Remains of the iron furnace at the Stamp Creek Wildlife Management area near the Georgia Veterans Cemetery, Canton, Georgia and north off Georgia 20, near its intersection with Georgia 108. Iron mining and making was key to the industrialization of the Etowah Valley before the Civil War,. The gold rush in the area had attracted miners from other mining and iron works, especially North Carolina and Virginia, as detailed in Ken Wheeler’s Modern Cronies. Photo by Joe Kitchens.

Except as an adjunct to genealogy, local and regional histories often have little to offer because they fail to explain much that is of great importance to the general reader. We live in a larger world and we hope to be informed about how larger events influence our lives. By “importance,” I mean only to suggest that local and regional history often fails to attract authors -or readers- who want a larger picture, ones that characterize the times, explore societal changes, make sense of the drama of national politics, or analyze the military conflicts that often seem to define the times in which we live.

Dr. Kenneth Wheeler has given us a narrowly focused study that successfully transcends “local history.” Retracing the careers and conspiracies of a cohort of men determined to enrich themselves and establish the modern industrial foundations of the “New South” (to borrow a phrase penned by journalist Henry W. Grady to describe where the post-Civil War South should be headed). Wheeler has discovered that this movement was in fact the goal of Joseph Brown, his relatives, Methodist co-religionists and business “cronies” long before the Civil War began.

At the center of these schemes were the new Western and Atlantic Railroad, built through lands still occupied by the Cherokee Nation. Its construction and utility made it possible to begin the development of the Etowah River basin into an industrial complex. The “Gold Rush” in Georgia in the 1820s and 1830s was short-lived, but it spawned the iron industry and attracted men familiar with how to mine iron ore and how to build and operate iron furnaces, stamping mills and commercial forges. The Gold Rush attracted men to the very region -the Etowah River valley in North Georgia- where their skills and experience could be readily employed.

This surge of industrialism is wed to the secessionist cause. The capital invested in building railroads and forges encouraged some to believe the fantasy that the Confederacy can produce its own war materials in a struggle with the more industrialized north. The use of slaves in iron works, mining and sawmills should release men and resources for the struggle ahead.

Brown elected governor and ironically adopts the stance that Georgia is the victim of an inept and dictatorial Confederate government under Jefferson Davis. Brown carries the idea of secession to its logical and ridiculous conclusion: like the Confederacy, Georgia knows no higher authority. When federal troops invade Georgia, at their head is General William Tecumseh Sherman, himself an engineer and keen observer who had toured the Etowah region before the war. He targets Brown’s pet industries, burns the governor’s home and hometown of Canton. He drives the Georgia state government from the capital in Milledgeville. Browns state militia cannot withstand the force of a well commanded and well-equipped army cutting through the state and through the heart of the Confederacy. Brown initiates contacts with the federal government to save (and profit) from collaboration.

Reconstruction and federal occupation witness a steady relocation of mining and iron production to the Birmingham Alabama area. Many of the same men who developed the Etowah works are involved. Brown turns his attention to building a new industrial complex. Slavery has ended, but Brown and his political allies will build a new and cheap labor force of state prisoners, mostly Black, slavery in a new form called the convict lease sysem.

As a student of Georgia history, I often am struck by the idea that Georgians -like many people living in rural areas and under the influence of fundamentalist religion, tend to dismiss great crises -economic, political and social- as though they were the result of fate, acts of God, not unlike hurricanes, floods and even wars. What Wheeler has shown is that a network of greedy men, gaining a foothold, secreting their ambitions and cloaking them in political righteousness can alter the welfare of all around them..

While Dr. Wheeler’s book was published by a state university press and will likely appeal mostly to Georgians, It also carries great implications and should be an incentive for similar studies. We need look no further than the veil behind which businesses and banks worked throughout the so-called “Age of Industrialism” in late nineteenth century America; or be inspired by the warning of President Dwight D. Eisenhower that we have much to fear from the interlocking interests of defense contractors and the U.S. military. With newspaper circulations, research budgets and staff in decline and our news broadcasts overshadowed by the flood of false media news, is it time for books and historians to make a comeback? Modern Cronies is a fresh place to start and good read.

Dr. Wheeler will be conducting a book talk at the meeting of the Ball Ground Historical Society on the evening of February 28, 2023 at Ball Ground City Hall at 7:00 PM.. The public is invited and admission is free.