Atlanta
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Atlanta. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the capital of Georgia. It is situated at the southwestern angle of the Appalachian Mountains on the ridge that divides the waters of the Golf from those that flow toward the Atlantic. The first house was built in 1836. The population in 1860 was about 11,000. During the Civil War, General Sherman occupied Atlanta after a siege of several months, and set out from this point on his march to the sea. He himself compared the strategic position of the city to a wrist, the fingers of which reach to the various ports on the Atlantic and the Gulf,--a description which suits the commercial situation as well. The Cotton Exposition of 1881 attracted general attention to the commercial possibilities of Atlanta and the agricultural resources of the vast, fertile region which surrounds it. Ten radiating lines of railways have united in building a union station costing $900,000. The census of 1900 gave a population of 89,872; but bank clearings of $130,000,-000 a year, postal receipts of half a million, a trade of $50,000,000, and manufactures rated at $30,000,000 a year gave Atlanta claim to a population in 1905 of at least 110,000. By an improvement of the shoals in the Chattahoochee, an electric plant has been made possible that furnishes power for a large number of factories. The manufactures of the city include cotton cloth and agricultural machinery, lumber, engines, furniture, flour, cottonseed products, ice, wearing apparel, and a long list of articles such as are in demand in a prosperous agricultural center. Atlanta has claim to a well established educational system, a state institute of technology, and various institutions for the education of the colored people. The altitude of the city, which is over 1,000 feet above the surface of the sea, renders it a pleasant place for conventions at any time of the year. The mean temperature varies from 44 degree in winter to 77 degree in summer. Parks, waterworks, clubs, a fine Carnegie library, and numerous charities testify to the public spirit and intelligence of the city. The state capitol cost a round million dollars. The interior is faced with Georgia marble. See Georgia ; Cotton ; Sherman
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city of Georgia, the county-seat of Fulton co., and the capital of Georgia. It is on the Atlantic, Birmingham and Atlantic, the Georgia, the Louisville and Nashville, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis, the Seaboard Air Line, the Southern, and other railroads. Atlanta is the most important industrial and commercial center of the Southeast and is also the financial center and the central distributing point for the Southeast. It lies in the heart of one of the richest regions of the world, as yet largely undeveloped. It had in 1920 over 600 factories manufacturing over 1,000 different articles, with a product of about $80,000,000 per year. These factories give employment to over 30,000 operators. There are also 500 branch offices of manufacturing plants The most located outside the city. important products are cotton goods, fertilizers, cart wheels, machinery, lumber, terra cotta, bricks, wagons, furniture, cottonseed oil, etc. It is an important educational center, having 52 institutions of learning in addition to 64 public schools and commercial colleges. Among the leading institutions of higher education are the Georgia School of Technology, Emory University, Oglethorpe University, and Lanier University. There are also several colleges for women, including the Agnes Scott College, Scott College and Conservatory, and Elizabeth Mather College, and five colleges for negroes. There are 18 public parks and playgrounds, a fine public library, a State lib library, the State capitol, city hall, custom house, Carnegie library, and other important public buildings. There is an auditorium with a seating capacity of 8,000 in which performances are given annually by the Metropolitan Grand Opera Co. There are 20 banks and trust companies. The bank clearings in 1919 amounted to $3,219,186,317. The assessed value of real estate in 1919 was $145,670,012, and of personal property $58,237,329. There were in 1920 405 miles of water mains and a sewerage disposal plant which was erected at a cost of nearly $4,000,000. The Federal Reserve Bank of the Sixth District is located in the city. Atlanta is an important city for the publication of newspapers and periodicals. The city was founded in 1837 as Marthasville. It was later known as Terminus, and was finally named Atlanta. It was almost entirely destroyed by Sherman after the Battle of Atlanta in 1864. The increase in population following the Civil War was rapid. Pop. (1890) 65,533; (1900) 89,872; (1910) V 154,839; (1920) 200,616.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's counted 200,616 people in 1920, Atlanta was a railroad town — it lists seven trunk lines and no airport. The rails have been eclipsed by Hartsfield-Jackson International, for decades the world's busiest passenger airport, and the city anchors a metropolitan region of roughly six million; the city proper is about half a million. Coca-Cola, bottled in Atlanta since the 1880s, became a global corporation, and CNN began broadcasting from the city in 1980, while the 1996 Summer Olympics brought the world to it. The "five colleges for negroes" Collier's notes in a segregated city are today the Atlanta University Center — Morehouse, Spelman and their neighbours — and Morehouse graduate Martin Luther King Jr., born on Auburn Avenue in 1929, made Atlanta a headquarters of the civil-rights movement. Collier's founding sequence is also slightly garbled: the settlement was Terminus first, Marthasville from 1843, and Atlanta only from 1847.
Written for this edition, 2026.