John Clark

1766-1832

David Emanuel

ca. 1744-1808

Lyman Hall

1724-1790

John Houstoun

ca. 1747-1796

Jared Irwin

ca. 1750-1818

John Martin

ca. 1730-1786

Hoke Smith

1855-1931

Josiah Tattnall

ca. 1764-1803

Updated Recently

Bernie Marcus

Bernie Marcus

2 weeks ago
Third Day

Third Day

2 weeks 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.

Nathan Deal

Nathan Deal

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’s Inauguration

Nathan Deal’s Inauguration

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

Sixtieth Regiment of Foot

Sixtieth Regiment of Foot

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

Henry McDaniel

Henry McDaniel

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

David B. Mitchell

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

E. D. Rivers

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

E. D. Rivers

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.

View on partner site

E. D. Rivers Promotion Front Side

E. D. Rivers Promotion Front Side

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.

E. D. Rivers Promotion Back Side

E. D. Rivers Promotion Back Side

The back side of a promotional card outlining E. D. Rivers's 1938 gubernatorial platform.

James Johnson

James Johnson

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

George R. Gilmer

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

Gilmer Childhood Home

Gilmer Childhood Home

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

Jared Irwin

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

Thomas Ruger

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

Charles McDonald

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

Thomas Hardwick

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

James M. Smith

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

Infantry: Continental Army, 1779-1783

Infantry: Continental Army, 1779-1783

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

Clifford Walker

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.

Walker Home

Walker Home

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.

View on partner site

Clifford Walker

Clifford Walker

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.

View on source site

James Jackson and the Yazoo Land Fraud

James Jackson and the Yazoo Land Fraud

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

William Schley

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

Joseph M. Terrell

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

Peter Early

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

George W. Towns

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.

William Y. Atkinson

William Y. Atkinson

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

Atkinson Hall

Atkinson Hall

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.

View on partner site

Tallulah Falls

Tallulah Falls

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

books

books

Allen D. Candler

Allen D. Candler

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.

Nathaniel E. Harris

Nathaniel E. Harris

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

John Forsyth

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

John Milledge

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

Alfred H. Colquitt

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

Alfred H. Colquitt

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.

View on source site

Alfred H. Colquitt

Alfred H. Colquitt

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 Telfair

Sarah Gibbons Telfair

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

Charles Jones Jenkins

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

Charles Jones Jenkins

Charles Jones Jenkins

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

Joseph M. Brown

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.

View on partner site

Joseph M. Brown

Joseph M. Brown

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

View on source site

Astyanax (1907)

Astyanax (1907)

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

George Troup

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.

John Clark

John Clark

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

Zell Miller

Zell Miller

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

Zell Miller

Zell Miller is officially sworn in as Georgia's eighth Lieutenant Governor in 1975. He served for four consecutive four-year terms.

Zell Miller

Zell Miller

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

Herschel Johnson

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

1860 Presidential Election

1860 Presidential Election

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

Hoke Smith

Hoke Smith

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.

1906 Gubernatorial Campaign

1906 Gubernatorial Campaign

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.

View on partner site

Hoke Smith

Hoke Smith

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

George W. Crawford

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

Zachary Taylor’s Cabinet

Zachary Taylor’s Cabinet

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

William J. Northen

William J. Northen

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

View on source site

Mount Zion Academy

Mount Zion Academy

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.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

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.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

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.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

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.

Campaign Literature

Campaign Literature

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.

Russell Takes Oath

Russell Takes Oath

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.

Campaign Wagon

Campaign Wagon

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.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard B. Russell Jr.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard B. Russell Jr.

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. at Festival

Richard B. Russell Jr. at Festival

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.

Russell, Hayden, and Wiley

Russell, Hayden, and Wiley

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

Russell and Johnson

Russell and Johnson

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.

Democratic National Convention

Democratic National Convention

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.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

Richard B. Russell Jr.

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.

Richard Brevard Russell Senate Office Building

Richard Brevard Russell Senate Office Building

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 

Richard B. Russell Jr. at Crackers Game

Richard B. Russell Jr. at Crackers Game

Richard B. Russell Jr. throws the first pitch at an Atlanta Crackers game in 1931, the same year in which he took the oath of office as Georgia's youngest governor.

Richard B. Russell Jr. and Richard Nixon

Richard B. Russell Jr. and Richard Nixon

Richard B. Russell Jr., a U.S. senator from Georgia, greets U.S. president Richard Nixon.

The School That Learned to Eat

Produced by the University of Georgia College of Education and General Mills, The School That Learned to Eat (1948) is a short film chronicling a community's efforts to improve the school lunch program at East Griffin Elementary School in Spalding County. 

Richard B. Russell Postage Stamp

Richard B. Russell Postage Stamp

Issued in 1984, this 10 cent postage stamp honors Richard B. Russell, the youngest governor in Georgia's history. 

Courtesy of Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Lamartine Hardman

Lamartine Hardman

Georgia Governor from 1927 to 1931, Lamertine Hardman pictured on a horse holding a rifle. Hardman was one of the wealthiest men in Georgia at the turn of the twentieth century and strove to make governmental processes more efficient 

Hardman Family

Hardman Family

Emma Wiley Griffin, a Valdosta native, married Georgia state representative and future governor Lamartine Hardman in 1907. The couple had four children, three daughters and one son, who are pictured here with their mother in this undated photograph.

Ivan Allen Sr.

Ivan Allen Sr.

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.

Lamartine Hardman

Lamartine Hardman

Georgia Govenor Lamartine Hardman with President Calvin Coolidge.

Lamartine Hardman

Lamartine Hardman

Larmartine Hardman (second from right) pictured with the daughter of Crawford Long (to the left of the stone marker) at a tribute to Long in 1922. Long was a Georgian physician who is credited with the discovery of anethesia in 1879.

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon rose to prominence during the Civil War, entering as a captain and emerging as a major general. He later served as a U.S. senator and as the governor of Georgia.

Photograph by Wikimedia

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon, a renowned Confederate officer and political leader, was a member of the Farmers' Alliance in Georgia until the organization's split with the Democratic Party in 1892. A member of the Bourbon Triumvirate, Gordon served multiple terms in the U.S. Senate and, from 1886 to 1890, as governor of the state.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Brady-Handy Photograph Collection.

View on source site

John B. Gordon

John B. Gordon

General John B. Gordon, for whom Gordon State College is named, was a Confederate officer during the Civil War and later served as governor of Georgia and as a U.S. senator.

Courtesy of Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Historical Society collection of photographs, #GHS 1361PH-24-09-4694.

View on partner site

John M. Slaton

John M. Slaton

John Slaton served two terms as governor of Georgia. He is perhaps best known today for his decision to commute the death sentence of Leo Frank in 1915.

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

A lifelong politician, Alexander Stephens is perhaps best remembered as the vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens was selected in 1866 by the Georgia legislature to represent the state, along with Herschel Johnson, in the U.S. Senate. Because he had served as vice president of the Confederacy, however, the Senate did not allow Stephens to take his seat.

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens, a native of Taliaferro County, was a prominent member of the Whig Party during the sectional crisis that arose in the wake of the Mexican War (1846-48). He later joined the ranks of the Democratic party and served as vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War (1861-65).

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens, the Confederate vice president and a Georgia native, was a master at managing relations with journalists, and he used his stable of press supporters, including the Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel and the Southern Confederacy of Atlanta, to spread his peace doctrine.

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens

Alexander Stephens. After the Civil War Stephens was elected to the U.S. Senate, but that body refused to seat the former vice president of the Confederacy. He then was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives and finally as governor, an office he held for only a few months before he died.

Image from Clement Anselm Evans

Liberty Hall

Liberty Hall

Liberty Hall in Taliaferro County, home of Alexander H. Stephens, is pictured in 1936.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey, #HABS GA,133-CRAWV,1--2.

The Hercules of 1861

The Hercules of 1861

In this political cartoon, a Union officer (unidentified) swings a club labeled "Union" in defense against a many-headed serpent labeled "Secession." The serpent's heads are: Floyd, Pickens, Beauregard, Twiggs, Davis, Stephens, and Toombs, all leaders of the Southern secession movement and the resulting Confederacy.

Courtesy of Civil War Treasures, New York Historical Society

A. H. Stephens Historic Park

A. H. Stephens Historic Park

The A. H. Stephens Historic Park, in Crawfordville, is part of the Georgia state park system. The park includes Alexander Stephens's restored home, Liberty Hall, as well a museum containing Civil War artifacts.

Courtesy of Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Photograph from Georgia State Parks.

Wilson Lumpkin

Wilson Lumpkin

Wilson Lumpkin served as governor of Georgia from 1831 to 1835. During his long political career, Lumpkin was also elected to office in the U.S. House and Senate and held the position of U.S. commissioner to the Cherokee Indians. Painting by J. T. Moore.

Courtesy of Georgia Capitol Tours

Wilson Lumpkin

Wilson Lumpkin

Before embarking on his political career, Wilson Lumpkin also worked as a farmer and as a teacher. Upon his death in 1870, Lumpkin's daughter deeded his farm in Athens to the University of Georgia.

From The Removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia, by Wilson Lumpkin

Eugene Talmadge

Eugene Talmadge

In Governor Eugene Talmadge, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal found one of its most vigorous opponents. In Talmadge's first two terms as governor (1933-37), Georgia state government subverted many of the early New Deal programs.

Courtesy of Atlanta History Center.

Eugene Talmadge

Eugene Talmadge

Eugene Talmadge served as governor of Georgia from 1933 to 1937 and again from 1941 to 1943. His personality and actions polarized voters into Talmadge and anti-Talmadge factions in the state's one-party politics of that era. His death in 1946 touched off the unprecedented "three governors controversy."

Eugene Talmadge

Eugene Talmadge

Talmadge's impassioned rhetoric and animated delivery on the campaign trail endeared him to rural and small-town Georgia voters and accounted for much of his political success.

Eugene Talmadge

Eugene Talmadge

Talmadge ran for governor for a fourth term in 1946, promising to restore the white primary and to keep Blacks in their place in Jim Crow Georgia. Talmadge, who had very strong support in rural areas, won the gubernatorial nomination by obtaining a majority of the county unit votes.

Roy Barnes, 1982

Roy Barnes, 1982

Roy Barnes served eight terms as a Georgia state senator (1974-1990). After his second term he was named chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and also served as floor leader for Governor Joe Frank Harris.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Rufus Bullock

Rufus Bullock

Rufus Bullock was Georgia's first Republican governor (1868-71) and a staunch supporter of African American equality.

Lester Maddox

Lester Maddox

Lestor Maddox locks the doors to the Pickrick restaurant rather than integrating it in 1965. Toward the end of his life, Governor Lester Maddox expressed few regrets and made no apologies for his segregationist beliefs or any of the other political stances he had taken over his career.

Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Lester Maddox Riding Bicycle

Lester Maddox Riding Bicycle

Governor Lester Maddox performs his signature trick: riding a bicycle backward.

</