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Urban Growth on the Periphery of the Antebellum Cotton Belt: Atlanta, 1847–1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

David F. Weiman
David F. Weiman
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale University New Haven, CT 06520.
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Abstract

Based on the mercantile model of urban growth, I analyze the formative development of Atlanta during the antebellum period. Located at the intersection of three railroads, Atlanta's early growth and economic structure reflected its nodal position in the transport system. Subsequent railroad construction, however, eroded its initial locational advantage, while creating the opportunity for its emergence as a regional metropolis. This transformation was delayed until after the Civil War because of the marginal political and economic position of Atlanta and the Upcountry region, as a whole, within the state.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 259 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1988

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References

1 Pred, Allan R., Urban Growth and City-Systems in the United States, 1840–1860 (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), pp. 109–17;Google ScholarWeiher, Kenneth, “The Cotton Industry and Southern Urbanization, 1880–1930” Explorations in Economic History, 14 (04 1977), pp. 127–29;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Conzen, Michael P., “The American Urban System in the Nineteenth Century,” in Herbert, O. T. and Johnson, R. J., eds., Geography and the Urban Environment Progress in Research and Application, 4 (1981), pp.331–33.Google Scholar

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7 See, for example, Pred, Urban Growth and the Circulation, passim., and Urban Growth and City-Systems, chap. 6; and Meyer, “A Dynamic Model,” pp. 130–31.Google Scholar

8 This paragraph draws heavily on Burghardt, “A Hypothesis,” pp. 271–72.Google Scholar

9 As Burghardt “A Hypothesis,” p. 282, notes, “[t]hey become the gathering places for the pushers, the boosters, those who wish to become rich quickly.”Google Scholar See also Heim, Carol, “External Spheres and the Theory of Capitalist Development,” Social Concept, 3 (12 1986), pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

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13 The role of the manufacturing sector in urban growth is discussed in Muller, “Selective Growth,” pp. 173–77, and “Regional Urbanization,” pp. 31–32;Google ScholarLindstrom, Diane and Sharpless, John, “Urban Growth and Economic Structure in Antebellum America,” Research in Economic History, 3 (1978), pp. 169–85;Google Scholar and Crowther, Simeon J., “Urban Growth in the Mid-Atlantic States, 1785–1850,” this JOURNAL, 36 (09 1976), pp. 632–40.Google Scholar

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17 Martin, Thomas H., Atlanta and Its Builders: A Comprehensive History of the Gate City (Atlanta, 1902), vol. 1, p. 27;Google Scholar and Garrett, Franklin M., Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events (New York, 1954), vol. 1, pp. 223–24.Google Scholar Estimates of the population in 1845 range from 100 in Martin, p. 37,Google Scholar to 200 in Pioneer Citizen's Society of Atlanta, Pioneer Citizen's History of Atlanta 1832–1902 (Atlanta, 1902), p. 20.Google Scholar

18 The Georgia Banking and Railroad Company, Reports of the Directors (Augusta, 1843), p. 5, lists Atlanta as an intermediate station on this road.Google Scholar

19 See Atlanta Weekly Intelligencer, vol. 3, no. 39 (02 26, 1852);Google ScholarRussell, “Atlanta, Gate City of the South,” pp. 59–60, 62–63; Wotton, “New City of the South,” p. 21; and Russell, Atlanta, 1847–1890, p. 53.Google Scholar

20 Martin, , Atlanta and Its Builders, vol. 1, p. 59;Google Scholar and Citizen's, Pioneer, History of Atlanta, pp.222–23, 233.Google Scholar

21 Population estimates for the years 1848, 1849, and 1854 are reported in Pioneer Citizen's, History of Atlanta, p. 73;Google ScholarWhite, George, Statistics of the State of Georgia (Savannah, 1849), p. 205,Google Scholar and Historical Collections of Georgia (New York, 1854), p. 421;Google Scholar U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census, 1850, Statistical View of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1854), pp. 338–39;Google Scholar and Haygood, Green B., “Sketch of Atlanta,” in William's Atlanta Directory (Atlanta, 1859), p. 11.Google Scholar

22 White, Historical Collections, p. 421. The estimates do not include produce sold directly by farmers in the wagon trade.Google Scholar

23 White, Historical Collections, p. 421.Google Scholar

24 Between 1851 and 1854, 9 of the 11 largest wholesale merchants listed in the credit ledgers of the R. G. Dun & Co. were engaged in the cotton trade. See Georgia, vol. 13A, R. G. Dun & Company Collection, Baker Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, pp. 93–134.Google Scholar

25 Georgia, vol. 13A, R. G. Dun & Company Collection, pp. 93–134; White, Historical Collections, pp. 421–22;Google ScholarMartin, , Atlanta and Its Builders, vol. 1, pp. 45, 48–49;Google ScholarCooper, Walter G., Official History of Fulton County (Atlanta, 1934), pp. 74–80, 313–14;Google Scholarand Pioneer Citizen's, History of Atlanta, pp. 116–19.Google Scholar

26 Western, and Railroad, Atlantic, Report of the Superintendent and Treasurer (Atlanta, 1853,1857).Google Scholar

27 Atlanta Weekly Intelligencer, vol. 3, no. 34 (01 22, 1852);Google Scholarand Atlanta Daily Intelligencer (10 15, 1858); transcript in the Ulrich B. Phillips Collection, box 32, folder 316.Google Scholar

28 In his evaluation of Atlanta's commercial prospects in 1853, the editor of the Atlanta Weekly intelligencer concluded that the city's commerce would continue to expand except “in the one article of Cotton,” vol. 3, no. 34 (Jan. 22, 1853).Google Scholar “[O]ur receipts from wagons,” he explained, “have been temporarily reduced this season, by the extension of the Atlanta and LaGrange Railroad to Newnan.” The paper provides only sporadic reports of the volume of cotton sales, but during the height of the season, they averaged only 1,000 to 1,250 bales a week; ibid., vol. 3, nos. 23–39 (Nov. 1852–Feb. 1853). Based on a comparison of cotton prices reported in the Atlanta Daily Intelligencer for the same day each week between 1852 and 1855, cotton prices in Atlanta were on average one to two cents lower per pound than in Augusta, Charleston, and Savannah. Freight rates over the same period varied from 50 to 60 cents per bale to Savannah and to 75 cents to $1 per bale to Charleston.

29 Russell, Atlanta, 1847–1890, pp. 39–40, claims that Atlanta's cotton trade along the road started to recover in 1856, but presents an estimate of total cotton shipped to, not sold in, Atlanta in 1859 of only 30,000 bales. In addition, according to the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, Report of the Directors (1856), p. 10, cotton shipped from Atlanta to Augusta along the Georgia Railroad declined by 1812 bales in 1856, the only year that shipments from Atlanta were reported separately. Cotton shipments from all other stations on the road and connecting lines increased in the same year.Google Scholar

30 Atlanta Daily Intelligencer, vol. 1, no. 35 (11 4, 1854), no. 65 (Dec. 10, 1854), no. 70 (Dec. 16, 1854), no. 82 (Jan. 1, 1855), and no. 85 (Jan. 4, 1855).Google Scholar

31 The timing coincides with the end of the first railroad boom in the United States and, according to Fishlow, American Railroads, pp. 114–16, the onset of a major economic downturn.Google Scholar

32 Georgia, vol. 13A, R. G. Dun & Company Collection, pp. 93–134.Google Scholar

33 As early as 1854, Atlanta was developing a reputation throughout Georgia as the “best market … for the purchase of almost all leading articles of consumption,” Atlanta Daily Intelligencer, vol. 1, no. 45 (11 16, 1854).Google Scholar Atlanta's merchants were notorious for charging lower prices than merchants in port cities and conducting their sales on a cash basis, ibid., no. 136 (Mar. 5, 1855); Russell, “Atlanta, Gate City of the South,” p. 57; and Wotton, “New City of the South,” p. 23.Google Scholar

34 Reed, Walter P., History of Atlanta, Georgia (Syracuse, 1889), pp. 52, 58;Google ScholarWilliam's Atlanta Directory, p. 11 and U.S. Census, Eighth Census, 1860, vol. 1, Population of the United States in 1860 (Washington, D.C., 1864), pp. 74–76. Estimates of Atlanta's population in 1860 vary between 9,554 in the federal census to 11,500 in the state census.Google Scholar

35 William's Atlanta Directory, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

36 Further evidence of the relative decline of the cotton trade after 1854 is the scarce mention of cotton operations by Atlanta's largest wholesale merchants in Georgia, vol. 13A, R. G. Dun & Company Collection, pp. 93–134.Google Scholar

37 William's Atlanta Directory, pp. 25–27. See also Pioneer Citizen's, History of Atlanta, pp.137–38.Google Scholar

38 Russell, “Atlanta, Gate City of the South,” p. 70. Cooper, Official History, p. 306, lists the officers and incorporators of the bank. All but two were residents.Google Scholar

39 White, Historical Collections, p. 422; William's Atlanta Directory, pp. 12–13; Georgia, vol. 13A, R. G. Dun & Company Collection, pp. 102–66;Google Scholar and U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census, vol. 3, Manufacturers of the United States in 1860 (Washington, D.C., 1865), p. 68.Google Scholar See also Russell, Atlanta, 184 7–1890, pp. 58–61.Google Scholar

40 William's Atlanta Directory, p. 12.Google Scholar

41 Equally important, they tried to move the state capitol from Millidgeville, centrally located in Georgia's Cotton Belt, to Atlanta. Although unsuccessful, they made Atlanta the seat of a new county, which was carved mostly Out of DeKaIb. See Martin, Atlanta and Its Founders, vol. 1, pp. 118–20; and Cooper, Official History, pp. 83–88.Google Scholar

42 Georgia, Tax Digest of Fulton County, 1854. Of the 64 individuals reported owning less 500 acres of rural land, only 5 owned land outside of northern Georgia. For 12 of the 18 largest landholders in Atlanta, lands in northern Georgia accounted for over 60 percent of their holdings.Google Scholar

43 Reed, History of Atlanta, Georgia, pp. 74–75;Google ScholarMartin, , Atlanta and Its Builders, vol. 1, p. 125;Google Scholar and Russell, Atlanta, 1847–1890, pp. 65–67. For their earlier efforts, see Atlanta Weekly Intelligencer, vol. 3, no. 7 (July 17, 1852), no. 12 (Aug. 21, 1852), no. 13 (Aug. 28, 1853).Google Scholar

44 Atlanta Daily Intelligencer, vol. 1, no. 131 (02 27, 1855), no. 133 (Mar. 1, 1855), no. 148 (mar. 19, 1855).Google Scholar

45 Beginning in 1853, the Weekly Intelligencer, vol. 4, no. 35 (01 27, 1853), listed the advertisements of firms in Atlanta's principal markets; these included the Atlantic cotton ports and New York. See also Reed, History of Atlanta, Georgia, pp. 27–28; Russell, “Atlanta, Gate City of the South,” pp. 65, 92; and Wotton, “New City of the South,” pp. 33–35.Google Scholar

46 Atlanta Daily Intelligencer, vol. 1, no. 85 (01 4, 1855). The editorial was directed against banks in port cities and the state road, which refused to accept notes issued by interior banks.Google Scholar

47 Russell, Atlanta, 1847–1890, pp. 99–102, finds that a third of Atlanta's economic elite in the 1850s were born in the Northeast, and two-thirds of all elites had accumulated wealth holdings of at least $10,000, when they arrived in Atlanta. According to Wotton, “New City of the South,” p. 42, the share of native northerners among Atlanta's elites doubled over the decade.Google Scholar

48 Georgia, vol. 13A, R. G. Dun & Company Collection, pp. 164, 166.Google Scholar

49 Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, Reports of the Directors (1858), p. 16. According to the superintendent, “these reductions are not caused by rivalry of competing Lines within our State, but are determined by Western Routes competing for the trade connecting Roads had opened to us.”Google Scholar

50 Atlanta Daily Intelligencer (May 10, 1858), (Nov. 9, 1858), (Nov. 11, 1858), (Oct. 15, 1858) and (Jan. 6, 1859); typed transcripts in the Ulrich B. Phillips Collection, Yale University Archives, box 32, folder 316.Google Scholar

51 Ibid. Atlanta merchants also complained that train schedules prevented passengers from stopping over in their city and so diminished their retail trade.

52 Atlanta Daily Intelligencer (Feb. 21, 1860); typed transcript in Ulrich B. Phillips Collection, box 32, folder 316. The article proposed that merchants use alternative rail routes to Charleston or Norfolk as an immediate solution to the problem. See also Reed, History of Atlanta, Georgia, pp. 438–42; and Cooper, Official History, pp. 320–22.Google Scholar

53 Pioneer Citizen's Society, History of Atlanta, pp. 49–50, 59–60, 74–75; Phillips, A History, pp. 366–72; Garrett, Atlanta and Its Environs, vol. 1, pp. 383, 409; and Russell, “Atlanta, Gate City of the South,” pp. 75–84.Google Scholar

54 The role of the Georgia Airline in integrating the eastern half of the Upcountry into the cotton economy is demonstrated by Weiman, David F., “The Economic Emancipation of the NonSlaveholding Class: Upcountry Farmers in the Georgia Cotton Economy,” this JOURNAL, 45 (03 1985), pp. 84–90.Google Scholar Anticipating the potential benefits of the road, the residents of the region had invested over $400,000 in the project by 1858; Martin, , Atlanta and Its Builders, vol. 1, p. 140.Google Scholar

55 Russell, Atlanta, 1847–1890, pp. 72–74.Google Scholar

56 These companies had substantial investments in complementary railroad companies that channeled traffic through their trunk lines; see Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, Reports of the Directors (Augusta, 1859), p. 30;Google Scholar and Central of Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, Annual Report (Savannah, 1856), p. 5.Google Scholar

57 Woodman, King Cotton and His Retainers, pp. 269–94, documents the growing volume of direct trade along rail routes between interior cotton-producing regions and New York after the Civil War. During Reconstruction, in contrast, state governments under Republican rule heavily subsidized developmental railroad projects in white farming regions, like the Georgia Airline;Google Scholar see Summers, Mark W., Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity Aid under the Radical Republicans, 1865–1877 (Princeton, 1984), part I.Google Scholar

58 Reed, History of Atlanta, Georgia, pp. 87–89.Google Scholar

59 Russell, Atlanta, 1847–1890, pp. 117–27;Google Scholar and DeCredico, Mary A., “Urban Entrepreneurs in the Civil War South” (unpublished manuscript, U.S. Naval Academy, 1986), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar