Cassville, Georgia 1850 - 1880
CREATORS OF COMMUNITY: CASSVILLE, GEORGIA 1850 - 1880 by ALEXA ILENE CLAREMONT (Under the Direction of Thomas G. Dyer) ABSTRACT The question of what makes and destroys a community is part of human curiosity. Although current scholarship points to a persistence of community, Cassville, Georgia would seem to be an exception. Antebellum Cassville was wealthy, educated, and slaveowning, but in 1864, Union troops occupied and destroyed it. In the Civil War’s aftermath, railroad towns like neighboring Cartersville flourished while Cassville increasingly resembled an economic and social backwater. However, after the war, Cassville was spared some of the social trauma that rocked other Upcountry communities. During the 1870s, the economic instability which ruined many benefited Cassville. Merchants benefited from the increase in single-crop cultivation and many freedmen became landowners. The economic resurgence allowed white residents to fashion an identity based on the Lost Cause, while the growing black community founded organizations strengthening their own bonds. Although after the town’s destruction the community was irrevocably changed, a new Cassville emerged and flourished. INDEX WORDS: Community, Civil War, Georgia, Piedmont, Bartow county, Cassville, Slavery, Reconstruction CREATORS OF COMMUNITY: CASSVILLE, GEORGIA 1850 - 1880 by ALEXA ILENE CLAREMONT B.A. History, Emory University, 1998 B.A. Political Science, Emory University, 1998 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2005 © 2005 Alexa Ilene Claremont All Rights Reserved CREATORS OF COMMUNITY: CASSVILLE, GEORGIA 1850 - 1880 by ALEXA ILENE CLAREMONT Major Professor: Thomas G. Dyer Committee: John C.
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