12. The HENRY GRADY MONUMENT, 

Marietta and Forsyth Sts., was unveiled on October 21, 1891, as a memorial to Henry Woodfin Grady, renowned throughout the Nation as an orator and journalist. The ten-foot bronze statue, posed as if delivering an address, stands upon a massive pedestal of Georgia granite, which is inscribed with quotations from the orator's speeches. Draped female figures seated on each side of the pedestal represent Memory and History.

Henry Woodfin Grady, born in Athens, Georgia, on May 24, 1850, was only a schoolboy when his father was killed near Petersburg, Virginia, in the early days of the War between the States. He was graduated from the University of Georgia in 1868 and spent the two succeeding years studying law at the University of Virginia, where he won many honors for his oratory. When he returned to Georgia he married his boyhood sweetheart, Julia King of Athens, and movedto Rome, where he began his newspaper career on the Rome Courier, Soon he became owner and editor of the Rome Commercial, but the town was hardly large enough to support more than one newspaper, and the Commercial went into bankruptcy. Grady then moved to Atlanta and bought an interest in the Atlanta Herald, a paper that soon became very popular because of its expensive advertising stunts. Too much money was invested in this venture, however, and Grady lost heavily when the paper failed. After another failure on the Atlanta Capital, he secured an appointment as Southern correspondent for the New York Herald, a position that he filled brilliantly for five years. In 1880 he bought one-fourth interest in the Atlanta Constitution and developed this paper into a strong political factor not only in Georgia but in the entire South.

Handsome, emotional, and eloquent, Grady was a powerful force in the political and social life of the South. The dominant theme in all his writing and speaking was the rehabilitation of the Southern States through industrialization, and he popularized the term New South to emphasize the difference between the industrial economy that he championed and the old agrarian order. His magnetic personality and his moving pleas for a reunited Nation were influential in overcoming much sectional bitterness and restoring friendship between the North and the South in the years after the war. The speeches that brought Grady most acclaim were "The New South," addressed to the New England Society of New York City in 1886, "The South and Her Problem," delivered at Dallas, Texas, in 1887, and "The Race Problem" before a Boston audience shortly before his death on December 23, 1889.

Soon after his death a fund of $20,000 was raised by voluntary contributions from all parts of the country, and Alexander Doyle was commissioned to design a monument. Governor W.J. Northen of Georgia and Governor David B. Hill of New York presided over the impressive ceremony of unveiling the statue before a crowd estimated at 50,000.

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