GEORGIA

Georgia is located in the southeastern United States, where it is bordered in the north by Tennessee and North Carolina, in the south by Florida, in the west by Alabama, and in the east by South Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean. The country's twenty-first largest state, Georgia has a total area of 58,910 square miles. In the 1990s Georgia's estimated population of 7.64 million ranked it tenth among the fifty states. During the nineteenth century the state boasted a thriving agricultural economy, but by the end of the twentieth century Georgia's manufacturing and service industries were its most successful and buoyant. The state's economic center is located in Atlanta, which is both Georgia's largest city and its capital.

The colony of Georgia was founded in 1733 by James Oglethorpe, a soldier, politician, and philanthropist who had been granted a charter to settle the territory by Great Britain. Named after the English King George II, Georgia was the last of the 13 British colonies established in the United States. Georgians were among the first colonists to sign the Declaration of Independence. Following the American Revolution (1775–1783) Georgia was the fourth state overall and the first southern state to ratify the federal Constitution in January of 1788.

Georgia's support for the federal government began to wane during the early 1800s, when Congress proposed legislation to outlaw slavery in the Western territories. Georgia's rich cotton and rice plantations depended on slavery, and Georgians feared that the abolition movement would eventually reach their state. The Missouri Compromise (1820), which designated the states and territories in question as slave or free states, was passed by Congress largely through the efforts of Georgia Representatives Alexander H. Stephens, Robert Toombs, and Howell Cobb. This legislation helped calm tempers in the South, but it was only a temporary fix. On January 19, 1861 Georgia became one of the eleven Confederate states to secede from the Union. Less than three months later the nation was at war.

The American Civil War (1861–1865) left much of Georgia in ruins. Union General William T. Sherman (1820–1891) captured Atlanta in September of 1864, and began his famous "march to the sea" in November. Before his troops overtook Savannah in December, houses were looted, bridges were burned, and railroads, factories, mills, and warehouses were destroyed. Georgia residents were not the only ones in their state to suffer during the war, almost 50,000 Union soldiers were held prisoner at a camp in Andersonville, Georgia. Approximately one-fourth of those prisoners died from exposure, malnutrition, starvation, and filth. The prison superintendent was later convicted of war crimes before a U.S. military court and hung.

Georgia was readmitted to the Union on July 15, 1870 after it ratified the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution. Those amendments abolished slavery and guaranteed the former slaves equal protection under the law and the right to vote. The amendments did not, however, protect thousands of black Georgia residents from being persecuted by white terrorists. Nor did they prevent the state government from enacting so-called Jim Crow laws that legalized segregation in Georgia. Such laws remained on the books until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation in all public places. Georgia native Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) played an essential role in bringing about the passage of that civil rights law.

Other famous Americans have also hailed from Georgia. Jimmy Carter (1924–) is the only U.S. president who claims Georgia as his birthplace. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (1948–) is one of four Georgians to have sat on the nation's high court. Baseball players Raymond "Ty" Cobb (1886–1961) and Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (1919–1972) are among the legendary Georgia athletes. Eli Whitney (1765–1825) may be the most famous Georgian from before the twentieth century. Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793 made cotton so efficient to clean that the crop became the foundation for Georgia's economy in the nineteenth century.

Cotton would not have the same importance to the Georgia economy of the twentieth century. In the 1920s the boll weevil decimated the state's cotton industry. The Great Depression (1929–1939) further weakened the cotton farmer and by 1940 the old plantation system was gone. At the same time, World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945) hastened the growth of manufacturing in Georgia. Federal dollars poured into state businesses that built and sold airplanes, ships, and munitions for the war effort.

By the end of the twentieth century manufacturing was the state's leading revenue-generating activity, with the textile industry being its oldest and largest such business. Of the almost four million persons employed in Georgia during the early 1990s, however, about 25 percent worked in the services sector, 23 percent worked in wholesale or retail trade, and only 15 percent worked in manufacturing. Three percent of Georgia residents worked on farms where cotton was only one of several crops grown for a profit. Tobacco, peanuts, peaches, and watermelons have also proven lucrative to grow in the state.

Tourism was another revenue-generating activity for the state in the twentieth century, with visitors to the state spending nearly $9.2 billion annually. The state's several national parks and forests, 100-mile oceanic coastline, balmy winter temperatures, and verdant plant life make it a nationwide attraction. In 1996 Atlanta attracted millions of people from around the world for the summer Olympics, which were generally considered a success despite a bombing that killed two people.

Both residents and visitors have contributed to the host of nicknames by which the state of Georgia is known. Unofficially called the Peach State, Georgia has also been affectionately referred to as the Peanut State, the Buzzard State, and the Empire State of the South. Over the past quarter-century Georgia has become known in some parts as the Bulldog State acquiring that moniker in conjunction with the successful academic and athletic programs at the University of Georgia, where the school mascot is a bulldog.

GEORGIA

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