Fitzgerald Enterprise (Fitzgerald, Ga.; Fitzgerald, Georgia)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,145 issues from 1902 to 1912, published in Fitzgerald, Georgia, digitised for Chronicling America.
When Ellis Peiper and Johnathan Peiper published the first eight-page issue of the Fitzgerald Enterprise on December 20, 1895, the “Colony City” of Fitzgerald had no newspaper and consisted of barely more than shacks set out among Georgia’s southern pine forests. Philander H. Fitzgerald, a Union army veteran and newspaper publisher from Indianapolis, envisioned a planned city in the South for fellow veterans, and after successful lobbying by ex-Georgia Governor William Northen, Philander Fitzgerald selected Georgia’s wiregrass region for the “old soldiers’ colony.” As such, the Enterprise reflected the politics of Northerners and Union army veterans who initially settled in the community.
In December 1896, the Peipers sold their publication to Nettie C. Hall, a suffragette and prohibition advocate, and beloved member of the community. Hall’s commitment to Fitzgerald’s growth, local-reporting prowess, and concern for area railroad workers earned her the moniker “Mother Enterprise,” and she remained associated with the paper until her death in 1908. In September 1899, Hall sold the Enterprise to Jesse Mercer, who continued the paper’s support for prohibition and expanded railroads, but he shifted its overall politics toward the Democratic Party. Although the publication wasn’t a fire-breathing segregationist sheet like others in the state, Mercer’s Enterprise fell in line with “reform Democrats” of the early 1900s, which included support for segregation and…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Fitzgerald, Georgia, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress