film Festival

Savannah Film Festival

Attendees of the 2006 Savannah Film Festival congregate outside the historic Trustees Theatre, which was restored by the Savannah College of Art and Design. The festival, which is hosted by SCAD each fall, offers feature-length, short, and documentary films from around the world.

Courtesy of Savannah College of Art and Design

R.E.M

R.E.M

The Athens-based rock band R.E.M. has filmed some of their music videos in Georgia over the years, including collaborations with Chattooga County artist Howard Finster and Hall County artist R. A. Miller. From left, Peter Buck, Michael Stipe, and Mike Mills.

Courtesy of Warner Brothers Records

Pinewood Atlanta Studios

Construction of Pinewood Atlanta Studios

With increased financial incentives to film in Georgia, international studios invested resources to produce in the state. These three photographs show the Pinewood Atlanta Studios site in Fayette County before, during, and after construction. Originally part-owned by British Pinewood Studios, the Fayette location has since become an independent venture named Trilith Studios.

From USDA-FSA Aerial Photography Field Office. Collage by Jonathan D. Hepworth, New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Captain America Atlanta Filming

Captain America: Civil War Filming in Atlanta

With a generous state tax credit passed in 2008, Atlanta became known as “the Hollywood of the South.” Here, a parking lot across from the Richard B. Russell Federal Building becomes a Lagos, Nigeria, street scene in filming the movie Captain America: Civil War in 2015.

From torontokid2, Wikimedia Commons

View on source site

Clark Howell

Clark Howell

 A portrait of journalist Clark Howell who served as a bridge from Georgia to the rest of the nation in matters political and journalistic.

Georgia Historical Quarterly

Ambrose Wright

Ambrose Wright

Ambrose Wright, a native of Jefferson County, served as a general in the Confederate army during the Civil War. In 1866 he became part owner and editor of the Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel newspaper, which he used to protest radical Republican policies during Reconstruction.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Andersonville

Andersonville

The television film Andersonville (1996), directed by John Frankenheimer, portrays the experiences of Union soldiers held at Andersonville Prison, the notorious Civil War prison located in Sumter County. The miniseries, starring Carmen Argenziano, Jarrod Emick, Frederic Forrest, and Ted Marcoux, was filmed partially in Coweta County.

Andersonville Prison

Andersonville Prison

A sketch of the Andersonville prison, by John B. Walker (1864). The set of Andersonville, a 1996 television film directed by John Frankenheimer, was modeled on the buildings of the original prison.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society Collection of Photographs, 1870-1960, #GHS 1361PH-21-13-4296.

View on partner site

Warm Springs

Warm Springs

Warm Springs (2005), a film produced by Home Box Office, chronicles the experiences of Franklin D. Roosevelt at his home in Warm Springs during the 1920s. The film, which stars Kenneth Branagh as Roosevelt and Cynthia Nixon as Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, was filmed on location at Warm Springs, in Meriwether County.

Little White House

Little White House

Franklin D. Roosevelt first visited Warm Springs in 1924, after contracting polio, and soon thereafter bought a home in the area. The house later became known as the "Little White House," after Roosevelt's election as U.S. president in 1932.

Courtesy of Explore Georgia, Photograph by Ralph Daniel.

The Three Faces of Eve

The Three Faces of Eve

The Three Faces of Eve (1957), a film starring Georgia native Joanne Woodward, is an adaptation of a book by the same name, written by doctors Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley. The narrative chronicles the experiences of a young housewife with multiple personalities, who was initially diagnosed and treated at the Medical College of Georgia (later Georgia Health Sciences University) in Augusta. The film was produced and directed by Nunnally Johnson, another Georgia native.

Great Speckled Bird

Great Speckled Bird

The front page of the inaugural issue of the Great Speckled Bird, a countercultural newspaper published in Atlanta from March 1968 to October 1976, features a mock obituary for Atlanta Constitution editor Ralph McGill, lamenting his support for the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

Melvyn Douglas

Melvyn Douglas

Melvyn Douglas was a prominent film, television, and theater actor in the mid-twentieth century, and one of the few to win an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony award. Born in Macon, Douglas first entered show business at the age of two, when he won first prize at the 1903 Georgia State Fair Baby Show.

Melvyn Douglas

Melvyn Douglas

Actor Melvyn Douglas (right), a Macon native, chats with actor Paul Robeson at a benefit in Washington, D.C., in June 1942. Earlier that year Douglas, an active member of the Democratic Party, was appointed head of the Office of Civilian Defense Arts Council, which enlisted the help of artists to support the war effort during World War II.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Melvyn Douglas

Melvyn Douglas

Melvyn Douglas (seated) starred as Henry Drummond in a stage production of Inherit the Wind during the 1950s.

Millard Grimes

Millard Grimes

Journalist Millard Grimes, a Georgia native, wrote for a number of publications in the state, including the Athens Daily News, the Columbus Ledger, and the Red and Black, the student newspaper at the University of Georgia. Grimes also twice owned the business magazine Georgia Trend, which he sold for the second time in 1999.

Lucian Lamar Knight

Lucian Lamar Knight

Journalist Lucian Lamar Knight worked as a literary editor for the Atlanta Constitution and as an associate editor for the Atlanta Georgian before becoming the founder and first director of the Georgia Department of Archives and History (later Georgia Archives).

Courtesy of Georgia Archives,
Ad Hoc Collection, #
ah00134.

View on partner site

Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward, born in Thomasville and raised in Marietta, became a major film star during the 1950s. Known for playing southern characters, Woodward won an Oscar in 1958 for her portrayal of a Georgia woman with multiple personality disorder in The Three Faces of Eve.

Photograph by Fran Collin

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman

Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman

Joanne Woodward, a Georgia native, married fellow actor Paul Newman in 1958 and starred with him in a number of films, including The Long Hot Summer (1958), The Drowning Pool (1975), and Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990). The couple also established the food-products line Newman's Own, which donates all proceeds to charity, as well as the Scott Newman Foundation, which works to prevent drug abuse.

Courtesy of Westport Country Playhouse

Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward, a well-known film actor and Georgia native, sits in the auditorium of the Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Connecticut. Woodward served as the company's artistic director from 2000 through 2005.

Courtesy of Westport Country Playhouse

Georgia Public Broadcasting

Georgia Public Broadcasting

The headquarters for Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), which comprises GPB Television, GPB Radio, and the Education and Technology Services Division, are located in Atlanta. As of 2006 the network operated nine television stations and sixteen radio stations across the state.

GPB Radio Interview

GPB Radio Interview

Masani (left), the host of The Jazz Spot, a series on GPB Radio, conducts an interview. The studios for GPB Radio, one component of the Georgia Public Broadcasting network, are located in Atlanta.

James M. Cox Jr.

James M. Cox Jr.

James McMahon Cox Jr., pictured in 1973, inherited control of Cox Enterprises in 1957, upon the death of his father, James Middleton Cox. Under his leadership, the company acquired its first cable television station in 1962 and also entered into the publishing, film, and automobile auction industries.

James M. Cox

James M. Cox

James Middleton Cox is pictured at his desk in 1920, during his third term as the governor of Ohio. Although Cox never lived in Georgia, his 1939 purchase of the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Georgian gave him significant political power in the state. Cox also acquired WSB, the South's first radio station, in the deal.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt

James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt

James M. Cox (left), the governor of Ohio and founder of Cox Enterprises, is pictured at the White House with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1920. That year Roosevelt, who was elected president of the United States in 1932, ran as Cox's vice presidential candidate during Cox's unsuccessful bid for the presidency.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Cox Communications

Cox Communications

An employee of Cox Communications, a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, installs telecommunications wire. The nation's third-largest cable company in 2006, Cox Communications offers multiservice broadband communications to 6.7 million customers around the nation.

Courtesy of Cox Communications

Kim Basinger

Kim Basinger

Hollywood actor Kim Basinger signs autographs in 1991 at the University of Georgia's Henry Field Stadium tennis complex. An Athens native, Basinger donated a lighting system to the facility.

Kim Basinger

Kim Basinger

Kim Basinger arrives at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Buckhead, circa 1990. Born in Athens, Basinger is a well-known Hollywood actor, as well as a fashion model and recording artist.

Kim Basinger

Kim Basinger

Kim Basinger attends a 2006 benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The Oscar-winning actor and former model is a native of Athens. In 1989 the actress purchased the town of Braselton in Jackson County, with plans to build a movie studio and begin a film festival there. In 1994 she sold the town.

Photograph by Corbis

Chambers and Carter

Chambers and Carter

Anne Cox Chambers accepts the Human Relations Award in 1984 from U.S. president Jimmy Carter. Chambers received the award during the annual banquet of the Institute of Human Relations of the American Jewish Committee.

Furman Bisher

Furman Bisher

Furman Bisher, a prolific and highly regarded sportswriter and editor, began his career in North Carolina, his home state. In 1950 he became sports editor at the Atlanta Constitution and continued with the paper until his retirement in 2009. Bisher also wrote for such national periodicals as Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News, in addition to publishing several books.

Furman Bisher

Furman Bisher

Sportswriter Furman Bisher is pictured during the Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in 2000. Bisher began his career in 1938 and covered the Masters each year for the rest of his life.

Grizzard and Bisher

Grizzard and Bisher

Lewis Grizzard (left) and Furman Bisher, sportswriters and columnists for the Atlanta Constitution, are pictured in 1990.

Macon Telegraph Building

Macon Telegraph Building

The Macon Telegraph was housed in this building, pictured in the early 1950s, during the editorship of Peyton Anderson Jr.

Courtesy of Peyton Anderson Foundation

Cox Communications

Cox Communications

The headquarters for Cox Communications, pictured in 2006, are located in Atlanta. The third-largest cable-television provider as of 2006, the company serves 6.7 million customers around the country. In addition to cable television, Cox offers telephone and Internet services.

Courtesy of Cox Communications

Careers on Wheels

Careers on Wheels

Cox Communications employee Paul Voutsinas talks with elementary students in Las Vegas, Nevada, as part of the company's Careers on Wheels program. Cox is also involved with public education through its Cable in the Classroom program, which provides commercial-free programming to schools.

Courtesy of Cox Communications

Bill Shipp

Bill Shipp

Bill Shipp, pictured in 2006, served as a prominent Georgia journalist and political commentator. His journalistic career stretched over half a century, and his pronouncements and predictions were heeded by policymakers and activists at all levels of government.

Courtesy of Bill Shipp Enterprises, Inc.

Savannah Morning News

Savannah Morning News

The Savannah Morning News, founded in 1850 by William Tappan Thompson, covers news for the coastal region of Georgia, as well as for a number of inland counties. The paper has a daily circulation of 56,000 during the week, and 70,000 on Sundays.

Image from Josh Hallett

View on source site

Turner Broadcasting Headquarters

Turner Broadcasting Headquarters

The headquarters for Turner Broadcasting System, founded by Ted Turner in 1970, are located in Atlanta. Today the system comprises a variety of television networks, including TBS Superstation, CNN, Turner Classic Movies, and Cartoon Network, as well as Internet sites and radio networks.

Courtesy of Turner Broadcasting

Ted Turner

Ted Turner