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Atlanta began as a railroad town in 1837, when the Western and Atlantic Railroad selected an uninhabited site for its western terminus. Here, a small settlement, aptly named Terminus, was built; its name was changed to Marthasville in 1843 and finally to Atlanta in 1845. With the arrival of two other railroads, Atl;anta became a major crossroads and the center of a fast growing transportation network. Wholesalers and bankers located in Atlanta, making it pne of the the main inland commercial centers of the Southeast. By the eve of the Civil War, Atlanta, with a population of more than 9,000, was the fourth largest city in Georgia.
Atlanta began as a railroad town in 1837, when the Western and Atlantic Railroad selected an uninhabited site for its western terminus. Here, a small settlement, aptly named Terminus, was built; its name was changed to Marthasville in 1843 and finally to Atlanta in 1845. With the arrival of two other railroads, Atl;anta became a major crossroads and the center of a fast growing transportation network. Wholesalers and bankers located in Atlanta, making it pne of the the main inland commercial centers of the Southeast. By the eve of the Civil War, Atlanta, with a population of more than 9,000, was the fourth largest city in Georgia.
===1860-1920===
===1860-1920===
As the population surged 1880-1910 blue collar workers moved to the city and entrepreneurs built rental housing for them. Real estate agents sold property for development of cheaply built rental homes. Unlike other cities, such houses were mixed in with more upscale middle-class homes, making neighbors of skilled and unskilled whites and African Americans. There was little neighborhood segregation by race or class, although the races did mingle socially. Industrial jobs within walking distance made the housing attractuive. By 1910 neighborhoods were becoming class and race conscious, and the people who had rented houses on their property to working-class whites and blacks were moving to segregated, middle-class suburbs.<ref> Leeann Bishop Lands, "Speculators Attention!" Workers and Rental Housing Development in Atlanta, 1880 To 1910. Journal of Urban History 2002 28(5): 546-572. 0096-1442 </Ref>
The Civil War saw Atlanta as the main object of General [[William T. Sherman]]'s attacks in 1864. Confederates burned the downtown as Sherman approached, but it was quickly rebuilt.
===Black Atlanta===
Few blacks had lived in Atlanta before the war but by 1867 almost 9,000 African Americans and 10,000 whites migrated to the city. By 1870 blacks numbered over 12,000 and made up almost one half of the city's population.
In the rapid growth of the 1870s race and class determined of residential location. Rich whites lived in mansions near the center of the city with the poor (both black and white) on the urban periphery. Emerging black settlements in Atlanta, as in many other southern cities, were further relegated to the most undesirable areas of the city: back alleys; low-lying, flood-prone ground; industrial sites; and tracts of land adjacent to railroads, cemeteries, city dumps, and slaughter houses. Most blacks lived imits in Jenningstown on the west side, Summer Hill to the south, Shermantown on the east side, and Mechanicsville in the southwestern. They worked as unskilled laborers and domestic servants. About 90% of the unskilled laborers in 1900 were black. Most blacks were poor but some prospered, including undertakers, barbers, insurance company entrepreneurs, hotel owners and grocers; they catered to black clients. The black leadership class also included politicians, preachers and teachers. With little aid from government before 1910, blacks created their own self-help welfare agencies that operated orphanages and insurance funds, health centers, youth clubs, and vocational education. The First Congregational Church of Atlanta, with financial support from new England, sponsored a home for black working women, business and cooking schools, a kindergarten, and an employment bureau. Similar community aervices and programs were provided by the city's other leading black churches such as Big Bethel A.M.E. Church and Wheat Street Baptist Church.
The blacks made Atlanta their national center for higher education. Atlanta University was founded by the American Missionary Association in 1865. Atlanta Baptist College for men (now Morehouse College) opened in 1867, and Clark University, supported by the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was established in 1870. The final two schools of what would later become the Atlanta University Center -- Morris Brown College, affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), and Spelman Seminary (Spelman College) for women, a Baptist school -- opened in 1881. At first these were advanced secondary schools, this nucleus of black higher provided important educational and training opportunities for Atlanta's black students and contributed to the growth of what by 1910 was a large and well-educated black middle class second in size only to Washington.
===Segregation===
It was the era of [[Jim Crow]] and by 1880 all public spaces and transportation lines were racially segregated, with inferior facilities for blacks. As the population surged 1880-1910 blue collar workers moved to the city and entrepreneurs built rental housing for them. Real estate agents sold property for development of cheaply built rental homes. Unlike other cities, such houses were mixed in with more upscale middle-class homes, making neighbors of skilled and unskilled whites and African Americans. There was little neighborhood segregation by race or class, although the races did mingle socially. Industrial jobs within walking distance made the housing attractuive. By 1910 neighborhoods were becoming class and race conscious, and the people who had rented houses on their property to working-class whites and blacks were moving to segregated, middle-class suburbs.<ref> Leeann Bishop Lands, "Speculators Attention!" Workers and Rental Housing Development in Atlanta, 1880 To 1910. Journal of Urban History 2002 28(5): 546-572. 0096-1442 </Ref>
===1920-1960===
===1920-1960===
===1960 to present===
===1960 to present===