The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Iris Blitch, pictured here speaking in Jesup in Wayne County, broke ground for female politicians in the 1950s and 1960s. When she was first elected in 1948, she was the only female legislator in the state.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Iris Blitch, far left, greets U.S. House Sepaker Sam Rayburn. Blitch and Edith Green of Oregon, second from left, were newly elected congresswomen in 1955. The Eighty-Fourth U.S. Congress had seventeen women.
Courtesy of the Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
Iris Blitch, pictured here circa 1955, won her first congressional election in 1954, after unseating U.S. representative William McDonald "Don" Wheeler. She served the Eighth Congressional District of Georgia from 1955 to to 1963.
Courtesy of the Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
At the end of the 1820s Augustin Smith Clayton of Athens constructed a cotton mill near his hometown, hoping to prove the protective tariff that subsidized northern industry at the expense of southerners unnecessary.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Photo File.
Published in 1885, the print Our Overworked Supreme Court depicts Supreme Court justices Woods, Blatchford, Harlan, Gray, Miller, Field, Waite, Bradley, and Matthews surrounded by paperwork for cases.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
William Burnham Woods, a native of Ohio, was a resident of Atlanta when he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1881. He served on the Court until his death in 1887.
Courtesy of British Museum, London
Joseph Rucker Lamar, a native of Elbert County, served as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1911 to 1915.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Joseph Rucker Lamar, a native of Elbert County, served as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1911 to 1915.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
James Moore Wayne, pictured circa 1850, was a Savannah native and the first Georgian appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as a justice from 1835 to 1867, one of the longest tenures in the Court's history.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
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
Henry L. Benning was an influential advocate for secession and helped to draft Georgia's Ordinance of Secession.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Fort Benning, home of the U.S. Army Infantry, comprises nearly 120,000 acres in Chattahoochee County.
Courtesy of Fort Benning
Hugh Peterson, pictured in 1925, was a state legislator from 1922 until 1934, during which time he was instrumental in passing the State Reorganization Act of 1931. Peterson went on to represent Georgia's First Congressional District in the U.S. Congress, serving from 1934 to 1946.
Congressman Hugh Peterson (front row, center), pictured in July 1937, and guests eat watermelons sent by J. M. Stubbs of Savannah. Peterson served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1934 to 1946.
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
U.S. president Jimmy Carter (right) meets with Hamilton Jordan in the Oval Office of the White House in 1977. Jordan served as Carter's chief of staff from 1977 to 1980.
Courtesy of Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.
Hamilton Jordan, pictured in 1977, served as a prominent advisor to Jimmy Carter during Carter's tenures as governor of Georgia and president of the United States. Jordan grew up in Albany and graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in political science.
Courtesy of Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.
Georgians Jody Powell (left) and Hamilton Jordan, known as "the gold dust twins," sucessfully managed Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign in 1976. Following the election both men, pictured in 1977, served in Carter's administration, Powell as press secretary and Jordan as chief of staff.
Courtesy of Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.
Newt Gingrich speaks to the media in Atlanta in December 2000, after the U.S. Supreme Court had decided in favor of George W. Bush in the contested presidential election of that year. Gingrich has remained politically active since his resignation from the U.S. Congress in 1999.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In 1978 Republican Newt Gingrich won his first term to the U.S. House of Representatives. He went on to represent the Sixth District of Georgia until 1999.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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
On the final day of the 1964 legislative session, Georgia representative Denmark Groover attempted to stop the clock in the state House of Representatives during a debate on congressional redistricting.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Representative Denmark Groover, pictured in 1984, was considered one of the shrewdest members of the General Assembly because of his prodigious memory for legislation. He was also involved in some of the state's most controversial political events, including two redesigns of the state flag.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Pictured in 1982, Tom Buck of Columbus served in the Georgia House of Representatives for thirty-eight years, one of the longest tenures of any lawmaker in the state's history.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Calvin Smyre (left) and Tom Buck were powerful and effective legislators in the state House of Representatives for their home district of Columbus. They are pictured in 1986.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
State senator Culver Kidd, pictured in 1990, was a powerful legislator who sponsored a larger number of bills each session than most of his colleagues.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Culver Kidd served as a member of the Georgia General Assembly for forty-two years, representing Baldwin County in middle Georgia. His portrait was painted circa 1996 by Stan J. Strickland and hangs in the state capitol.
Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Museum, University of Georgia Libraries
Georgia state senator Culver Kidd speaks in 1988 with fellow Democratic state senator David Scott in the legislative chambers. Scott was elected to the U.S. Congress in 2002.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Bill Lee (left), one of the longest-serving members of the state House of Representatives, converses with Representative Calvin Smyre in 1988. A native of Clayton County, Lee served as chairman of the House Rules Committee.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
State representative Bill Lee (left) is pictured with fellow representative Frank Redding in the 1990s. Lee served in the house for forty-two consecutive years, thereby earning the nickname "Dean of the House."
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Sidney J. Marcus was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1968 and served for seven terms. He chaired the house's Health and Ecology Committee and was a member of both the Rules Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. The auditorium at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, which Marcus worked to establish, is named in his honor.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Sidney J. Marcus Papers.
Dorothy Felton, pictured in 1979, was the first Republican woman to be elected to the Georgia General Assembly. She was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1974 and served until 2000.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Mike Egan (right) is pictured with George Busbee in 1974, the year Busbee was elected governor of Georgia. Egan served in the state legislature as both a representative (1966-76) and a senator (1989-2000). He also served as associate attorney general under U.S. president Jimmy Carter.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Paul Broun Sr., pictured in the 1980s, served in the state senate from 1962 until 2000. A native of Randolph County, Broun was a businessman in Athens at the time of his election to the senate, where he served as chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the University System Committee.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
Paul Broun (right), a state senator for thirty-eight consecutive years, is pictured in 1986 with Georgia lieutenant governor (later governor) Zell Miller. Broun and Miller worked together in the 1990s to establish the HOPE scholarship program.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
U.S. senator Walter F. George (center) is pictured in 1951 at his Dooly County office with members of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce Housing Committee. George served in the U.S. Senate from 1922 until 1957.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, # clq085.
Up to 1937 U.S. senator Walter F. George had supported most of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's major New Deal programs, but he joined a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who resisted further reforms. In 1945 George supported Roosevelt's efforts to create the United Nations charter.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, National Photo Company Collection.
Walter F. George (back seat, far right), one of Georgia's longest-serving members of the U.S. Senate (1922-57), drives through Warm Springs with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1933. U.S. senator Richard B. Russell Jr. rides in the front seat.
Courtesy of Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
With fifty-six years in office, Hugh Gillis of Treutlen County was the longest-serving member of the Georgia General Assembly. Gillis held powerful committee positions during his long legislative career, including president pro tempore of the senate.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
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
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
J. J. Brown (seated left), Georgia's eighth commissioner of agriculture, poses at John Harris's fish camp on the Chattahoochee River with Governor Hugh M. Dorsey (seated right), circa 1918.
Courtesy of Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc.
J. J. Brown won five consecutive terms as Georgia's commissioner of agriculture, serving from 1917 to 1927. During his tenure, Brown created a state Bureau of Markets and established the Market Bulletin, a free weekly periodical for Georgia farmers still in circulation today as the Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin.
Courtesy of Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc.
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
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