Introduction

By the eve of the 20th century, Middle Georgia was a rural region transitioning from the aftermath of the Reconstruction Era into the modern age. This collection of new essays describes the lives of the common people of the day. A grisly mass murder underscored issues of race, class and poverty. African Americans struggled for self-betterment against the rise of Jim Crow. Women striving to overcome gender barriers found a hero in a pioneering female pilot. The government worked to protect communities from the influenza pandemic of 1918. Fighting boll weevils and declining cotton prices, farmers diversified crops and developed a national pimento pepper industry.