Hello, my paternal ancestors were most likely some of those black men watering their mules in Gough, GA. My family are Palmers, Jordan’s, Rollins, Hines, Moores and others all sharecroppers living in Gough. My great grandfather was a descendant of a white slave owner named George Palmer. I’d love to hear more stories or if there is a book, buy a copy. Are you aware of any extant business journals for the community general store? Thank you for sharing your stories. Elaine McGill temcgill@bellsouth.net
Dear Elaine,
Thank you for your comments-I obviously brought to life memories of your own famiy’s experience in the dusty little town of Gough. I have written a collection of stories set in Gough still in search of a publisher. I do some literary writing that I do not post on my website (Longleafjournal.com) because most editors will not publish previously published works-even though they may only have come out on a website. If you will refer back to the opening page by searching longleafjournal.com, you will find listed all my earlier articles. Many of them are set in Gough and are about events there-and about my families (KItchens, Gays, Segos, Hudsons, and Barrows). But my roots are deeper still in neighboring Jefferson, Richmond and Glascock Counties. I recall the Banks and Thigpin stores. mu grandfther Sego’s garage, my grandfather White Kitchens’ Bank of Gough, and my uncle, Dr.Joe Hudson’s tiny medical office. The University of Georgia’s Hargrett Library Archives likely has some early store records. I’l check on line to see if there are any from Burke County. My recent article on banking covers the banking crisis and inflation that powered the exodus of so many share croppers, Black and white, out of the farms and even out of the state by the hundreds of thousands beginning in the early 1920s’.
I am currently workng on a book about Georgia in the post war era of the early twenties-a period that has been largely neglected by historians. A couple of historical works that will suggest to you what life was like in the small south Gerogia towns in the 1920s are William Rawlings, A Killing at Ringjaw Bluff and the Death of Small Town Georgia (Mercer University Press) and the novel Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell. Caldwell lived near Gough growing up in Wrens.The book angered many middle class church goers, but it conveys much about life in the tobacco/cotton belt of east Georgia. I am sure I will think of others. Again, so glad this look at small town life in the 1920’s awakened those often painful, but also heartwarming events in the lives of the courageous and often devout people who endured the incredible hardhsips and loses of this era.
Joe
I am delighted to get your note and comments. I do not know of any records for the local general store(s). The one I recall as a child was called “Planters Store.” I have been very busy researching the story of the terrible ordeal that followed the failure of the Banker’s Trust system and hope to complete a book on this subject. I was only about six or seven when I witnessed the scene you mentioned. Even those who study Georgia history pay little attention to the nineteen twenties-and how Georgia sank into “third world status,” not only because of the collapse and insecurity associated with cotton prices -but how profound the collapse of so many rural banks crushed the hopes of tens of thousands of families. No one has tried to document this-typically that level of focus has focused on the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Meanwhile, I urge you to read Isabel Wilkerson’s two remarkable (and best selling) books: The Warmth of Others Suns” which deals with the great migration out of the South beginning in the post World War I period, and Caste which compares southern segregation with the caste system of India. She won the Pulitzer prize with the first book. A parting thought: the scene I witnessed of the Black farmers and their mules illustrates that even though tractors were being produced small farmers could not afford to farm any more acreage than could be accomplished with a single mule! So great to know someone can relate to the stories I research and tell! Joe
Since I last responded, I ran across a story in the Waynesboro True Citizen newspaper files (they are online at Historic Georgia Newspapers which is a searchable data base) that describes a suicide attempt by Sam Gay (my great uncle) at his store in Gough. The episode was brought on apparently by depression over financial failures in 1916. Sam was badly in a gin accident at age ten and was (according to my mother who grew up in Gough) addicted to pain killers. 1916 was a rough time for the local economy. The Germans were sinking shipping in British waters with their submarines while Britain was blockading Germany with its navy, so the textile market for the two major manufacturing powers in Europe were in turmoil. Little Southern cotton was not being shipped to Europe. This shifted when the US entered the war in the spring of 1917 and cotton prices rose sharply -only to collapse from nearly a dollar a pound to five cents in 1920.In short, the cotton kingdom was coming to an end and much of rural Georgia’s economy was collapsing. I wrote an earlier blog entitled “The Sun is Going Down on Gough” which you can find in the directory on my main page. I cannot find evidence about how black farmers were impacted directly by the banking crisis in 1926, but the collapse of rural credit systems most certainly drove share croppers and tenant farmers to leave the state in droves. Not sure how serious you are about your genealogy in Burke County, but there is an historical society there-but I have been unable to reach anyone there. I think the Georgia Historical society would be helpful. Also you can use the Ancestry system to search through the federal censuses for Burke County-but unless you are an Ancestry subscriber, you can only use the library’s access IN THE library.
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Hello, my paternal ancestors were most likely some of those black men watering their mules in Gough, GA. My family are Palmers, Jordan’s, Rollins, Hines, Moores and others all sharecroppers living in Gough. My great grandfather was a descendant of a white slave owner named George Palmer. I’d love to hear more stories or if there is a book, buy a copy. Are you aware of any extant business journals for the community general store? Thank you for sharing your stories. Elaine McGill temcgill@bellsouth.net
Dear Elaine,
Thank you for your comments-I obviously brought to life memories of your own famiy’s experience in the dusty little town of Gough. I have written a collection of stories set in Gough still in search of a publisher. I do some literary writing that I do not post on my website (Longleafjournal.com) because most editors will not publish previously published works-even though they may only have come out on a website. If you will refer back to the opening page by searching longleafjournal.com, you will find listed all my earlier articles. Many of them are set in Gough and are about events there-and about my families (KItchens, Gays, Segos, Hudsons, and Barrows). But my roots are deeper still in neighboring Jefferson, Richmond and Glascock Counties. I recall the Banks and Thigpin stores. mu grandfther Sego’s garage, my grandfather White Kitchens’ Bank of Gough, and my uncle, Dr.Joe Hudson’s tiny medical office. The University of Georgia’s Hargrett Library Archives likely has some early store records. I’l check on line to see if there are any from Burke County. My recent article on banking covers the banking crisis and inflation that powered the exodus of so many share croppers, Black and white, out of the farms and even out of the state by the hundreds of thousands beginning in the early 1920s’.
I am currently workng on a book about Georgia in the post war era of the early twenties-a period that has been largely neglected by historians. A couple of historical works that will suggest to you what life was like in the small south Gerogia towns in the 1920s are William Rawlings, A Killing at Ringjaw Bluff and the Death of Small Town Georgia (Mercer University Press) and the novel Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell. Caldwell lived near Gough growing up in Wrens.The book angered many middle class church goers, but it conveys much about life in the tobacco/cotton belt of east Georgia. I am sure I will think of others. Again, so glad this look at small town life in the 1920’s awakened those often painful, but also heartwarming events in the lives of the courageous and often devout people who endured the incredible hardhsips and loses of this era.
Joe
Elaine,
I am delighted to get your note and comments. I do not know of any records for the local general store(s). The one I recall as a child was called “Planters Store.” I have been very busy researching the story of the terrible ordeal that followed the failure of the Banker’s Trust system and hope to complete a book on this subject. I was only about six or seven when I witnessed the scene you mentioned. Even those who study Georgia history pay little attention to the nineteen twenties-and how Georgia sank into “third world status,” not only because of the collapse and insecurity associated with cotton prices -but how profound the collapse of so many rural banks crushed the hopes of tens of thousands of families. No one has tried to document this-typically that level of focus has focused on the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Meanwhile, I urge you to read Isabel Wilkerson’s two remarkable (and best selling) books: The Warmth of Others Suns” which deals with the great migration out of the South beginning in the post World War I period, and Caste which compares southern segregation with the caste system of India. She won the Pulitzer prize with the first book. A parting thought: the scene I witnessed of the Black farmers and their mules illustrates that even though tractors were being produced small farmers could not afford to farm any more acreage than could be accomplished with a single mule! So great to know someone can relate to the stories I research and tell! Joe
Elaine,
Since I last responded, I ran across a story in the Waynesboro True Citizen newspaper files (they are online at Historic Georgia Newspapers which is a searchable data base) that describes a suicide attempt by Sam Gay (my great uncle) at his store in Gough. The episode was brought on apparently by depression over financial failures in 1916. Sam was badly in a gin accident at age ten and was (according to my mother who grew up in Gough) addicted to pain killers. 1916 was a rough time for the local economy. The Germans were sinking shipping in British waters with their submarines while Britain was blockading Germany with its navy, so the textile market for the two major manufacturing powers in Europe were in turmoil. Little Southern cotton was not being shipped to Europe. This shifted when the US entered the war in the spring of 1917 and cotton prices rose sharply -only to collapse from nearly a dollar a pound to five cents in 1920.In short, the cotton kingdom was coming to an end and much of rural Georgia’s economy was collapsing. I wrote an earlier blog entitled “The Sun is Going Down on Gough” which you can find in the directory on my main page. I cannot find evidence about how black farmers were impacted directly by the banking crisis in 1926, but the collapse of rural credit systems most certainly drove share croppers and tenant farmers to leave the state in droves. Not sure how serious you are about your genealogy in Burke County, but there is an historical society there-but I have been unable to reach anyone there. I think the Georgia Historical society would be helpful. Also you can use the Ancestry system to search through the federal censuses for Burke County-but unless you are an Ancestry subscriber, you can only use the library’s access IN THE library.
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