Georgina Hickey Hope and Danger in the New South City

Annotation

For Atlanta, the early decades of the twentieth century brought chaotic economic and demographic growth. Women-black and white-emerged as a visible new component of the citys population. As maids and cooks, secretaries and factory workers, these women served the better classes in their homes and businesses. They were enthusiastic patrons of the citys new commercial amusements and the mothers of Atlantas burgeoning working classes. In response to womens growing public presence, as Georgina Hickey reveals, Atlantas boosters, politicians, and reformers created a set of images that attempted to define the lives and contributions of working women. Through these images, city residents expressed ambivalence toward Atlantas growth, which, although welcome, also threatened the established racial and gender hierarchies of the city.Using period newspapers, municipal documents, government investigations, organizational records, oral histories, and photographic evidence, Hope and Danger in the New South City relates the experience of working-class women across lines of race-as sources of labor, community members, activists, pleasure seekers, and consumers of social services-to the process of urban development.