ATITLAN, or SANTIAGO DE ATITLAN, a town in the department of Solola,
Guatemala, on the southern shore of Lake Atitlan. Pop. (1905) about
9000, almost all Indians. Cotton-spinning is the chief industry. Lake
Atitlan is 24 m. long and 10 m. broad, with 64 m. circumference. It
occupies a crater more than 1000 ft. deep and about 4700 ft. above
sea-level. The peaks of the Guatemala Cordillera rise round it,
culminating near its southern end in the volcanoes of San Pedro (7000
ft.) and Atitlan (11,719 ft.). Although the lake is fed by many small
mountain torrents, it has no visible outlet, but probably communicates
by an underground channel with one of the rivers which drain the
Cordillera. Mineral springs abound in the neighbourhood. The town of
Solola (q.v.) is near the north shore of the lake.
ATKINSON, EDWARD (1827-1905), American economist, was born at Brookline,
Massachusetts, on the 10th of February 1827. For many years he was
engaged in managing various business enterprises, and became, in 1877,
president of the Boston Manufacturers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company, a
post which he held till his death. He was a strong controversialist and
a prolific writer on such economic subjects as banking, railways, cotton
manufacture, the tariff and free trade, and the money question. He was
appointed in 1887 a special commissioner to report upon the status of
bimetallism in Europe. He also made a special study of mill construction
and fire prevention, and invented an improved cooking apparatus, called
the "Aladdin oven." He was an active supporter of anti-imperialism. He
died at Boston on the 11th of December 1905.
His principal works were _Right Methods of Preventing Fires in Mills_
(1881); _Distribution of Products_ (1885); _Industrial Progress of the
Nation_ (1889); _Taxation and Work_ (1892); _Science of Nutrition_
(10th ed., 1898).
ATKINSON, SIR HARRY ALBERT (1831-1892), British colonial statesman,
prime minister and speaker of the legislative council, New Zealand, was
born at Chester in 1831, and in 1855 emigrated to Taranaki, New Zealand,
where he became a farmer. In 1860 the Waitara war broke out, and from
its outset Atkinson, who had been selected as a captain of the New
Plymouth Volunteers, distinguished himself by his contempt for
appearances and tradition, and by the practical skill, energy and
courage which he showed in leading his Forest Rangers in the tiresome
and lingering bush warfare of the next five years. For this work he was
made a major of militia, and thanked by the government. Elected to the
house of representatives in 1863, he joined Sir Frederick Weld's
ministry at the end of November 1864 as minister of defence, and, during
eleven months of office, was identified with the well-known
"self-reliance" policy, a proposal to dispense with imperial regulars,
and meet the Maori with colonials only. Parliament accepted this
principle, but turned out the Weld ministry for other reasons. For four
years Atkinson was out of parliament; in October 1873 he re-entered it,
and a year later became minister of lands under Sir Julius Vogel. Ten
months later he was treasurer, and such was his aptitude for finance
that, except during six months in 1876, he thenceforth held that post
whenever his party was in power. From October 1874 to January 1891
Atkinson was only out of office for about five years. Three times he was
premier, and he was always the most formidable debater and fighter in
the ranks of the Conservative opponents of the growing Radical party
which Sir George Grey, Sir Robert Stout and John Ballance led in
succession. It was he, who was mainly responsible for the abolition of
the provinces into which the colony was divided from 1853 to 1876. He
repealed the Ballance land-tax in 1879, and substituted a property-tax.
He greatly reduced the cost of the public service in 1880, and again in
1888. In both these years he raised the customs duties, amongst other
taxes, and gave them a quasi-protectionist character. In 1880 he struck
10% off all public salaries and wages; in 1887 he reduced the salary of
the governor by one-third, and the pay and number of ministers and
members of parliament. By these resolute steps revenue was increased,
expenditure checked, and the colony's finance reinstated. Atkinson was
an advocate of compulsory national assurance, and the leasing as opposed
to the selling of crown lands. Defeated in the general election of
December 1890, he took the appointment of speaker of the legislative
council. There, while leaving the council chamber after the sitting of
the 28th of June 1892, he was struck down by heart disease and died in a
few minutes. Though brusque in manner and never popular, he was esteemed
as a vigorous, upright and practical statesman. He was twice married,
and had seven children, of whom three sons and a daughter survived him.
(W. P. R.)
ATLANTA, the capital and the largest city of Georgia, U.S.A., and the
county-seat of Fulton county, situated at an altitude of 1000-1175 ft.,
in the N.W. part of the state, near the Chattahoochee river. Pop. (1860)
9554; (1880) 37,409; (1890) 65,533; (1900) 89,872, of whom 35,727 were
negroes and 2531 were foreign-born; (1910) 154,839. It is served by the
Southern, the Central of Georgia, the Georgia, the Seaboard Air Line,
the Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis (which enters the city over the
Western & Atlantic, one of its leased lines), the Louisville &
Nashville, the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic, and the Atlanta & West
Point railways. These railway communications, and the situation of the
city (on the Piedmont Plateau) on the water-parting between the streams
flowing into the Atlantic Ocean and those flowing into the Gulf of
Mexico, have given Atlanta its popular name, the "Gate City of the
South." Atlanta was laid out in the form of a circle, the radius being
1-3/4 m. and the centre the old railway station, the Union Depot (the
new station is called the Terminal); large additions have been made
beyond this circle, including West End, Inman Park on the east, and
North Atlanta. Among the best residence streets are Peachtree and West
Peachtree streets to the north, and the older streets to the south of
the business centre of the city--Washington Street, Whitehall, Pryor and
Capitol Avenues. Among the principal office buildings are the Empire,
the Equitable, the Prudential, the Fourth National, the Austell, the
Peters, the Century, the English-American and the Candler buildings; and
there are many fine residences, particularly in Peachtree and Washington
streets, Inman Park and Ponce de Leon Circle. Among prominent public
buildings are the State Capitol (completed 1889), containing a law
library of about 65,000 volumes and a collection of portraits of famous
Georgians, the north-west front of the Capitol grounds containing an
equestrian statue (unveiled in 1907) of John Brown Gordon (1832-1904), a
distinguished Confederate general in the American Civil War and governor
of Georgia in 1887-1890; the court house; the Carnegie library, in which
the young men's library, organized in 1867, was merged in 1902; the post
office building; and the Federal prison (about 4 m. south of the city).
The principal parks are: the Piedmont (189 acres), the site of the
Piedmont Exposition of 1887 and of the Cotton States and International
Exposition of 1895; the Grant, given to the city by L.P. Grant, an
Atlanta railroad builder, in 1882, and subsequently enlarged by the city
(in its south-east corner is Fort Walker); the Lakewood, 6 m. south of
the city; and Ponce de Leon Park, owned by an electric railway company
and having mineral springs and a fine baseball ground. Four miles south
of the centre of Atlanta is Fort McPherson, an important United States
military post, occupying a reservation of 40 acres and having barracks
for the accommodation of 1000 men. In Oakland Cemetery is a large
monument to Confederate soldiers; another monument in Oakland, "To the
unknown Confederate Dead," is a reproduction of the Lion of Lucerne; in
West View Cemetery (4 m. west of the city) is a memorial erected by the
United Confederate Veterans. The city obtains its water-supply from the
Chattahoochee river (above the mouth of Peachtree Creek), whence the
water is pumped by four pumps, which have a daily capacity of 55,000,000
gallons. Atlanta is widely known for its public spirit and enterprise,
to which the expositions of 1881, 1887 and 1895 bear witness. The air is
bracing, largely because of the city's altitude; the mean annual
temperature is 60.8 deg. F. (winter 44.1 deg., spring 60.5 deg., summer
77 deg., autumn 61.5 deg.).
Atlanta is an important educational centre. Its public-school system was
organized in 1871. Here are the Georgia School of Technology, founded in
1885 (opened 1888) as a branch of the university of Georgia; the Atlanta
College of Physicians and Surgeons (established in 1898 by the union of
the Atlanta Medical College, organized in 1855, and the Southern Medical
College, organized in 1878); the Atlanta School of Medicine (1905); the
Georgia College of Eclectic Medicine; the Atlanta Theological Seminary
(1901, Congregational), the only theological school of the denomination
in the South in 1908; the Atlanta Dental College; the Southern College
of Pharmacy (1903); Washington Seminary (1877) for girls; and the
following institutions for negroes--Atlanta University, founded in 1869,
which is one of the best institutions in the country for the higher
education of negroes, standing particularly for "culture" education (as
opposed to industrial training), which has done particularly good work
in the department of sociology, under the direction of Prof. W.E.B. du
Bois (b. 1868), one of the most prominent teachers of negro descent in
the country, and which had in 1908 339 students; Clark University,
founded in 1870 by the Freedman's Aid and Southern Educational Society
of the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Atlanta Baptist College, founded
in 1867; Morris Brown College (African Methodist Episcopal, founded in
1882, and opened in 1885), which has college preparatory, scientific,
academic, normal and missionary courses, correspondence courses in
English and theology, an industrial department, and departments of law,
theology (Turner Theological Seminary), nurse-training, music and art;
the Gammon Theological Seminary (Methodist Episcopal, chartered in
1888), which has its buildings just outside the city limits; and the
Spelman Seminary for women and girls (Baptist) opened in 1881 as the
Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary--the present name being adopted in 1883
in honour of the parents of Mrs John D. Rockefeller--and incorporated in
1888. At Decatur (pop. 1418 in 1900), a residential suburb, 6 m.
east-north-east of Atlanta, is the Agnes Scott College (1890) for white
girls; connected with the college is a school of music, art and
expression, and an academy.
The city's principal charitable institutions are the Grady Memorial
hospital (opened in 1892), supported by the city and named in honour of
Henry W. Grady; the Presbyterian hospital; the Baptist Tabernacle
Infirmary; the Wesley Memorial hospital; St Joseph's infirmary; the
Municipal hospital for contagious diseases; the Florence Crittenden
home. Three miles south-east of the city is a (state) soldiers' home,
for aged, infirm and disabled Confederate veterans. The Associated
Charities of Atlanta was organized in 1905.
The principal newspapers are the _Constitution_ (morning), edited from
1880 until 1889 by Henry W. Grady (1851-1889),[1] one of the most
eloquent of Southern orators, who did much to promote the reconciliation
of the North and the South after the Civil War, and whose statue stands
opposite the post office; the _Journal_ (evening), of which Hoke Smith
(b. 1855), a prominent political leader, secretary of the interior in
President Cleveland's cabinet in 1893-1896, and later governor of
Georgia, was long the proprietor; and the _Georgian_ (evening), founded
in 1906 as a Prohibition organ.
As regards commerce and manufactures, Atlanta ranks first among the
cities of Georgia. In 1907 its whosesale and retail trade was estimated
at $100,000,000. The city is said to receive two-fifths of the total
freight delivered in the state of Georgia. From 1895 to 1907 the bank
clearings increased from about $65,000,000 to about $260,000,000. In
recognition of the city's financial strength, Atlanta has been
designated by the secretary of the treasury as one of the cities whose
bonds will be accepted as security for Federal deposits. Atlanta is the
Southern headquarters for a number of fire and life insurance companies,
and is the third city of the United States in the amount of insurance
business written and reported to resident agents, the annual premium
receipts averaging about $10,000,000. It is an important horse and mule
market, and handles much tobacco.
The development of manufactures has been especially notable. In 1880 the
capital invested in manufacturing industries was approximately
$2,468,000; in 1890 it was $9,508,962; in 1900 it had increased to
$16,045,156; and in 1905, when only establishments under the "factory
system" were counted in the census, to $21,631,162. In 1900 the total
product was valued at $16,707,027, and the factory product at
$14,418,834; and in 1905 the factory product was valued at $25,745,650,
an increase of 78.6% in five years. Among the products are cotton goods
(the product value of which in 1905 was 14% of the total value of the
city's manufactures), foundry and machine-shop products, lumber, patent
medicines, confectionery, men's clothing, mattresses, spring-beds and
other furniture. Since 1904 part of the power utilized for manufacturing
has been obtained from the Chattahoochee river, 15 m. from the city.
There are many manufactories just outside the city limits.
_History._--Atlanta owes its origin to the development of pioneer
railroads of Georgia. In 1836 the Western & Atlantic, the first road
built into North Georgia, was chartered, and the present site of Atlanta
was chosen as its southern terminal, which it reached in 1843, and which
was named "Terminus." The Georgia and the Central of Georgia then
projected branches to Terminus in order to connect with the Western &
Atlantic, and completed them in 1845 and 1846. The town charter of 1843
changed the name to Marthasville, in honour of the daughter of Governor
Wilson Lumpkin; and the city charter of 1847 changed this to Atlanta.
The population in 1850 was 2572; in 1860, 9554. Manufacturing interests
soon became important, and during the Civil War Atlanta was the seat of
Confederate military factories and a depot of supplies. In 1864 it was
the objective point of the first stage of General William T. Sherman's
invasion of Georgia (see AMERICAN CIVIL WAR), which is therefore
generally known as the "Atlanta campaign."
After the battles around Marietta (q.v.), and the crossing of the
Chattahoochee river on the 8th and 9th of July, Sherman continued his
advance against Atlanta. His plan of operations was directed primarily
to the seizure of the Decatur railway, by which the Confederate
commander, General J.E. Johnston, might receive support from Virginia
and the Carolinas. The three Union armies under Sherman's command,
outnumbering the Confederates about 3 to 2, began their movement on the
16th of July; the Army of the Cumberland (Gen. G.H. Thomas) on the right
marching from Marietta by the fords of the Upper Chattahoochee on
Atlanta, the Army of the Ohio (Gen. J.M. Schofield) in the centre direct
on Decatur, and the Army of the Tennessee (Gen. J.B. McPherson) still
farther east towards Stone Mountain. At the moment of marching out to
meet the enemy, Johnston was relieved of his command and was replaced by
Gen. J.B. Hood (July 17). Hood at once prepared to attack Thomas as soon
as that general should have crossed Peachtree Creek (6 m. north of the
city) and thus isolated himself from Schofield and McPherson. Sherman's
confidence in Thomas and his troops was, however, justified. Hood's
attack (battle of Peachtree Creek, July 20) was everywhere repulsed, and
Schofield and McPherson closed up at the greatest speed. Hood had to
retire to Atlanta, with a loss of more than 4000 men, and the three
Union armies gradually converged on the north and east sides of the
city. But Hood, who had been put in command as a fighting general, was
soon ready to attack afresh. This time he placed Gen. W.J. Hardee's
corps, the largest of his army, to the south of Atlanta, facing the left
flank of McPherson's army. As Hardee's attack rolled up the Union army
from left to right, the remainder of the Confederate army was to issue
from the Atlanta fortifications and join in the battle. Hardee opened
his attack at noon on the 22nd of July (battle of Atlanta). The troops
of the Army of the Tennessee were swiftly driven back, and their
commander, McPherson, killed; but presently the Federals re-formed and a
severe struggle ensued, in which most of Hood's army joined. The
veterans of the Army of the Tennessee, led by Gen. J.A. Logan, offered a
stubborn resistance, however, and Schofield's army now intervened. After
prolonged attacks lasting to nightfall, Hood had once more to draw off,
with about 10,000 men killed and wounded. The Confederates now abandoned
all idea of regaining the Decatur line, and based themselves on
Jonesboro' and the Macon railway. Sherman quickly realized this, and the
Army of the Tennessee, now commanded by Gen. O.O. Howard, was
counter-marched from left to right, until it formed up on the right of
the Union line about Ezra Church (about 4 m. west of Atlanta). The
railway from Chattanooga to Atlanta, destroyed by Johnston as he fell
back in May and June, was now repaired and working up to Thomas's camps.
Hood had meanwhile extended his entrenchments southwards to cover the
Macon railway, and Howard's movement led to another engagement (battle
of Ezra Church, July 28) in which the XV. corps under Logan again bore
the brunt of Hood's attack. The Confederates were once more
unsuccessful, and the losses were so heavy that the "fighting" policy
ordered by the Confederate government was countermanded. Sherman's
cavalry had hitherto failed to do serious damage to the railway, and the
Federal general now proceeded to manoeuvre with his main body so as to
cut off Hood from his Southern railway lines (August). Covered by Howard
at Ezra Church, Schofield led this advance, but the new Confederate
lines baffled him. A bombardment of the Atlanta fortifications was then
begun, but it had no material result. Another cavalry raid effected but
slight damage to the line, and Sherman now decided to take his whole
force to the south side. This apparently dangerous movement (August 25)
is a remarkable illustration of Sherman's genius for war, and in fact
succeeded completely. Only a small force was left to guard the
Chattanooga railway, and the Union forces, Howard on the right, Thomas
in the centre, and Schofield on the left, reached the railway after some
sharp fighting (action of Jonesboro', September 1). The defence of
Atlanta was now hopeless; Hood's forces retreated southward the same
evening, and on the 2nd of September the Union detachment left behind on
the north side entered Atlanta unopposed.
All citizens were now ordered to leave, the place was turned into a
military camp, and when Sherman started on his "March to the Sea," on
the 15th of November, a large part of the city was burned. Consequently
the present city is a product of the post-bellum development of Georgia.
The military government of Georgia was established here in 1865. In 1868
Atlanta was made the capital of the state.
In 1881 an International Cotton Exposition was held in Atlanta. This was
American, even local, in character; its inception was due to a desire to
improve the cultivation and manufacture of cotton; but it brought to the
notice of the whole country the industrial transformation wrought in the
Southern states during the last quarter of the 19th century. In 1887 the
Piedmont Exposition was held in Atlanta. The Cotton States and
International Exposition, also held at Atlanta, in 1895, attracted
widespread attention, and had exhibits from thirty-seven states and
thirteen foreign countries.