State by State Trivia- Georgia

A chance to learn a little bit about each of the states in the nation.

The state seal of Georgia was adopted by the State Constitution in 1798. The obverse (main face) features the state coat of arms. The three pillars are symbols of the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. The man standing with drawn sword defends the Constitution and its principles of Wisdom, Justice and Moderation. 1776 is of course the year the United States declared independence. The Georgia coat of arms also appears on the state flag.

Source: State Symbols USA 

 Georgia-Empire State of the South,
 Peach State

• Georgia was the 4^th state in the USA; it became a state on January 2, 1788
•  Georgia has had ten different constitutions in its history. Prior to having a formal constitution, a document entitled Rules and Regulations of the Colony of Georgia, drafted in 1776, was in effect.  A year later, in 1777, another constitution was drafted, followed by the constitutions of 1789, 1798, 1861 (after joining the Confederate States of America), 1868, 1877, 1945, 1976, and 1983.  All constitutions up until 1945 were drafted by constitutional convention.  That year, Governor Ellis Arnall appointed a twenty-three member commission, devised of all three branches of government, to write a new constitution
• Capital-Atlanta
• State Motto-"Wisdom, Justice and Moderation" 
• State Song- "Georgia on My Mind" 
• State Flower- Cherokee Rose
• State Mineral- Staurolite
• State Gem- Quartz 
• State Bird- Brown Thrasher
• State Tree- Live Oak
• State Insect- Honey Bee 
• Major Industries - Textiles, timber (especially pine), agriculture (cotton, corn, peanuts, soybean, poultry)
•  
• Presidential Birth Place- James Earl Carter, Jr., was born in Plains on October 1, 1924 (he was the 39th US President, serving from 1977 to 1981)

Origin of the Name Georgia

In the early 18^th century, the British Parliament assigned a committee to investigate the conditions of the country's debtor prisons and didn't like what they found. A group of philanthropists concerned with the plight of debtors proposed the creation of a colony in North America where the “worthy poor” could get back on their feet and be productive citizens again. Their plan ultimately didn't pan out as the colony wasn't settled by debtors, but the trustees of the colony still wanted to thank King George II for granting their charter, so they named the place after him.

(Bonus: The nation of Georgia is supposedly called so because its inhabitants revere St. George and feature his cross on their flag, though Georgians refer to themselves as Kartvelebi and their country as Sakartvelo.)

Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/31100/how-all-50-states-got-their-names#ixzz2SiZmdhdM

 State Flag of Georgia






  Georgia's newest flag was designed in May, 2003; it has three horizontal stripes, red, white, and red, with a blue square in the canton position (the upper left area of the flag). In the blue square is a circle of 13 white, five-pointed stars around the seal of the state of Georgia (pictured in yellow). The Georgia state seal pictures three pillars (symbolizing the three branches of government in the USA: the Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial) under an arch (symbolizing the Constitution), the year 1776 (the date of the Declaration of Independence), and banners reading "CONSTITUTION," "JUSTICE," "WISDOM," and "MODERATION." Under the pillars are the words (in white), "IN GOD WE TRUST." 

Georgia's previous official flag was adopted in January, 2001. Georgia's controversial flag before that had been based on the Confederate flag, which was a painful reminder of slavery to many people. The 2001 flag was designed as a compromise, picturing the older flag in miniature.
The flag has a deep blue field with the state seal in the center, surrounded by 13 white stars (that symbolize the original 13 colonies). The state seal pictures three pillars (symbolizing the three branches of government in the USA: the Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial) under an arch (symbolizing the Constitution), the year 1776 (the date of the Declaration of Independence), and banners reading "CONSTITUTION," "JUSTICE," "WISDOM," and "MODERATION." Under the seal is a yellow banner that states, "GEORGIA'S HISTORY" and shows five flags. The flags are: the original US flag, the pre-1879 Georgia flag, the 1920-1956 Georgia flag, the controversial 1956-2001 Georgia flag, and the current US flag.

All statistics compiled from the enchanted learning site

  

How did Georgia get its shape?

Georgia's Eastern Border
 
"Georgia was created from land originally included in the royal charter creating the Carolina Colony.  But, in 1732, King George II separated the land west of the Savannah River to create Georgia.  To this day, the Savannah River remains the border between Georgia and South Carolina, to the east."

Georgia's Northern Border 

"The charter creating Georgia stated that from the headwaters of the Savannah River, the colony's northern boundary was to be a direct line west to the Pacific Ocean.  The fact that, at the time, France held claim to the land between the Mississippi River and the Rockies and Spain held claim to the land from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean may have had something to do with the fact that Georgia limited its western claim to the Mississippi River"

 "A more realistic border problem stemmed from the fact that one can debate where exactly the source of the Savannah River is, given that the rivers are an ingathering of various branches.

By virtue of an agreement with the Cherokee Indians, the Chattooga River was chosen over the Hiwassee as the northernmost tributary of the Savannah."

"But the headwaters of the Chattooga River are farther north than the 35th parallel, which was the boundary that North and South Carolina had established when the Carolina Colony divided in 1710. Hence, a line due west from the juncture of the Chattooga River and the 35th parallel became the northern border of Georgia."

"Having the 35th parallel for a border seems simple enough, and indeed Georgia's northern border resides there to this day. But for more than a decade, the ground around that boundary was soaked with blood and tears. The underlying cause of the troubles was the realization, in the late 1700's, that the original st 35° was 12 miles north of where it should have been-- according to North Carolina. Georgia disagreed with how far off the line was and, in any event, claimed the land was still theirs because it had been considered part of Georgia at the time of statehood. However, since this strip of land was part of a larger region belonging to the Cherokee, the issue wasn't urgent."

"Until 1798. In that year, the Cherokee acceded to the first of a series of treaties through which they were ultimately forced to relocate to what is now Oklahoma. This evacuation came to be known as the Trail of Tears."

"Following the 1798 treaty, in which the eastern end of the 12 mile-wide strip no longer belonged to the Cherokee, Georgia reasserted its claim to the land. North Carolina maintained that the boundary was the actual 35°, not the mistaken 35°, and that therefore it was entitled to the 12 mile-wide strip. Even South Carolina joined in, arguing that it was entitled to the land because it would originally have been part of South Carolina had the Cherokee not possessed it at the time the Carolina Colony split in two."

"For the next eight years, the issue remained unresolved.  (According to Georgia, it remains unresolved even now.)  Surveys were performed, disputed and redone.  During this period of uncertainty, the mountainous strip of land rapidly attracted residents looking for a neighborhood with a lot of hiding places and not a lot of law.  In 1803, Georgia took matters in hand and organized the land as Walton County.  Law and order were restored.  But if Georgia had hoped this action would bolster its claim, it was wrong.  It only made the land more appealing to North Carolina."

Part of the memorial for the Walton War

"In 1808, Congress declared that the northern border of Georgia is the actual 35° and that the disputed land, now known as the Orphan Strip, belonged to North Carolina.  From Georgia's point of view, Congress was violating the constitutional provision by which the boundaries of the states cannot be altered without their consent. North Carolina sought to obtain that "consent" by sending its militia into the Orphan Strip in 1811. Georgia's militia fought back in two bloody battles and numerous skirmishes. But in every instance, Georgians were outmatched. Within a few months, Georgian forces had been ousted from the Orphan Strip, and there the matter rests to this day.  

Georgia's Southern Border 

"The origin of Georgia's southern border is simpler than that of its northern border. And bloodier. The colony's royal charter defined its southern border as the Altamaha River, some 45 miles north of the boundary described in the 1663 charter of its parent colony, Carolina. One suspects that King George II, while expanding England's settlements southward, was also expressing caution, if not deference, toward Spain, which was wary of British encroachment on Florida."

"The Georgia Colony was an ideal buffer between the thriving settlement at Charleston and the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine. Indeed, conflict did arise. Spain very much distrusted (rightfully, as it turned out) the continued growth of England's colonial holdings. In 1742, war broke out between Spain's Florida and England's Georgia, culminating in Georgia's victory at the Battle of Bloody Marsh on St. Simons Island. In the agreement that followed, the border between Georgia and Florida was established as the St. Marys River from its mouth at the ocean to its' source in the Okefenokee Swamp. From that point, the border continued west as a straight line to the mouth of the Chattahoochee River.  This border remains to this day.

 
Georgia's Western Border
 
"Shortly after the American Revolution, Georgia joined with the other states that had land claims west of the Appalachians and donated that land to the federal government. In the case of Georgia, that donated land would later become Alabama and Mississippi. Since there were no Appalachians except at the northern end of Georgia, the Chattahoochee River served as the divide. The Chattahoochee made an ideal border because it was located in such a way that Georgia's colonial claims could eventually be divided into three nearly equal states (Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi)."

"One drawback to the Chattahoochee as a boundary was that midway up to Georgia's northern border, the river turns northeastward.  For that reason, at the point where the Chattahoochee turns, the river border was replaced with a straight line."

"But it was a straight line that angled slightly to the west rather than due north.  A due north line would have made Georgia and Alabama even closer in size than they are now.  Why, then, did Georgia angle the straight line of its western border?  The answer is coal.  Georgians had already discovered coal in the hills, and by angling their western border as they did, Georgia kept that coal."

"Georgia's borders reflect the principle that all states should be created equal.  But Georgia's borders also reflect that its commitment to equality (like most of ours) has its limits.  More often than not, those limits have to do with wealth."

"How the States Got Their Shapes" by Mark Stein ©2008, pages 70-74


Georgia and World War II 

"Southern states were critical to the war effort during World War II (1941-45) and none more so than Georgia. Some 320,000 Georgians served in the U.S. Armed Forces during 

Bell Bomber Workers

World War II, and countless others found employment in burgeoning wartime industries. Their experiences were pivotal in determining the state's future development, and the war itself marked a watershed in Georgia's history. Because it occurred when important shifts in the state's politics, race relations, and economy were already underway, the war accelerated Georgia's modernization, thereby lifting it out of the Great Depression and ushering it into the mainstream of American life."

"In 1938 U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt called the South "the nation's number one economic problem" and thereafter devoted generous New Deal spending to ameliorating

WASP

conditions in the region. Indeed, the South that Roosevelt encountered on his frequent trips to Warm Springs was fundamentally at odds with the rest of the nation, even before the depression."

"Whereas other regions experienced high rates of urbanization during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the South remained predominantly rural. A majority of southerners lived and worked on farms, and agricultural employment in the region exceeded national averages by 73 percent. Incomes lagged well behind national norms, and poverty was a common and enduring feature of southern life. The distinctive system of racial segregation circumscribed the freedoms of the region's large black population and distinguished the South as the most "regional" of American regions. As historian Morton Sosna concludes, prior to World War II, the "South was considerably poorer, blacker, and more rural than any other part of the United States."

"Although they failed to improve southern economic conditions significantly, Roosevelt's New Deal programs nevertheless established a federal commitment to the region's welfare that continued through World War II. As the nation mobilized for war abroad, federal defense dollars flooded southern states in the form of military installations and defense contractors."

 

Fort Benning Workers Camp

"Nowhere was this more the case than in Georgia, where every major city could boast a military installation of some variety. Fort Benning in Columbus, for instance, was the largest infantry training school in the world; Robins Field outside Macon employed some 13,000 civilians at its peak; the U.S. Navy trained 2,000 combat pilots at the University of Georgia in Athens; and Hunter Field and Camp Gordon (later Fort Gordon) welcomed hundreds of thousands of enlisted men to the Savannah and Augusta areas respectively."

"Defense contractors meanwhile relocated throughout Georgia, providing employment, aiding the state's economic recovery, and allowing civilians to make valuable contributions to the war effort. Marietta's Bell Aircraft plant (also known as Bell Bomber), for example, at its peak put some 28,000 Georgians to work building B-29 bombers, causing the town's population to swell from a modest 8,667 residents in 1940 to 20,687 by the end of the decade. Macon and Milledgeville also welcomed the arrival of new ordnance plants."

Georgia's largest civilian contribution to the war effort came from the coastal region, where 

Brunswick Shipyard

laborers constructed nearly 200 "Liberty ships" to transport troops and goods to the European and Pacific theaters. In early 1942 the Southeastern Shipbuilding Corporation secured a contract to construct 36 Liberty ships at a site on the Savannah River, just east of Savannah. Over the next three years, the company employed more than 15,000 people and built a total of 88 ships. Though heroic by any ordinary measure, Savannah's production was actually outpaced by the neighboring J. A. Jones Shipyard in Brunswick. By constructing multiple vessels simultaneously on six slips in the Brunswick River, workers at the Brunswick shipyard produced a total of 99 Liberty ships in only two years."

"In coastal shipyards and at other installations throughout the state, women especially were among the beneficiaries of the wartime employment bonanza. With enlisted men deployed overseas, large numbers of women entered the workforce for the first time to meet increased wartime production needs. Nationwide, the percentage of women in the workforce jumped from 24 percent at the beginning of the war to 36 percent at the war's end. Many found employment in traditionally male-dominated fields, working in such environments as munitions factories and industrial plants. Of the more than 28,000 people employed at the Bell Aircraft plant in Marietta, for instance, 37 percent were women."

Link to New Georgia Encyclopedia: World War II

Georgia World War II Army Airfields

"During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) established numerous airfields in Georgia for antisubmarine defense in the Gulf of Mexico and for training pilots and aircrews of USAAF fighters and bombers."

 "Most of these airfields were under the command of Third Air Force or the Army Air Forces Training Command (AAFTC) (a predecessor of the current-day United States Air Force Air Education and Training Command). However the other USAAF support commands (Air Technical Service Command (ATSC); Air Transport Command (ATC) or Troop Carrier Command) commanded a significant number of airfields in a support roles."

"It is still possible to find remnants of these wartime airfields. Many were converted into municipal airports, some were returned to agriculture and several were retained as United States Air Force installations and were front-line bases during the Cold War. Hundreds of the temporary buildings that were used survive today, and are being used for other purposes."

Link to Source: Wikipedia- Georgia World War II Army Fields