Category: Architecture of Atlanta and the Southeast

The Background

The following article was published in The Atlanta Journal in 1893, and written by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.

If Goodrich ever designed a classroom building during his time in Atlanta, there’s no record of it. His only known project for an educational institution in the Southeast is Yonah Hall, a dormitory and library at the Georgia Female Seminary^{1 2 3}(later Brenau University) in Gainesville, Georgia.

Goodrich also wasn’t an ophthalmologist, but that didn’t stop him from attempting to diagnose the cause of myopia and astigmatism in Atlanta’s children.

“Atlanta today is inquiring the cause of its youth wearing glasses,” Goodrich writes. Were they, though?

“Little boys and girls in our city are seen every day wearing glasses”, he continues. “In the times of our grandparents, children wearing glasses were unknown and unheard of.”

Citing “European oculists,” here Goodrich attributes vision problems in Atlanta’s students to a lack of northern light in their classrooms.

He then provides a detailed description of an ideal school building of the early 1890s: built on a ridge, designed with a steel frame and fireproof materials (apparently requiring “no insurance”), with a north light in the classrooms—”and only a north light.”

I won’t criticize Goodrich’s description too much—it’s more interesting than most of the things he wrote about.

It’s also true that, at the time, schools were often designed so that their classrooms were primarily exposed to the softer, consistent tones of northern light, but that wasn’t always practicable due to site limitations.

Note that Goodrich’s plan includes a “dynamo” to “furnish the light for dark days”—electric lighting was available, but was quite dim by modern standards, so architects still had to design schoolrooms to receive as much natural light as possible.

In the 1880s and early 1890s, Bruce & Morgan of Atlanta were the undisputed leaders of school design in the Southeast, planning so many academic structures that in 1889, they even wrote a book about it: Modern School Buildings, which included full-page illustrations of their projects.⁴ If a copy of the book still exists, I’m unaware of it.

Of the dozens of grade schools designed by Bruce & Morgan, only one remains in Union, South Carolina.⁵ However, most of their landmark college buildings still stand, such as the Main Building at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Samford Hall at Auburn University in Alabama, and Agnes Scott Hall at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.

Only the buildings at Auburn University and Agnes Scott College are north-facing, but all of the firm’s school designs feature an abundance of oversized windows.

In 1891, G.L. Norrman addressed the problem of school lighting with his plan for Atlanta’s Edgewood Avenue Grammar School.

Built on a ridge with a north-facing front, the building was designed so that each of the eight classrooms received sunlight from four sides, and as the Atlanta Journal reported of the plans: “Mr. Norrmann [sic] himself is so much in love with them that he has had them copyrighted.”

Norrman immediately repeated the Edgewood plan for the Sixteenth Street School in Columbus, Georgia, and both buildings survive.

In 1896, Norrman’s plan for the Anderson Street School in Savannah, Georgia, was reportedly selected, in large part, because all 12 of its classrooms received southern exposure.⁶ So much for that theory on northern light.

The Anderson school plan was so successful that Norrman later duplicated it for both the 38th Street School and Barnard Street School in Savannah—all three buildings still exist.

In this article, Goodrich praises his fellow Atlanta architects, describing them as “men of rare discernment and practical intelligence” and commending their “beautiful school buildings.”

Obviously, Goodrich was a bullshitter and ass-kisser, but he was right about one thing: Atlanta’s architects did design some beautiful school buildings.

Light In The Schools.

A Suggestion For The Board Of Education.

The North Light Only Should Be Used.

Mr. W.W. Goodrich Calls Attention to the Matter.

What the European Governments are Doing for Protection and the Good Results Obtained.

Written for The Journal.

The public is at present more interested in schoolhouse sanitation, and the light in our public school rooms than in any other subject before our practical, everyday people, who have made Atlanta what she is and what she will be “in the glorious future.”

Atlanta today is inquiring the cause of its youth wearing glasses. Myopic and astigmatic optics are of such frequent occurrence and of such everyday appearance on the streets that people have ceased to wonder at its cause or causes, and accept the fact as a matter of course, and pass the subject by as too frivolous to be thought of, or of too common place a subject to pay any attention to.

The optic organism is of such a sensitive nature, and its development of such a wonderful use to everyone, that without good eyes anyone thus afflicted is indeed in a sad predicament. And yet, little boys and girls in our city are seen every day wearing glasses. In the times of our grandparents, children wearing glasses were unknown and unheard of.

The subject being discussed must and should be first thought of your public school board, “yet that august body,” so far as the parents of the school children are aware, have never considered this subject at all. At least if they have, the school-room does not show it, and the astigmatic and myopic optics of many pupils are in contradistinction to good sanitary school measures and good optical schoolroom arrangements.

“First”–A site for a schoolhouse should be on a ridge, so that the drainage shall fall on all sides.

“Second,” the site should be a north light, and a north light only; each room should have a north light, and only a north light, and no other light from any other points of the compass, should enter a schoolroom than what comes from a direct line to the north star.

“European oculists” have convinced their respective governments that to preserve the eyes of the present and future generations, only a north light will be admitted in a school room and in all class rooms whether in public or private room, and the governments of Europe have made laws to that effect. The effect of said laws has been to decrease optical diseases or malformations, to cure many old and chronic cases in children and to increase and restore the mental and physical health of all its youth, and to eradicate occult faults. Truly a wonderful blessing, more so than vaccination for smallpox. It is thus seen, that it is imperative upon the school board, to first consider that subject treated. And not let it go by without any consideration.

Atlanta has beautiful school buildings, the architects of them are men of rare discernment and practical intelligence, graceful, classic detail, and ornament, that thrill the mind’s eye, and enrapture the soul, and inspire the whole being to do grand and great things for our city, rise uppermost in the pupil and student of both sexes.

And they have a keener discernment to accomplish great tasks and to improve their minds by their study under the classic roofs and Roman detail and Spartan simplicity than is accomplished under any other order of architecture.

Structural construction should be a thoroughly ventilated basement built of granite, cased with hollow tile, and plastered with the patent wall coverings inside.

The superstructure, of pressed brick, terra cotta and marble trimmings, lined with hollow tile, plastered with patent wall coverings on the inside.

The floor joists and studding of steel filled in with hollow tile, the studding plastered with patent wall covering in a light tint of bluish gray, the ceilings of pearl green.

The floor covered with asphaltum over the hollow tile; “no wood at all” on the floors.

The roof of steel, covered with slate. The windows should have plate glass, so that there will be no reflex curves and no distorted concave or convex surfaces.

The sanitary arrangements should be in an annex and of the most scientific appliances with ventilating shafts. The ventilation should be by a fan and air shafts, a dynamo run by city service easily kept in order, constantly in motion, would change the air in each room in three minutes, and the dynamo could furnish the light for dark days, or for scientific laboratory work.

The building entire heated by live steam, using direct in a coil in tanks in the basement for each room service, and conveyed upward by fan.

It will be seen at a glance that our building is “fire proof”–no insurance, no nuisance by defective plumbing, and solid as the future of Atlanta. Her educated and practical architects can blend the requirements of hygiene with that nobles of all professions “American Architecture,” and Atlanta must be as she should be, the center from our which shall go the saying that she sets the face of the world.

W.W. GOODRICH⁷

References

1. “A Great School for Gainesville.” The Atlanta Constitution, May 25, 1893, p. 3. ↩︎
2. “An Elegant Building.” The Atlanta Journal, June 22, 1893, p. 1. ↩︎
3. “Gainesville Gossip.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 23, 1893, p. 3. ↩︎
4. “From Our Notebook.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 23, 1889, p. 17. ↩︎
5. “The Graded School Building.” The Weekly Union Times (Union, South Carolina), June 19, 1891, p. 2. ↩︎
6. “The New School Building.” The Morning News (Savannah, Georgia), February 12, 1896, p. 8. ↩︎
7. Goodrich, W.W. “Light In The Schools.” The Atlanta Journal, April 17, 1893, p. 3. ↩︎

The Background

The following article was published in The Atlanta Journal in 1893, and written by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.

Like any self-respecting architect, Goodrich considered himself an expert on, well, just about everything.

Here, he pontificates on the health and dietary habits of 19th-century Americans in a condescending and frequently offensive diatribe that begins by dismissing vegetarians as “fanatics” while also scolding “the rich” for “the excessive use of meats.”

Sounding every bit like a shill for the dairy industry, Goodrich spends the bulk of the article extolling the alleged benefits of drinking milk, with a string of dubious assertions unsupported by modern science.

Everything from fever to liver failure could be cured with a “milk regimen,” Goodrich explains, as practiced by “certain savage or semi-civilized tribes of pastoral habits.”

Goodrich made these claims at a time when milk production was unregulated in the United States, and dairy manufacturers regularly tainted their products by dumping in everything from calf brains to formaldehyde.

Tainted milk in the 19th century led to the outbreak of multiple diseases and the poisoning deaths of thousands of Americans—primarily infants. Drink up, baby!

As Goodrich acknowledges, tuberculosis was frequently transmitted by bacteria found in unboiled milk, a danger well known to the public by the 1890s.

Here, he advocates for pasteurization, a process that wasn’t widely employed in the United States at the time and wouldn’t be legally required until the early 20th century.

Goodrich’s stated desire in this writing was “to infuse a little hygienic good sense into the average American” who only needed to “observe the laws of temperance.”

And as for the people of Atlanta?

“Nowhere in the world is self-restraint more necessary than in Georgia”, Goodrich explains, claiming that the hot and humid climate of the Southeast both “stimulates the appetite” and “render[s] digestion difficult.”

Why ask a doctor for health advice when you can consult a third-rate architect?

Hints on Hygiene

Some Secrets of Good Health for Every Day Use by Everybody.

Written for the Journal.

If people knew how to eat and drink properly or were willing to confine themselves to articles of food suited to their digestion, and would just take the amount of exercise necessary to facilitate the digestion, the lives of the greater part of the human race would be indefinitely prolonged.

There would have to be excepted from this sweeping assertion certain diseases – like those of throat and lungs – that cannot always be avoided, but which nevertheless in many cases can be limited in their ravages by prudence.

The statement as made is a truism, and has been known to sensible persons since dawn of civilization and the origin of gormands and epicures. Some old Persian writer placed the whole secret of health in the ability to leave off eating before the appetite was entirely satisfied, and the wise men of Greece and Rome never ceased to preach similar truths, both by precept and example. These things they had learned, not from works on hygiene, which did not abound in ancient times, nor from family physicians, who were far from being plentiful as they are now but from simple observation.

The apostles of a vegetable diet have usually been fanatics, but there has always been a grain of truth in their doctrines, for it is true that the greater part of diseases are caused, especially among the rich, by the excessive use of meats.

It is only a few years since the nourishing qualities of milk and its hygienic value began to be properly appreciated. Everyone was aware that the young of the human race and of the lower animals using it as their only diet flourished and grew strong alike in bone and muscle.

It appeared to be easily digested and seemed to contain all the elements that the body seemed to need, at least in the early stages of its growth. Adults – at least those in civilized countries – despised it and would have considered themselves doomed to an early death had they found themselves confined to a milk regimen. The same opinion, has, fortunately, not prevailed among certain savage or semi-civilized tribes of pastoral habits, who have maintained a healthy existence from time immemorial on milk and its products.

Medical science, aided by chemistry, has for some years past been working a gradual change in these ancient prejudices.

The chemists have discovered that milk contains all the elements necessary to make blood, bone and muscle. It adapts itself to the most difficult digestion.

A man can live and enjoy perfect health on milk and its products alone, or his system find in it everything needful – fatty matter, caseine, albumen, and especially phosphate of lime for building up his bony framework. Doctors prescribe it for patient suffering from low fevers.

If a person finds himself suffering from torpididty of the liver, or a tendency to indigestion let him drink milk freely, say two or three quarts a day, and abstain from meat, and he will almost invariably find himself cured speedily.

It may be said of certain diseases of the liver and kidneys and of the dyspepsia that they have invariably been brought on by ignorance or disregard of the laws of hygiene, and no one need ever have them unless he is obliged to live in the tropics, or has by chance been so situated that the choice of his diet was beyond his control.

It has been in all ages of the world been difficult to make any considerable number of human beings observe the laws of temperance in eating and drinking if the means of indulgence were at their disposal.

It is much more difficult to infuse a little hygienic good sense into the average American of today than into the luxurious Roman in the time of Lucullus, and nowhere in the world is self-restraint more necessary than in Georgia, where the climate constantly stimulates the appetite, while at the same time certain latent qualities of the atmosphere seem to render digestion difficult.

While milk in its perfect state is capable of such infinite service to the health, it has at the same time an extraordinary facility in transmitting diseases. A great part of that consumed in large cities is from cows kept in stables and fed often on unwholesome food.

When tuberculosis diseases become too common among these animals the newspapers ventilate the matter and the health officers show a temporary activity, but the evil continues. It is more trying from the fact that diseased milk is largely used as nourishment for young children.

If the purity of milk is suspected, however, it only needs to be remembered that the noxious germs it contains may be destroyed by boiling. In England, where milk is rarely boiled, there have been occasional local epidemics caused by the use of milk from diseased cows.

In 1870 an epidemic of typhoid fever at Islington was propagated in this manner. Epidemics of croup and scarlatina have also in England been attributed to the same cause. The nutritive and hygienic qualities of milk and its tendency to transmit disease have for the last ten years been frequent subjects for discussion at the sessions of the Paris Academy of Medicine. The matter is sufficiently practical and important to attract the attention a little oftener of medical associations in America.

W.W. Goodrich¹

References

1. Goodrich, W.W. “Hints on Hygiene.” The Atlanta Journal, April 29, 1893, p. 1. ↩︎

The Background

The following article, published in The Atlanta Journal in 1893, was written by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.

Atlanta has long been a mediocre city gagging on its own arrogance and self-importance, a characteristic that can be definitively traced to the 1880s, when Henry W. Grady turned the Atlanta Constitution into a daily mythmaking machine of endless puff pieces that touted the city in near-religious terms as the predestined savior of a resurrected “New South” that would soon rival the industrial centers of the North.

So effective was the propaganda that to this day, deluded Atlantans—despite all evidence to the contrary—will avow that Atlanta is a “world-class city” poised to overtake New York, Los Angeles, or [insert city name here] at any moment. That moment, of course, never arrives.

Here, Goodrich followed the template of hundreds of other gushing Atlanta promotional articles in the 1890s, starting with the subtle proclamation: “Atlanta is a phenomenal city.”

He goes on to praise the city’s “master minds,” “great and grand monuments,” “charming homes,” and “genuine” architects, concluding that Atlanta’s destiny was to be—wait for it—”the Chicago of the south.”

This is an article stuffed with so many lies and embellishments that it can only be considered a humorous work of fiction, and Goodrich repeats many of the sentiments he expressed in his similar 1892 article, “Atlanta’s Unique, Composite and Attractive Architecture.”

Goodrich no doubt hoped that stroking Atlantans’ egos would drum up business for himself: at the time of this article’s publication, the United States was in the throes of the Panic of 1893, which plunged the nation into an economic depression for over four years.

Most Atlanta architects struggled greatly at that time, and many left the city altogether, including Goodrich, who in 1893 was already dividing his time between Atlanta and Norfolk, Virginia.^{2 3}

Goodrich’s company still claimed some presence in the city in December 1894,⁴ but his final Atlanta newspaper advertisement was in February 1895.⁵ I doubt he was greatly missed.

Atlanta’s Advancement

Her Growth In Architecture Discussed.
W.W. Goodrich Writes Interestingly.
On the Beauties of the Homes of Atlanta.
The Center of the Best Field for Building Materials in the Country – Artistic Home Adornment.

Atlanta is a phenomenal city. The wonderful recuperative powers inherent in the master minds of this progressive city, has stood it many good turns in the past, and is at the front today, crowding out the pessimists, supplanting them and their narrow views, and erecting upon their small ideas great and grand monuments to a future as well as to this present generation.

Beautiful homes, are all about, practical contentment assures that observer on every hand “that life is worth living,” and that Atlanta’s homes are models of rare elegance, bliss, “and homes, sweet home.”

The best building materials to be had in the “known world” are all native to Georgia, the empire state of the south, and are all within a radius of fifty miles of Atlanta. These materials are to be seen everywhere “in this city of charming homes.” And none is too humble but that some one or more of Georgia’s native building materials are in its make-up and form an integral part of the harmonious whole of Atlanta’s homes, that are known far and wide as being the best and most carefully studied and constructed; and arranged in their entirety, more so than in any other city of our common country.

The diversified forms of architecture are here blended.

The many inventions for good health and labor saving appliances for the housewife are in every home.

It is the progressive study of Atlanta’s architects. And many of them are educated, practical men, thoroughly versed in its many intricate ramifications to design for their clientele only that which will be an additional ornament to Atlanta’s excellent structural monuments, that so attract our northern and western friends, and they go from us to their own homes, with the most pleasing reminders of the hospitality of our southland, that each genuine architect, each real lover of his profession, who is so thoroughly imbued with his chosen calling banishes all other thoughts from his mind, and with his brother professional urges the many clients to use only native Georgia products, native Georgia labor, home industry and home labor, and thus imbued we have a style of architecture that is gradually being woven from the warp and woof of the past and present into a beautiful architectural mantle that so handsomely adorns Atlanta and her progress. Atlanta is thus garmented on every hand. The cottage homes of Atlanta and her beautiful suburbs are her pride. The thrift of a city is in its suburban population, because any city without suburbs is a dead, non-progressive affair, not worthy to be called even a village. The many suburbs are taking on metropolitan airs. Electrical lines are running and being planned to run everywhere.

The sound of the hammer and the merry whiz of the saw erect the ear, all denoting progress, thrift and sturdy belief in the greatness of our claim that Atlanta is the magic city of the south, and that her destiny is to be, and will be, the Chicago of the south. With this belief each one of her thousands stand shoulder to shoulder – a steady, solid phalanx of veterans ready to battle for Atlanta’s future, Atlanta’s greatness and Atlanta’s grandeur.

W.W. Goodrich⁶

References

1. MARTA’s Art Program – MARTA ↩︎
2. “W.W. Goodrich & Co., Architects” (advertisement). Norfolk Virginian (Norfolk, Virginia), August 17, 1892, p. 2. ↩︎
3. “The Passing Throng.” The Atlanta Constitution, January 8, 1893, p. 5. ↩︎
4. “Bright Days Ahead”. The Atlanta Constitution, December 27, 1894, p. 5. ↩︎
5. “Professional Cards.” The Atlanta Constitution, February 27, 1895, p. 7. ↩︎
6. Goodrich, W.W. “Atlanta’s Advancement”. The Atlanta Journal, March 25, 1893, p. 1. ↩︎

The Background

Just six days after his previous letter to The Atlanta Constitution, W.W. Goodrich returned to bloviate about manufacturing.

In the following letter, Goodrich suggested Atlanta could attract manufacturers by emulating “wide-awake” cities like Detroit, Denver, and… Rahway, New Jersey (yeah, I dunno), offering residents tax-exempt stocks in local companies and buying from those companies to the exclusion of outside markets.

In a poorly constructed run-on sentence, he also opined that bringing industry to Atlanta would “solve the domestic labor problem.”

And if his insinuation wasn’t clear enough, Goodrich added: “white artisan labor or factory help bring in their families, female help that would enter our homes and supplant the idle, shiftless race that is now a nuisance.” Lovely.

Goodrich noted the “cassiterite or tin ore” in “North Temercal”, California, a place that apparently never existed—except in his delusional mind.

Just as deranged was his parting vision of Atlanta as a city where “the fires of blast furnaces…should light up the horizon of the setting sun to illuminate the whole night away, only to welcome the rising sun, and be dissipated in the light of a cloudless day.”

Have I mentioned lately how much I detest this despicable, fraudulent, lying, racist hack of a writer and architect?

Stand by the Manufacturers.

Editor Constitution–Your articles on manufacturing enterprises, that should be attracted and retained in Atlanta, and encouraged by Atlanta capital, is the uppermost subject in the minds of the leading business men. Mr. Kirkpatrick, of Bain & Kirkpatrick, a courteous gentleman with whom I have had frequent conversations upon this subject, and who is alive to the necessity of Atlanta’s present and future greatness, has spoken in no uncertain tones upon this wide-awake subject. Mr. Kirkpatrick, who is well read and versed in how to get manufacturers to locate, favors the plan adopted by all wide-awake cities, as Detroit, Denver, Rahway, Newark, Elizabethtown and the hosts of cities of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Indiana–this is, for the citizens to take stock, as far as possible, in all laudable enterprises, exempt them from taxation for a specified time, and buy from their half their goods to the exclusion of outside markets. In other words, protection to home enterprise, home capital and home industry.

We have near us vast deposits of iron, coal and the fluxes. In North Temercal, Cal., in Dakota and elsewhere in the United States. We have unbounded supplies in cassiterite or tin ore. We can manufacture the iron here in Atlanta and cast the plates with American tin, and save as per enclosed article at least $25,000,000 annually that now goes abroad.

One industry brings another. Atlanta would be the leading city of the south in everything attainable for the advancement of the body politic.

Again the bringing of these various industries would solve the domestic labor problem, the white artisan labor or factory help bring in their families, female help that would enter our homes and supplant the idle, shiftless race that is now a nuisance.

I am surprised at the lack of interest of some of the editorial fraternity, to the one thing needful for the supremacy of Atlanta as a commercial city. Why, sir, manufacturing enterprises should crown all the business of ingress into this city. The fires of blast furnaces, or rolling mills, of various shops from the making of a pin or needle to the turning out of a thoroughly well built locomotive, or a stationary engine, should light up the horizon of the setting sun to illuminate the whole night away, only to welcome the rising sun, and be dissipated in the light of a cloudless day.

W.W. GOODRICH³

References

1. “New Plant Of J.K. Orr Shoe Co. Which Will Be Completed April 1”. The Atlanta Journal, January 28, 1907, p. 3. ↩︎
2. “First Train Load Of Machinery Brought South For Shoe Factory”. The Atlanta Constitution, April 7, 1907, p. 5. ↩︎
3. Goodrich, W.W. “Stand by the Manufacturers.” The Atlanta Constitution, July 19, 1892, p. 4. ↩︎

The Background

In July 1892, The Atlanta Constitution published the following blurb titled “Why Not Come South?”, inviting “native Americans” of the northern states—by which they meant White people—to move to the Southeast:

The Constitution wrote:

“There are several millions of well-to-do native Americans in the north and west who are dissatisfied with their environment.

“They are not millionaires and they are not paupers. They belong to the great middle class, owning their homes, and having money in the bank or invested in real estate and various enterprises.

“What these people want is security. They view with apprehension the little civil war at Homestead, and they remember the bloody riots of Pittsburg, the troubles at Spring Valley and Braidwood, Ill., Hocking valley, Brazil, Ind., and the Reading colleries, where the employers provoked disturbance and then shot down their laborers. Where will it all end? is the question asked by these law-abiding and peaceful people.

“Another element of dissatisfaction is the rigorous climate, which oppresses the Americans of today more than it did their more hardy ancestors. And still another grievance is the rapid influx of foreigners, many of whom belong to the anarchist element of Europe.

“We would say to these middle-class native Americans of the north and west that our great Piedmont region, and many other localities in the south, offer them health, happiness, peace and prosperity. They will find here a purely American population, with diversified industries, and all the conveniences and luxuries of civilization. They will find a progressive people who have forgotten the old war issues, and who are now engaged in developing their resources. And they will find cheap and productive lands, tempting business opportunities, a warm-hearted, hospitable people, and a land where there has never been a clash of arms between capital and labor, and where the reign of law is upheld by a conservative God-fearing people.

“But the race problem? Well, come down here help us settle it. We are willing to trust you. When you settle among us and see the situation as it is you will be on our side. Think it over. Abandon a section hampered by so many increasing disadvantages–give it up to the plutocrats and their serfs–give it up to the immigrant hordes who are turning it into another Europe with all of Europe’s worst evils and few of its good points. Southward ho! should be the cry, and if you are wise you will lose no time in seeking homes this favored garden of the gods!”¹

The article was quite typical of the self-fellating promotional slop that filled Atlanta’s newspapers at the time, and while its language is perhaps a bit too coarse for the sensitive, modern palette that prefers its bullshit served in benign, fuzzy terms, it’s astounding how little has actually changed in 130 years.

In a country founded and built by immigrants, Americans still fear a “rapid influx of foreigners,” with entire political campaigns built on stoking a collective terror over “immigrant hordes who are turning it into another Europe.”

In the 1890s, the “anarchist element” that spurred labor strikes was the bogeyman, because God forbid workers have rights. Today, it’s the socialist element, because God forbid everyone has access to healthcare. Different century, same old tired nonsense.

People from all parts of the United States have poured into the Deep South unabated since the mid-20th century, often blaming the “rigorous climate” from whence they migrated. More often than not, however, the driving reason is that they entertain utopian delusions of the Southeast as a place of “cheap and productive lands…where the reign of law is upheld by a conservative God-fearing people” and a “purely American population.”

Instead, what the immigrant to the Southeast invariably finds is a sweltering shithole of empty promises, a land of angry and aggrieved infants who seek to control and dominate each other in the most insidious way possible: through syrupy smiles and passive-aggressive sneers, blasphemously invoking the name of Jesus to justify their satanic oppression.

It’s not that cheap, either—especially in Atlanta.

The Constitution‘s claim that the Southeast was “a land where there has never been a clash of arms between capital and labor” glossed over the fact that Atlanta and the region barely had any industry to speak of in the 1890s, and what little there was ran largely off prison labor^{2 3} and other exploited workers, including women and children.

For instance, in 1900, a federal commission visited the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills (pictured at top), one of the city’s earliest manufacturers, and found a “deplorable condition of affairs,”⁴ including workers under the age of 12.⁵ Laborers worked 66 hours a week⁶ and were forced to live in “ramshackle structures,”⁷ complaining that “nearly the full amount of their wages was deducted for rent charges and charges at the company store.”⁸

The Constitution‘s hand-waving dismissal of the “race problem” was also particularly galling: “When you settle among us and see the situation as it is you will be on our side.” Which is to say: you, too, will like White supremacy.

Enter W.W. Goodrich, a pathological liar, criminal fraud, and prototypical carpetbagger, but still the kind of man the Constitution so eagerly desired—Caucasian.

In the following letter, Goodrich praised the newspaper’s “magnificent article” and spoke in characteristically florid terms of “the middle class” that “patronize only what is American; they absorb only what is of American origin, and their garments are of only American products and American manufacture.”

Now that both American industry and the American middle class are essentially nonexistent—sold out by American capitalists in favor of foreign sweatshops that run off forced labor and other exploited workers—his sentiments are laughably quaint.

He Endorses It.

Atlanta, July 11.—Editor Constitution: Your editorial on “Why Not Come South” is a magnificent article, that just enters as a wedge, separating the body artisan nee the pauper or spendthrift from the great middle class that saves and banks away for a rainy day. This middle class, so called are for and to man the welfare of the entire country, and more especially are they for the upbuilding of America and American institutions in preference to anything foreign. They patronize only what is American; they absorb only what is of American origin, and their garments are of only American products and of American manufacture. Please keep this line of thought of the editorial in today’s paper at the head of your columns, and you will do an invaluable service to our sunny south.

W.W. GOODRICH⁹

References

1. “Why Not Come South?” The Atlanta Constitution, July 11, 1892, p. 4. ↩︎
2. “Is A Body Blow At Convict Labor”. The Atlanta Journal, February 2, 1897, p. 3. ↩︎
3. “Labor Men Wage War On Convict-Made Brick”. The Atlanta Constitution, February 3, 1897, p. 1. ↩︎
4. “Industrial Commission Hears Plan Talk From Labor Men”. The Atlanta Constitution, March 21, 1900, p. 7. ↩︎
5. “Investigation Ended; Commissioners Leave”. The Atlanta Journal, March 21, 1900, p. 8. ↩︎
6. “Lack Of Facts In The Testimony Heard By Industrial Commission”. The Atlanta Constitution, March 22, 1900, p. 9. ↩︎
7. “Industrial Commission Hears Plan Talk From Labor Men”. The Atlanta Constitution, March 21, 1900, p. 7. ↩︎
8. ibid. ↩︎
9. Goodrich, W.W. “He Endorses It.” The Atlanta Constitution, July 13, 1892, p. 4. ↩︎

The Background

People have always fucked each other—married or not. That was well understood in the late 19th century, but social standards at the time were often incongruent with reality, particularly for women.

Although officially illegal, prostitution at the time was tacitly accepted as a fact of life, and every city of any size, including Atlanta, had a red-light district, with local officials turning a blind eye—likely because they were patrons.

Pornography was available but not ubiquitous, so when the “fast young men”³ of Atlanta needed to get off, they were apt to visit the “disreputable houses” on Collins Street⁴ (later Courtland Street), of which the Atlanta newspapers spoke quite openly, and generally without judgment.

Expectations for women were quite different, however. Contraception was non-existent, so if a girl slept with a man—or God forbid was raped—well, she was screwed in more ways than one.

An unmarried pregnant woman was ostracized from the community, invariably shunned by her family, and often sent to a convent or “reformatory”, usually out of state.⁵ The man, of course, was free to live his life without consequence. Such were the good ol’ days to which some modern lunatics desire a return.

Times were changing, however, and the 1890s saw a movement toward establishing local “homes” or “refuges” to rehabilitate “fallen women”, a euphemism that covered a broad range of women, including unwed mothers, rape victims, and prostitutes.

In 1891, a group of Atlanta ministers proposed a Home for Fallen Women,^{6 7} although the project was abandoned.⁸ A second attempt that year by a different group⁹ was opposed at every turn by residents who shrieked with moral outrage.^{10 11 12 13 14} The home was ultimately banned by city ordinance.¹⁵

Moral objections against the home were flimsy because Atlantans have never possessed any morals.

At least one honest resident had the balls to admit the real issue: “A home for fallen women, or any other institution which would destroy the value of our property, will have a hard road to travel if it is forced on us.”¹⁶

An anonymous “Reader” in The Atlanta Journal summed up the failure in April 1892:

“The movement failed, it seemed, only for the reason that so many opposed the location wherever it was spoken of on account of the proximity of Christian homes.

“Not a friendly word for that unfortunate class was said at the time that I remember by either of the newspapers of Atlanta or by any Christian man or woman.

“If Christ had been among us and owned a lot he would have said:

“‘Put it here.’ The spirit of the Nazarene rebukes such shabby pretense and stamps it ‘hypocrisy’”.¹⁷

In June 1892, another “Home for Fallen Women” attempted to open on Formwalt Street in southwest Atlanta. The city council balked at the idea,¹⁸ the neighbors predictably raised hell,^{19 20} and the matter was ultimately dropped.²¹

For whatever reason, W.W. Goodrich decided to wade into the matter, writing the following “suggestion”—he always had so many of them—in The Atlanta Constitution.

Here, Goodrich describes his idea of a “retreat” for “imprudent young women,” complete with a dormitory, hospital, school, chapel, and hothouses, where the women would become “experts and adepts in the raising of fruits and flowers.”

“Consider the lilies of the field,” Goodrich quotes Christ. He then adds: “They could be paid commensurate with their dexterity.”

I believe that’s from the Atlanta translation of the Bible.

A Suggestion For a Home.

Editor Constitution — Apropos of the location of a retreat for “imprudent young women,” please allow this suggestion, which has been tried with perfect success, and never failed to be the main spring out of which may be built a “retreat” that will not necessitate the upturned nostril of any sycophant at its close proximity.

In the west, and in the foreign climes, a society for the benevolent reclamation of unfortunate young women has purchased a tract of land near to a city of easy access, and upon said tract has erected a dormitory, hospital, kitchen and dining rooms, a bathhouse, a schoolroom and chapel upon the grounds, were also built for the sole occupation and employment of these young women. Hothouses of different sizes and for different fruits, flowers, plants and arbor culture in general. The young women did all of the manual labor in raising, propagating and growing whatever was planted.

An unlimited sale in this Atlanta market, at retail prices, is always at command for the products of such labor.

Such a home for these helpless young women would be a noble charity; they would be self-supporting, self-sustaining and self-respecting, and they would have an occupation that they would not hesitate to embrace.

They do not want sentiment; they do not want pity.

They do want disinterested, noble, clear-cut charity, and in this enlightened age they have a right to anticipate it.

When such a home is ready a special officer could go to the various stopping places of these young women, give them free of charge tickets for transportation to the retreat, invite them in a Christian, non-sectarian, unbiased manner to accept of the generous hospitality of the retreat, and I trow not but that they all would be only too glad to accept of so kind a proposition and of so good a home.

They would become experts and adepts in the raising of fruits and flowers, and what is more enjoyable than seeing flowers grow and bloom? Consider the lilies of the field; they could be paid commensurate with their dexterity.

The outline of this thought is from observation during my travels and is respectfully submitted to the noble minds who really with unostentation have the good of these unfortunate young women at heart.

W.W. GOODRICH.²²

References

1. “Plans Are Ready”. The Atlanta Journal, December 30, 1890, p. 1. ↩︎
2. “Plans Ready”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 19, 1891, p. 2. ↩︎
3. “Work Of The Courts”. The Atlanta Constitution, December 5, 1891, p. 9. ↩︎
4. “She Was Robbed”. The Atlanta Journal, October 20, 1891, p. 1. ↩︎
5. “That House of Refuge.” The Atlanta Constitution, November 13, 1891, p. 4. ↩︎
6. “For Fallen Women”. The Atlanta Journal, April 6, 1981, p. 7. ↩︎
7. “Raising The Fallen”. The Atlanta Constitution, April 7, 1981, p. 7. ↩︎
8. “The Ministers Meet”. The Atlanta Constitution, September 8, 1891, p. 10. ↩︎
9. “For Fallen Women.” The Atlanta Constitution, September 13, 1891, p. 21. ↩︎
10. “For Fallen Women.” The Atlanta Journal, October 14, 1891, p. 6. ↩︎
11. “Don’t Want It.” The Atlanta Journal, November 4, 1891, p. 3. ↩︎
12. “Don’t Want It.” The Atlanta Constitution, November 5, 1891, p. 6. ↩︎
13. “The Fallen Women”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 7, 1891, p. 9. ↩︎
14. “That Refuge.” The Atlanta Journal, November 7, 1891, p. 3. ↩︎
15. “The Mayor’s Name.” The Atlanta Constitution, November 8, 1891, p. 24. ↩︎
16. ibid. ↩︎
17. “The Idler’s Note Book”. The Atlanta Journal, April 27, 1892, p. 4. ↩︎
18. “They Are Happy.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1892, p. 2. ↩︎
19. “The Southsiders Object”. The Atlanta Journal, June 7, 1892, p. 3. ↩︎
20. “They Will Oppose It.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 8, 1892, p. 9. ↩︎
21. “That Liquor Law”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 21, 1892, p. 10. ↩︎
22. Goodrich, W.W. “A Suggestion for a Home.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 10, 1892, p. 4. ↩︎