Depression-Era Georgia

Depression-Era Georgia

The Depression-Era Georgia option contains newspapers from Warm Springs, Gainesville, and Barnesville. The selections also include newspapers from rural cotton-producing communities in South Georgia (Greene, Laurens, Terrell, Ben Hill, Tift, and Thomas Counties), which experienced economic downtown earlier than other regions of the state. Spanning 1920 to the early-1940s, the papers published during this time period carried news regarding the boll weevil infestation, New Deal programs (implemented late due to Eugene Talmadge's resistance), and rural farmer flight to the state's urban centers. African-Americans, who dealt with economic hardship before the decline of Georgia's cash-crop agriculture in the 1920s, searched for opportunities in northern cities in even larger numbers than their white counterparts, in what became known as the Great Migration. Franklin Roosevelt's personal connection to Georgia, via Warm Springs, is also featured alongside his visits to Gainesville following the 1936 tornado and Barnesville in 1938 to launch the Lamar Electric Cooperative. Despite all the improvements brought about by the New Deal in Georgia, it would take the nation's entry into World War II to finally pull the state out of the Depression.

New Georgia Encyclopedia Resources

Applicable Education Standards

  • The Great Depression and New Deal programs (SS5H3)

  • The Great Depression and New Deal influence on government (SS8H8)

  • Impact of bases and industry related to WWII (SS8H9)

  • Key events leading to WWII (SS8H9)

Online Exhibit Possibilities

  • The Great Migration and Georgia's Urban Center Growth

  • Franklin Roosevelt in Georgia

  • Boll Weevil Infestation, Drought, and Georgia's Cash-Crop Agriculture Industry

  • 1936 Gainesville Tornado

  • New Deal Implementation in Georgia

Potential Titles