Tag: Atlanta

What if one sentence could change the way you see an entire story? Years ago, I told the story of Roger Babson and the unusual monument he placed on Emory University’s campus. While revisiting that story, one phrase on the monument’s inscription caught my attention and sent me down a path I hadn’t explored before. […]

Atlanta knew how to throw a party. When the nation’s railroad leaders came to town in 1857, the city welcomed them with such enthusiasm that many Atlantans climbed aboard the departing train and traveled all the way back to Charleston just to keep the celebration going. Somewhere along that unforgettable journey, Atlanta earned a nickname […]

Every photograph captures a moment. Most are forgotten. In 1927, someone walked the streets of downtown Atlanta with a camera, methodically photographing storefront after storefront. At first glance, the images seem almost painfully ordinary. A grocery store. A hardware shop. People standing on a sidewalk, unaware that anyone would ever care. A century later, those […]

By the late 1850s, Atlanta had already transformed from a rough railroad settlement into one of the South’s fastest-growing cities. In this installment of Iron and Ambition, our ongoing series of the history of Atlanta, we explore the final years before the Civil War as the young city worked to keep pace with its remarkable […]

It is not hard to imagine how difficult life must have been for America’s early settlers. Most of us today would be ill-equipped at best to walk out into the wilderness and make a home for ourselves. In the 1800s however, it would have been expected of you. Tales abound in American history of the […]