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
John Archibald Campbell, a native of Wilkes County, served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1853 until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
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
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.
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.
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.
Calvin Smyre speaking to a colleague on the floor of the Georgia State House in 1987.
Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Southline Press, Inc. Photographs, #VIS 158.01.269.
Calvin Smyre concluded a forty-eight-year career in politics in April 2022.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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.
Senator George Hooks, from Americus, retired in 2012 from serving the Georgia General Assembly. During his thirty-two years in the assembly, he became known as an expert on the state's finances, as well as the unofficial historian of the senate.
Courtesy of Georgia Info, Digital Library of Georgia.
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.
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.
In 1991 Clarence Thomas was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the Supreme Court's sole African American member and only the second African American to serve on the court.
Anita Hill, a University of Oklahoma law professor, testified in 1991 that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had made improper sexual advances to her while she was an employee at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, CQ Roll Call Photograph Collection, #LC-RC15-1988-1, frame 18.
After achieving great success as a businessman and politician, Fuqua has demonstrated significant generosity as a philanthropist.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Fuqua Orchid Center at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, next to Piedmont Park, is named for the philanthropist J. B. Fuqua.
Image from Brett Weinstein
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.
Ivan Allen Sr. and his wife, Irene, in 1962. They had one son, Ivan Allen Jr., who served as the mayor of Atlanta.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Ivan Allen Sr. (right), honorary member of the Georgia chapter of the American Institute of Architects, shows C. A. Smith, chairman of the chapter's awards committee, the trophy he has donated, December 1957.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr. speaks at City Hall on January 3, 1968. During Allen's tenure as mayor, Atlanta ranked in the top ten in the nation in downtown construction, with more than 55 new buildings and 22,000 new jobs a year; also the $13 million Memorial Arts Center and the $9 million Atlanta Civic Center were built.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Ivan Allen Jr. served as mayor of Atlanta from 1962 to 1970. He is credited with leading the city through an era of significant physical and economic growth and with maintaining calm during the civil rights movement. In 1965 he persuaded the Braves to move to Atlanta from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In 1981 Allen received the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize, presented by Coretta Scott King. A year after his death in 2003 the city of Atlanta honored their former mayor by naming a street after him.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
An Atlanta native, Ivan Allen Jr. served as mayor of the city from 1962 to 1970. The son of Ivan Allen Sr., a businessman active in Atlanta's civic affairs, Allen Jr. was also deeply involved in community service long before his election as mayor.
Oil portrait by Thomas V. Nash, Roswell
Former Georgia senator Max Cleland campaigned and raised funds for Democrats around the nation, gave motivational speeches, and served as an advocate for people with disabilities.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
During his long political career Cleland served in the legislative and executive branches of government, at both state and federal levels. He won his first election of four terms as secretary of state for Georgia in 1982. His six years in the U.S. Senate began in 1996.
Republican Saxby Chambliss (left) and U.S. senator Max Cleland (right), a Democrat, appeared at a debate on November 3, 2002. Two days later Chambliss defeated Cleland in the election for the U.S. Senate seat.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In 1968, during the Vietnam War, Max Cleland (far right) was injured in an accident, in which he lost both his legs and his right hand. He was awarded the Silver Star and the Soldier's Medal.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A preeminent leader of the modern American civil rights movement, John Lewis led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the mid-1960s. He has been a U.S. congressman since 1987.
Courtesy of United States House of Representatives
John Lewis got his first taste of politics as president of the student body at American Baptist Theological Seminary in 1961.
Courtesy of The Lamp, American Baptist Theological Seminary
SNCC leader John Lewis is arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, in April 1964. The next year, Lewis was arrested again during the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Many marchers were beaten and arrested during the event, which came to be known as "Bloody Sunday."
Courtesy of John Lewis
On March 7, 1965, John Lewis led around 600 civil rights activists across the Edmund Pettus Bridge toward Montgomery, Alabama. The marchers were beaten by Alabama state troopers in an incident that came to be known as "Bloody Sunday." More than twenty years later, Lewis was elected to the U.S. Congress as a representative from Georgia.
Courtesy of U.S. Department of State, GPA Photo Archive
Elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973, Maynard Jackson was the first African American to serve as mayor of a major southern city. Jackson served eight years and then returned for a third term in 1990. During his tenure, Jackson increased the amount of city business given to minority-owned firms and added a new terminal to the Atlanta airport, later renamed Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in his honor.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
From July 1979 through May 1981 the Atlanta child murders took place. With leads in the case dwindling and no arrest in sight, Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson imposed a 7:00 p.m. curfew on the city's children and offered a $10,000 reward (pictured) for information about the perpetrator of the crimes.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson appealed for calm on the steps of City Hall after mass violence and vandalism erupted in downtown Atlanta in response to the Rodney King verdict on April 30, 1992. Jackson was shouted down several times before the crowd finally moved off toward Peachtree Street.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Ben Fortson (left) oversees the inspection of machinery that automotive pioneer Henry Ford had installed in Bryan County in 1941. Fortson was serving in the state senate at this time.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
bry005.
Ben Fortson served as Georgia's secretary of state for thirty-three years. Despite being confined to a wheelchair after a car accident at the age of twenty-four, Fortson was an energetic and much-loved public servant. He remained in office until his death in 1979.
Jimmy Carter, LaBelle Lance, and Bert Lance, August 18, 1977. A 1977 federal investigation into irregular practices at the Calhoun First National Bank, where Lance had ownership interests, led to Lance's resignation from the post of director of the Office of Management and Budget under Carter's administration. Lance resigned on September 21, 1977.
Courtesy of Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.
Bert Lance was appointed director of the federal Office of Management and Budget in January 1977 under President Jimmy Carter. As director Lance laid the foundation for policies of fiscal conservatism, efficiency, and reduction in the size of government.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Journal of Labor Records, Southern Labor Archives.
Atlantan Henry Grady, a prominent orator and editor of the Atlanta Constitution, heralded the coming of the New South after the end of the Civil War.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection.
Between 1880 and 1886 the Atlanta Constitution became the primary instrument of the Atlanta Ring, a loosely connected group of urban, proindustry Democrats. Henry Grady became the group's leader and dominant political force, helping to arrange the legislature's election of a fellow Ring member, Joseph E. Brown, to the U.S. Senate in 1880.
Courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Henry Woodfin Grady Papers.
With his New South platform, Henry W. Grady advocated unity and trust between the North and South and helped to spur northern investment in Atlanta industries.
Courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Henry Woodfin Grady Papers.
Andrew Young is pictured in August 1996 after receiving a commemorative medallion from the International Olympic Committee. Young, a civil rights activist and former mayor of Atlanta, served as cochair of the Atlanta Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Andrew Young was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 and as mayor of Atlanta in 1981. His elections signaled the institutionalization of the revolution in Black political power he had helped to create in Georgia. Young won the mayoral reelection in 1985 but was defeated in a 1990 primary bid to become the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Andrew Young has had a distinguished career as a minister, civil rights activist, U.S. congressman, United Nations ambassador, mayor of Atlanta, and international businessman.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Ambassador Andrew Young at a meeting of the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Sam Nunn, selected in 2011 as a Georgia Trustee, adds his name to a list of the original Trustees of the Georgia colony at the induction ceremony in Savannah. The Georgia Trustees honor is bestowed annually by the Georgia Historical Society and the Office of the Governor.
Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society.
Sam Nunn represented Georgia for twenty-four years in the U.S. Senate (1972-96). His passion for foreign policy and military affairs led him to concentrate on global issues, particularly issues concerning the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the world.
Image from Bill Adler, Wikimedia Commons
Georgia Institute of Technology president G. Wayne Clough talks with former U.S. senator Sam Nunn, an alumnus and the namesake of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech.
Courtesy of Georgia Institute of Technology Communications
Senator Sam Nunn speaks at a banquet honoring E. L. Abercrombie as the recipient of the 1974 Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award. Nunn served in the U.S. Senate continuously from 1972 to 1996.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Southern Labor Archives.
Tom Murphy supervises the packing of his office at the state capitol in March 2003. Murphy, a Democrat, was the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives for twenty-eight years before losing his 2002 reelection bid to Republican Bill Heath.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
During Tom Murphy's forty-two-year career as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, he was known as a man with a quick wit and a sharp tongue. He conducted his politics in a style familiar to the rural South.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy (left), Governor George Busbee (center), and Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller are pictured in Atlanta in 1975.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Former U. S. congressman and senator Wyche Fowler returned to Atlanta after serving as the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Wyche Fowler served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1977-86) and U.S. Senate (1987-92) and as ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1996-2001). The FBI awarded Wyche Fowler its highest civilian honor, the Jefferson Cup, for his assistance in combating terrorism and for helping solve terrorist crimes against the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia.The FBI awarded Wyche Fowler its highest civilian honor, the Jefferson Cup, for his assistance in combating terrorism and for helping solve terrorist crimes against the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Journal of Labor Records, Southern Labor Archives.
Mayor Maynard Jackson with Wyche Fowler in 1973. Fowler served as the U.S. representative from Georgia's Fifth District from 1977 to 1986
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.
Senator Paul Coverdell on election night, 1998.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
After his retirement in 1979 from the position of attorney general of the United States, Griffin Bell returned to the Atlanta law firm King and Spalding. He maintained a prominent profile in community and national affairs, including heading investigations of E. F. Hutton's financial management in 1985 and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Griffin Bell, senior partner of King and Spalding and former U.S. attorney general, poses in the King and Spalding mock courtroom on October 29, 1999, in front of a portrait of himself that was painted when he was forty years old.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Griffin Bell, left, with hand raised, is sworn in as U.S. attorney general under President Jimmy Carter (far left) in January 1977. In 1962 Bell headed a judicial panel that ruled Georgia's county unit system of voting to be in violation of the "one man, one vote" principle. His decision forced the change of a system that had been in place since 1917 and had given disproportionate voting power to rural counties.
Photograph from the National Archives and Records Administration
Dean Rusk served as U.S. secretary of state from 1961 to 1969. During that period of service under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, he was a primary architect of U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War on the side of the South Vietnamese.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Dean Rusk Research Collection.
Dean Rusk got his first taste of foreign policy as a student at Oxford University in England, in the years leading up to World War II. The experience had a profound effect on Rusk's worldview and would make him a determined opponent of efforts to meet acts of aggression with offers of appeasement.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Dean Rusk Research Collection.
U.S. president John F. Kennedy chose Rusk as secretary of state in 1961. Rusk's most important contribution as secretary of state was to provide calming counsel to Kennedy against the use of armed force and to employ skillful behind-the-scenes diplomacy with Soviet officials to have Soviet missiles removed from Cuba in 1962.
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Dean Rusk Research Collection.
Cason Callaway pictured with his son Bo Callaway at Cason's Blue Springs Lodge near Hamilton, Georgia, circa 1950.
Courtesy of Troup County Archives, LaGrange, Callaway Gardens Collection,.
Bo Callaway was elected in 1964 as the first Republican congressman from Georgia since 1875. He ran for governor in the 1966 general election, but the presence of a write-in candidate prevented him from receiving the constitutionally required majority, costing him the election.
Image from George Augusta
Howard Hollis "Bo" Callaway was a Republican congressman from Georgia and a former candidate for governor. He also served on the Ida Cason Callaway Foundation Board of Trustees, which oversees the management of Callaway Gardens.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
William B. Hartsfield served as mayor of Atlanta for six terms (1937-41, 1942-61), longer than any other person in the city's history. He is credited with developing Atlanta into an aviation powerhouse and with building its image as "A City Too Busy to Hate."
In 1951 Hartsfield was elected vice president of the American Municipal Association, the national organization of mayors, and later served as its president. Following his retirement from public service in 1961, he was named mayor emeritus of Atlanta.
Courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, William Berry Hartsfield Papers.
Hartsfield was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1922, and served as a member of a subcommittee of the finance committee. During this time he began what became his lifelong goal of making Atlanta the aviation hub of the Southeast.
Courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, William Berry Hartsfield Papers.
As mayor, Hartsfield guided Atlanta through World War II with a policy of fiscal restraint. He also led the city through the racial unrest of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, overseeing the peaceful integration of the city's bus system in 1957 and schools in 1961.
Courtesy of Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, William Berry Hartsfield Papers.
William B. Hartsfield served as Atlanta's mayor for six terms (1937-41, 1942-61). After his retirement, he served as a consultant to several corporations, an editorial commentator for WSB television, and president of the Southeastern Fair Association.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is named for former Atlanta mayors William B. Hartsfield and Maynard Jackson. This image shows the airport's five runways and seven terminal concourses.
Photograph by David
Carl Vinson, recognized as "the father of the two-ocean navy," served twenty-five consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
