Forty Years of Diversity

by Jackson, Harvey H.; Spalding, Phinizy

• ISBN13: 9780820338125
• ISBN10: 0820338125
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

This interesting and useful collection of essays began as a symposium commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of Georgia. The authors are authorities in their respective fields and their efforts represent not only the fruits of long careers but also the observations and insights of some of the most promising young scholars. In a section on "The Beginnings" Phinizy Spalding discusses "James Edward Oglethorpe's Quest for an American Zion," Milton L. Ready focuses his attention on "Philanthropy and the Origins of Georgia," British historian Betty Wood writes on "The Earl of Egmont and the Georgia Colony," and anthropologist Charles Hudson comments on "The Genesis of Georgia's Indians." Contributors to the second section, "The Settlements and the Settlers," include John Reps, an authority on town planning, who explores the origins of Savannah's squares; Larry Ivers, who writes on "Rangers, Scouts, and Tythingmen"; and B. H. Levy, whose subject is the early history of Georgia's Jews. In a section on the socioeconomic life of the period, Lee Ann Caldwell writes on women landholders, W. Calvin Smith on the Habershams of Savannah and the Georgia merchant experience, and George Fenwick Jones on one of the early governors, John Adam Treutlen. Edward J. Cashin and Harvey H. Jackson contribute essays related to the late colonial period and the coming of the Revolution. An opening paper by Kenneth Coleman and a closing essay by Jack P. Greene frame the volume. The collection sheds new light on the social, political, religious, and ethnic diversity of colonial Georgia.