Literary Analysis Essay on Georgia Odyssey

Introduction

Georgia is an excellent survey that shows the history of the state since the time it began its operations as a colony in Europe to its current status as an international business. The state grew up from the isolation that was self-imposed during the era of Jim Crow to the time when it hosted the Centennial Olympics. The state also grew from a time that it reigned as the Democratic Solid linchpin state to a point where it started dominating through the Republican Party. This book by Cobb shows the new trends which have made Georgia in the list of the top most attractive and dynamic states that was accelerated by the growing numbers of the population of the Hispanic and Americans of the Asian origin. These populations interfered a lot with the economic, cultural and social appearances as well as the demographic ones and persona. There existed several changes in the economy of Georgia which happened since the civil war ended and the twenty-first century began.

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As written in the book by Cobb, the cultural landscape of Georgia shifted constantly, and it presented anachronism, contrast, peculiarity, and contradiction. Several myths also arose concerning Georgia State where the author brought it past life and showed how the state with the myths was important at that time. The Georgians who were either natives or visitors cared a lot about the identity of Georgia and gave it a lot of considerations about it being necessary to their identities. Many Georgians who are either native or new state members have all their care on the status of the state as it helps in the introducing of the past as it relates to the present and the future of the state.

Many people had a belief that the state of Georgia was founded and changed due to the increased number of criminals, but Cobb explained in his book how that concept was a lie. This is because there were no many criminals that were able to travel to the state especially after Oglethorpe started living in Georgia after receiving a charter. Shortly after the end of the civil war in Georgia, the state was able to establish the population that existed in it and advocated for it to grow more. The state was forced to become another part of South Carolina so that it could improve its economy and make more money. People who lived in the state started thinking about the economic growth laws that existed before they arrived there and started arguing that the rules had to be changed if the state was to realize an increase in the profits and development of the state's economy. The most discussed laws in the state were that the abolitions of trade for slaves and rum restrictions had to be lifted. Their argument was taken into considerations, and both of those laws were removed which made the trade for slaves grow to become one of the most profitable activities of trade in Georgia state.

The people of Georgia state in unison started modernizing, and this caused them to make changes to their cash crop from being cotton to being poultry and peanuts. Industries began making their ways into the Georgian market mostly due to the past World War that had just taken part and by the year 1950, industries that were categorized as low-wage made up eighty-three percent of the manufacturing jobs that were available in the states. Twenty years later, the percent of the jobs of manufacturing that were available in Georgia had already reduced to sixty-seven percent. In the year 1990, the rate had still not yet changed from the sixty percent bracket, and it was lower from the starting rate forty years ago where it now stood at exactly sixty percent. There occurred a significant change in the years between 1989 and 1992 where nine thousand and eight hundred jobs were lost across the state, but due to the active strategies and laws that had been set aside in the state, it was able to recuperate and bounce back to its former place.

Military bases in the Georgia state also contributed a lot to the growth of the Georgian economy where these bases were able to account for twenty percent of the overall earnings that were realized in the state. More changes went on being recognized in Georgia where the people that lived in the state started making more money. This made them start seeing other things that surrounded Atlanta like the fast food chains that made them experience more profits into their economy as well as new ideas that the individuals invented to be able to improve and develop the economy further. The fast-food chains such as McDonald's, KFC and Hardee found their way into the market of Georgia, and their incorporation into the state's economy led to increased economic growth. People changed their habits of cooking and eating at home and started adopting the new style of eating outside the home and more specifically fast foods which made different practitioners in Georgia realize much profits that led to a substantial evident growth of the economy.

Cohesive universalism also happened in the Georgian states after a new leader sealed the future of the state by placing it in the British Empire. A reconstruction of the Georgian masses both the whites and the blacks took place, and there emerged a life that involved sharecropping. Taxes that were charged on the property had previously been mainly laid on the owners of the slave, and this had limited business going on well with many people fearing for the taxes which had always led to lower profits and taxation making the economy to stay low for a long time before the civil war ended. The period between the time the civil war ended and the time the twenty-first century began experienced a change in the people who faced property taxes. The taxes now fell on owners of land instead of slave owners and this reconstruction led to an increase in tax rates. The increased taxes led to an improvement of the economy of the state which made the individuals in the states experience more economic benefits and better lives than before. Many Southern Whites owned land in the antebellum period, but by the year 1900, most of them were landless sharecroppers. People who owned land increased by a total of thirteen percent by the year 1900, and it applied to both the blacks and the whites who lived in Georgia. The increase in land ownership led to a better economy where all people were included, and they had their share of land and property in the state.

Before the civil war took place, the slaves who were of African-American origin were the most in the total population where they made up forty-four percent of the population. The central control in the state changed after the civil war ended and there was a significant change as a mission to assist the former slaves to gain their land and rebuild any infrastructure was started. Federal officials confiscated plantations that were abandoned during the war, and they were distributed to the slaves that were freed equally. Slaves owning land in Georgia created a sense of equality in the economy especially because all landowners now started paying taxes that helped in the development of infrastructure and the economy into better standards that made all people enjoy and have a feeling of equality. The slaves were also now able to search for themselves, and this enabled them to get jobs which helped them improve their living standards which had positive effects on the economy of Georgia.

Before the civil war took place, Georgia's capital city was Milledgeville, but after the civil war was over, Georgia joined a union which led to the change of the capital city to Atlanta. In the year 1880, Atlanta was the largest city of Georgia, and many freed slaves left the agricultural jobs in their lands and moved to the town. This movement of the freed slaves led to the city of Atlanta becoming a modern city that was industrialized with many industries being put up in the city and creating more job employment for the people who lived in Atlanta as well as those who moved to the city in search of greener pastures. Georgia became the first Southern state to start using the convict leasing system after the civil war was over whereby utilizing this system, convicts were given out to private companies so that they could provide labor for free. This system helped to realize economic development in Georgia as it industrialized faster due to the free energy and this created an economic growth that favored the residents of the state due to better infrastructure and better livelihoods of the people who got employed in those companies.

Emancipation was another significant change that occurred in the economy of Georgia where the African Americans that had been in slavery for a long time before the civil war tried to rebuild their families own property, move freely and make contracts for the first time in a long time. For the black slaves that were free from their masters and were unable to buy and possess their land, they started sharecropping which most of the time led to debts which kept various families fixed to the land which increased poverty levels well until a new deal was struck in 1930. The end of the civil war also led to rural agrarian poverty where sharecropping and tenant farming increased after the abolishment of slavery and due to the low prices of cotton that were realized in Georgia, many African Americans who had been freed from slavery fell into the trap of debts that was known as debt peonage.

One of the significant change that was realized in the state of Georgia was that a healthy relationship was achieved between the elite in business and the government and this often led to corruption and other economic disasters such as a crash of the markets. Textile mills, as well as factories for the processing of tobacco, were created in Georgia after the civil war was over. From the start of the early 1880s, capitalists from the north invested in textile mills in the state mostly because they could pay the mill workers from Georgia and other Southern states half of what the employees in the North demanded. Despite these industries creating many employment opportunities, the plans for coming up with a new Georgia failed tremendously because, by 1900, the per capita income in Georgia was less than the national one by forty percent. This means that the poverty levels, especially in the rural areas, never ended since the civil war ended to the time the twenty-first century began. Due to the lack of money to spend by both the blacks and the white tenant farmers, the economy of Georgia stagnated.

These economic conditions in Georgia created many adverse effects where in the year 1880, ninety percent of the people who lived in Georgia stayed in the rural areas while forty years later, twenty-five percent of the total Georgians lived in the urban areas. The number of people who worked in the farms reduced drastically, and the people who stopped working in the farms started working in several industries such as textile, metal works, quarries for both marble and stone and print shops. The economic changes that were faced in Georgia led to a need for trade unions, and workers formed them in the urban areas in the late 1860s. The uplift associations had a primary purpose of improving the working people's status and ensuring that schools, libraries and credit associations were created so that the urban working classes can use them. More schools were developed, and the necessary officials were taxed for property only.

During the period of World War II, Georgia's future was critical in that the war marked the future development that was likely to be noticed in Georgia. The world war occurred when Georgia's politics and economy were in place, and this...