The 1920’s in Georgia
EQ
How can we describe the impact of the
boll weevil and the drought on
Georgia?
1. List two ways WWI brought prosperity to
Georgia farmers.
• World War I had created a huge demand
for agricultural products to feed
America’s expanding military force.
• Soldiers also needed to be clothed. The
war created a great demand for cotton.
As a result, cotton prices skyrocketed.
By 1916, cotton farmers were being
paid three times what a pound of
cotton had brought in 1900.
2. What happened to cotton prices when
the war ended?
• Cotton dropped from 35 cents per pound to
17 cents.
3. What is a boll weevil?
• A small insect that left a path of destruction
across the cotton fields of the South
• The weevil’s larvae could destroy fields of
healthy cotton almost overnight.
• Within 10 years, cotton harvests fell to less
than a third of what they would be in a
normal year.
4. When was the boll weevil first
detected in Georgia?
• 1913
5. Georgia farmers suffered
through one of the worst droughts
of the century in 1925.
6. As a result of the drought many
farmers abandoned their farms and
looked for employment in Atlanta and
other large cities. Between 1920-1925
about how many farms were lost in
Georgia?
the loss of 60,000 farms.
7. Tobacco became Georgia’s
second most important crop.
8. By 1930, Georgia led the nation
in peanut production and a decade
later was the leading pecan
producer.
9. Farmers also became more involved
in growing vegetables, dairies,
livestock, and poultry—particularly
broilers(chickens produced for eating
rather than for egg production).
10. What improvements were made
on roads in Georgia in the early
1920s?
• Thanks to the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916,
great improvements were made.
• By 1922, Georgia’s state road system had
over 5,500 miles of roads (though only 166
were paved)
• plus 1,400 bridges
11. Identify WSB •
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the South’s first radio station
began operation in Atlanta
The “Voice of the South”
Broadcast weather and cotton market reports
Special music programs and story hours for
children
Went on the air in1922
Operated by the Atlanta Journal
It was one of the first radio stations in America to
feature programs of country music.
People liked to say that WSB’s call letters stood
for “Welcome South, Brother!”
12. Identify the FoxEvery Georgia town of
any size soon had a
motion picture
theater.
Larger cities had fancy
movie palaces,
The grandest of all
movie palaces was
the Fox in Atlanta.
http://www.gpb.org/georgia-traveler/season5/segment/the-fox-theatre
13. Identify Ty Cobb• From Royston, Georgia
• batted over .400 more seasons than any
other major league player and was one of
baseball’s all-time greats.
14. Identify Theo “Tiger” Flowers• a boxer from Camilla,
• became the world middleweight boxing
champion and first African American to hold
that title
15. Identify Bobby Jones• Won one golf championship after another
• Recognized as the world’s greatest amateur
golfer
• helped to make golf a popular sport in the
United States.
16. What was the “Forward Atlanta
Commission”? Why was it created?
• Group of Atlanta
business leaders
who worked
together to find a
strategy for
promoting the
city of Atlanta
beginning in 1925
17. Who was Ivan Allen?
• Atlanta businessman
• Organized and led the Forward Atlanta
Commission in 1925-1929
18. What were the results of the
“Forward Atlanta Commission” ?
• Very successful
• 700 new firms—mostly branches or assembly
plants of national companies—were attracted
to Atlanta.
• As a result, more than 17,000 new jobs were
created
• Annual payrolls totaled $30 million.
19. Atlanta added a new transportation
dimension in 1926, when the first regular
air mail service in the region began from
Candler Field. In 1929, Delta Air Lines (then
based in Louisiana) began passenger
service between Atlanta and Dallas. The
next year, Eastern Air Lines began serving
Atlanta with passenger service to and from
New York.
20. Wanting to do
even better, the
city of Atlanta
bought Candler
Field in 1930 and
began building
hangars and
lengthening
runways.
http://www.gpb.org/georgiastories/second_bu
siest_airport_in_the_world
21. Atlanta’s airport became the
first in the nation to have a
passenger terminal.
22. Many years later, it was named
the William B. Hartsfield
International Airport. The name
honored a former mayor of Atlanta
who had been one of the earliest
and strongest supporters of the
airport.
23. In 2004, the facility’s name would
change again—this time to HartsfieldJackson International Airport after the
death of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s
first African American mayor and a
strong supporter of expansion and
modernization of Atlanta’s airport.
24. Turn to page 284. Read the
highlight article about “The Poppy
Lady”
Who was Moina Belle Michael?
Remembering those in the armed forces
with flowers was the idea of Georgian
Moina Belle Michael, a Walton
County native known today as “The Poppy
Lady.”
25. Read page 281.
Who was Henry Ford?
• In 1908, introduced the
first edition of the Model
T Ford
• produced over 19,000
Model T Fords.
• He set up the world’s
first automobile
assembly line in Detroit,
Michigan.
Made the car affordable
Moina Michael
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Henry Ford
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