Few historical events shaped the city of Atlanta more than World War II. A hub for the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, Atlanta is now home to over four million people and serves as national headquarters for a dozen Fortune 500 companies. It would never have developed to such prominence, however, without the Allied victory in the global conflict. From the social reforms of the New Deal to the economic impact of war industries, to the early gains of the Civil Rights movement, World War II in Atlanta illustrates the transformation of the city from a regional Southern town into a major industrial metropolis.Through images selected from the collections of the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center, this volume examines the war's role in creating today's vibrant, sprawling megalopolis with its diverse population. View photographs of wartime president Franklin D. Roosevelt during his visits to Atlanta and other Georgia cities. Pictures from the homefront include war bond advertisements, Bob Hope at a USO show, and victory garden promotions. The two warships named Atlanta as well as the Liberty ships named for famous Atlantans illustrate the symbolic connections between the city and the war. In addition, portraits and personal stories of some of Atlanta's sons and daughters who served in the war highlight the human side of the conflict.
"During World War II, many Georgians witnessed the enemy in their backyards. More than twelve thousand German and Italian prisoners captured in far-off battlefields were sent to POW camps in Georgia. ... explore the daily lives of POWs in Georgia and the lasting impact they had on the Peach State."--Back cover.
LIBERTY LADY is the true story of a WWII bomber and its crew forced to land in neutral Sweden during the Eighth Air Force's first large-scale daylight bombing raid on Berlin. 1st Lt. Herman Allen was interned and began working for his country's espionage agency, the OSS, with instructions to befriend a businessman suspected of selling secrets to the Germans. Soon Herman fell in love with a beautiful Swedish-American secretary working for the OSS, their courtship unfolding amid the glamour and intrigue of wartime Stockholm. As Swedish newspapers trumpeted one of the biggest spy scandals of the war, two of the main protagonists walked down the aisle in a storybook wedding presided over by the nephew of the King of Sweden.
From the memories of everyday experience, Living Atlanta vividly recreates life in the city during the three decades from World War I through World War II--a period in which a small, regional capital became a center of industry, education, finance, commerce, and travel. This profusely illustrated volume draws on nearly two hundred interviews with Atlanta residents who recall, in their own words, "the way it was"--from segregated streetcars to college fraternity parties, from moonshine peddling to visiting performances by the Metropolitan Opera, from the growth of neighborhoods to religious revivals. The book is based on a celebrated public radio series that was broadcast in 1979-80 and hailed by Studs Terkel as "an important, exciting project--a truly human portrait of a city of people." Living Atlanta presents a diverse array of voices--domestics and businessmen, teachers and factory workers, doctors and ballplayers. There are memories of the city when it wasn't quite a city: "Back in those young days it was country in Atlanta," musician Rosa Lee Carson reflects. "It sure was. Why, you could even raise a cow out there in your yard." There are eyewitness accounts of such major events as the Great Fire of 1917: "The wind blowing that way, it was awful," recalls fire fighter Hugh McDonald. "There'd be a big board on fire, and the wind would carry that board, and it'd hit another house and start right up on that one. And it just kept spreading." There are glimpses of the workday: "It's a real job firing an engine, a darn hard job," says railroad man J. R. Spratlin. "I was using a scoop and there wasn't no eight hour haul then, there was twelve hours, sometimes sixteen." And there are scenes of the city at play: "Baseball was the popular sport," remembers Arthur Leroy Idlett, who grew up in the Pittsburgh neighborhood. "Everybody had teams. And people--you could put some kids out there playing baseball, and before you knew a thing, you got a crowd out there, watching kids play." Organizing the book around such topics as transportation, health and religion, education, leisure, and politics, the authors provide a narrative commentary that places the diverse remembrances in social and historical context. Resurfacing throughout the book as a central theme are the memories of Jim Crow and the peculiarities of black-white relations. Accounts of Klan rallies, job and housing discrimination, and poll taxes are here, along with stories about the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, early black forays into local politics, and the role of the city's black colleges. Martin Luther King, Sr., historian Clarence Bacote, former police chief Herbert Jenkins, educator Benjamin Mays, and sociologist Arthur Raper are among those whose recollections are gathered here, but the majority of the voices are those of ordinary Atlantans, men and women who in these pages relive day-to-day experiences of a half-century ago.
Few historical events shaped the city of Atlanta more than World War II. A hub for the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, Atlanta is now home to over four million people and serves as national headquarters for a dozen Fortune 500 companies. It would never have developed to such prominence, however, without the Allied victory in the global conflict. From the social reforms of the New Deal to the economic impact of war industries, to the early gains of the Civil Rights movement, World War II in Atlanta illustrates the transformation of the city from a regional Southern town into a major industrial metropolis. Through images selected from the collections of the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center, this volume examines the war's role in creating today's vibrant, sprawling megalopolis with its diverse population. View photographs of wartime president Franklin D. Roosevelt during his visits to Atlanta and other Georgia cities. Pictures from the homefront include war bond advertisements, Bob Hope at a USO show, and victory garden promotions. The two warships named Atlanta as well as the Liberty ships named for famous Atlantans illustrate the symbolic connections between the city and the war. In addition, portraits and personal stories of some of Atlanta's sons and daughters who served in the war highlight the human side of the conflict.
Traces the causes of World War II, explores the motivations of important people involved with it, presents the events of the war grouped by the theater in which they took place, and examines its aftermath.
From 1945 to 1970, several factors influenced Georgia's growth. The shift from rural agrarianism to factory jobs after World War II resulted in larger urban populations. Atlanta developed into a recognizable metropolis due to the roles of two influential mayors � William B. Hartsfield and Ivan Allen Jr. � as well as major league sports. Ellis Arnall, Georgia's 69th governor, enacted several monumental changes � such as lowering the voting age to eighteen � that helped position Georgia as a revolutionary state. In this volume, primary sources and historic images guide reader on a tour of Georgia from 1945 to 1970.
This text draws on interviews with almost 200 people, both black and white, who worked for, or actively resisted, the freedom movement in Georgia. Beginning before and continuing after the years of direct action protest in the 1960s, the book makes clearthe exhorbitant cost of racial oppression.
