education

December 23, 1836

Wesleyan College

Women’s struggle for equality took a major step forward on this day in 1836. The first college in the world to grant degrees to women was chartered in Macon — an incredibly progressive idea for the times. Now known as Wesleyan College, it began as Georgia Female College after a group of Macon businessmen raised […]

December 30, 1851

Asa Candler

He took Coca-Cola from the drug store to Main Street, and endowed a great university. Asa Candler was born in Villa Rica in 1851. While working as a pharmacist in Atlanta in 1887 he bought the rights and formula for Coca-Cola from John Pemberton for $2,300. Candler thought the concoction’s future was a soft drink […]

December 16, 1769

Jesse Mercer

He wrote the section of Georgia’s constitution that guarantees religious liberty to its citizens. Jesse Mercer was born in North Carolina in 1769 and migrated to Georgia with his family as a child. A preacher’s son, he was ordained a Baptist minister and was a gifted preacher who pastored seven churches in his life, several […]

November 22, 1754

Abraham Baldwin

A theology degree from Yale led to chaplaincy in the Army for New England-born Abraham Baldwin. After the war, he followed his friend Nathanael Greene to Georgia, to settle in Augusta, practice law, and start his stellar political career. As a state legislator, Baldwin staunchly believed that education was the key to Georgia’s future. When […]

October 19, 1790

Lyman Hall

Lyman Hall was an ordained minister, a doctor and one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence, quite a resume for a man born in Connecticut in 1747. Hall was from old New England stock and graduated from Yale. He abandoned the congregational ministry for medicine and moved South, eventually settling in Georgia […]

October 13, 1885

Georgia Tech Founded

A Ramblin’ Wreck is more than just a snappy nickname for Georgia Tech. It speaks to the very reason the school was created in the first place. To help bring the Industrial Revolution to Georgia, the Georgia School of Technology began with $65,000 in state funding and 84 students.  At first, the school was narrowly […]

October 7, 1866

Martha Berry

Martha Berry dedicated her life to education but had only one year of formal schooling herself.  Berry was born in Alabama and moved to Rome, Georgia as a baby. Home-schooled by a governess, Martha Berry attended finishing school in Baltimore for less than a year. Back home in northwest Georgia, a chance encounter with two […]

September 24, 1889

Agnes Scott College

Its beautiful campus has hosted more than 20 movies and TV shows. It opened in 1889 as the Decatur Female Seminary. As Agnes Scott College, it's become a preeminent institution of women's higher education.  In 1888, Frank Gaines became pastor of the Decatur Presbyterian Church. With church support, he founded the seminary the next year […]