Reconstruction Recovery
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Many newspapers were faced with the destruction of their printing facilities after General William T. Sherman's forces moved through Georgia. The staff of the Rome Courier returned to their Union-occupied city to find their offices demolished, as described in the August 31, 1865, edition of the paper.
Courtesy of Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
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A circa 1866 photograph of Atlanta taken after Sherman's campaign destroyed much of the city. Within three years, Atlanta became the capital of the state and the Atlanta Constitution began publication in the city.
Courtesy of Hargrett Library, Barnard's photographic views of the Sherman Campaign.
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Photograph of newspaper publisher and journalist Henry W. Grady, who conceived of the idea of a post-war New South that embraced industrial development. Grady promoted the idea through several Georgia newpapers, including the Atlanta Constitution.
Courtesy of Georgia State University. Libraries, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976. Photographic Collection.
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An 1883 engraving of the Atlanta Journal building on South Broad Street in Atlanta. The publication began circulation that year to compete with the Atlanta Constitution and became famous for their motto "Covers Dixie Like the Dew."
Courtesy of Atlanta History Center, Atlanta History Photograph Collection.
At war’s end, Georgia faced physical destruction, financial turmoil, and federal occupation. Publishers that managed to resume printing in the late 1860s faced censorship and sometimes closure for their opposition to Reconstruction. Newspapers aligned with the Republican Party, however, thrived in this environment. With support from the government, pro-Reconstruction publishers established newspapers in most of Georgia’s major cities, including the Daily Press in Augusta and the Daily New Era in Atlanta. When the Democratic Party regained control of the state government in the 1870s, Georgia’s newspaper publishers were once again free to exert editorial reign over their publications, and many of the Republican-aligned papers ceased operations. In the mid-1870s, Atlanta newspaperman Henry Grady emerged as the "spokesman of the New South," an invigorated region that sought to lure northern investment and industry to an economy that had long been dominated by agrarian interests. As managing editor of the Atlanta Constitution, Grady advanced a pro-industrial agenda and promoted Atlanta as an ideal city for industrial growth. His advocacy resulted in the establishment of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the late 1880s, and the city hosted several expositions to promote industrial investment in the decades that followed, including the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition where Booker T. Washington delivered his “Atlanta Compromise” speech. Grady’s “New South” was also a vision of white supremacy, however, and if African Americans wanted a voice in the burgeoning state, they would have to challenge the establishment, including the white-owned print journalism industry.