Henry W. Grady is known as an owner of the Atlanta Constitution, and he used his paper to promote his ideologies. He advocated for the development of the railroad, as well as prohibition laws. He was also remembered for his contribution to building libraries and caring for Confederate soldiers. However, his most notable contribution to Civil War culture was his idea of the “New South.”
The idea of the “New South” was to advocate industrial development in order to restore economic woes of the southern region during the civil war. Grady wanted nothing more than a united North and South. He wanted them to be unified and to trust each other. He promoted segregation in order to achieve peace, and he wanted African Americans to have “fair treatment”. However, Grady was also inherently racist. He was a strong believer in white supremacy, but his love of country superceded his dislike of African Americans.
Grady fought to open vocational schools for industrial education, causing millions of dollars to be invested into the city. His promotion of the “New South” was ultimately a successful financial endeavor for Georgia, and more specifically, Atlanta because it brought a huge amount of investments to the area. Grady helped set the norm for using property to publish ideas to the general population. Grady used his newspaper as a platform of ideas to promote the Democratic Party, and his words and publication had a huge impact on the people who read his publication. He died suddenly on December 23, 1889, but his legacy as a spokesman for the south lived on post Civil War and still today.
Additional sources: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/henry-w-grady-1850-1889, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5745/
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