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In recognition of the anniversary of Georgia’s founding, this short online program is a visual exploration of the colony’s founding and early development. Featuring greetings from friends and leaders across the state, this all-ages presentation includes classroom resources for varying grade levels connecting the video content to the Georgia History Festival theme.
A resource for the 2024-2025 Georgia History Festival, “The Reality of Our Liberty”: The First Amendment and Freedom of the Press.
Read the questions below and click the sound files to hear the responses.
Teachers:
View the Soundbites with Dr. Stan Deaton Discussion Guide.
Welcome to our conversation with Dr. Stan Deaton, Senior Historian and Dr. Elaine B. Andrews Distinguished Historian, at the Georgia Historical Society. The Festival title was inspired by a quote by President Thomas Jefferson.
Dr. Deaton, would you give some background for this statement?
As Americans, we often take freedom of the press for granted. Would you give us some context around why the Founders considered this so vital for the new nation?
We’re discussing the phrase, “Hear it now, see it tonight, read about it tomorrow.” Would you provide context around this statement?
In the age of radio, what are some significant stories, to Georgians and Americans?
How has consuming our information through hearing changed over time?
What is the context of “see it tonight”?
How has the evolution from three basic television stations to several 24-hour networks affected the news?
What are some Georgia stories that have impacted us through television?
Currently, we can read all day long about the events of the day on the internet. However, “read about it tomorrow” refers to an earlier time. What has the role of newspapers been in our history?
When did our newspapers start to shift from partisan toward the neutrality of “just the facts”?
Joseph Pulitzer, owner of The New York World, and founder of The Pulitzer Prize for journalism, said:
“[I]t’s my duty to see that they get the truth; but that’s not enough, I’ve got to put it before them briefly so that they will read it, clearly so that they will understand it, forcibly so that they will appreciate it, picturesquely so that they will remember it, and, above all, accurately so that they may be wisely guided by its light.”
Under Pulitzer’s leadership investigative journalism, and the career of Nellie Bly was launched. This brings us back to the Founders and their idea that a press free from government control has the responsibility to inform and educate the public about the actions of elected officials and business leaders so they can be held accountable to the American people.
Select a news story from the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s and find the coverage across the newspaper, radio, and television. Make sure to find the same date or within a couple of days of each other. Compare and contrast how each outlet presented the story.
Pictured: Family watching television. Photo by Evert F. Baumgardner, ca. 1958. National Archives and Records Administration.
This online program is an expansion of the 2023 Georgia Day video and includes a more in-depth exploration of the 2022-2023 Georgia History Festival theme, “The Promise of a More Perfect Union: Reconstruction and the Gilded Age.” In it we examine the economic, political, and social changes that Georgians faced in the tumultuous period of the half century following the Civil War and feature some of the most significant themes, events, and individuals associated with this pivotal period of American history.
Join the Georgia Historical Society as author and historian Annette Gordon-Reed is inducted as the newest Vincent J. Dooley Distinguished Teaching Fellow. Following the induction, enjoy a lively conversation with this award-winning author about her groundbreaking work and its impact on modern scholarship.
Learn about Georgia Historical Society's Georgia Trustees.
In recognition of the anniversary of Georgia’s founding, this short online program is a visual exploration of the 2022 Georgia History Festival theme highlighting the important roles that location and geography have played in the development of Georgia throughout its history—and the impact that Georgia’s people have had on the land. Featuring greetings from friends and leaders across the state, this all-ages presentation includes classroom resources for guided listening by Georgia students.
Learn about the beliefs and principles of the Georgia Historical Society.
Join the Georgia Historical Society as author and historian Rick Atkinson is inducted as the 2020 Vincent J. Dooley Distinguished Teaching Fellow. Following the induction, enjoy a lively discussion between Atkinson and Dr. Stan Deaton, the Dr. Elaine B. Andrews Distinguished Historian at the Georgia Historical Society, about Atkinson’s book, The British are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777.
On November 8, 2018, the Georgia Historical Society hosted a special program with Dr. David W. Blight for the debut of his new book, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (Simon & Schuster), in Savannah. Dr. Blight is one of the country’s most renowned historians of slavery and the Civil War era. He is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. This program featured a discussion between Dr. Blight and the Georgia Historical Society’s Dr. Stan Deaton about Blight’s groundbreaking new biography of Frederick Douglass, and Douglass’s role in American history. The evening included Dr. Blight's induction as the inaugural Vincent J. Dooley Distinguished Teaching Fellow by GHS President and CEO Dr. W. Todd Groce and Vince Dooley.
Interview with visiting scholar Dr. David Blight at the Georgia Historical Society's 2017 NEH Summer Institute "Recognizing an Imperfect Past: History, Memory, and the American Public." Dr. Blight is Yale University’s Class of 1954 Professor of American History. He is also the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. He is currently writing a new, full biography of Frederick Douglass that will be published by Simon and Schuster in early 2018. He is also the author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Harvard University Press, 2002), which received eight book awards, including the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize as well as four awards from the Organization of American Historians.
