FIRST SUNDAY LECTURE: FDR in Georgia

Thank you, Kaye Lanning Minchew, for the fantastic discussion yesterday of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's time in Georgia. We learned so much.

Speaker: Kaye Lanning Minchew, author of A President in Our Midst: FDR in Georgia

Despite the fact that Franklin Roosevelt visited Georgia 41 times between 1924 and 1945, historians have paid little attention to the significance of the time the 32nd President of the U.S. spent in the Peach State. Georgia helped restore his sense of well-being after contracting polio and provided a launching pad for his Presidential campaigns. Here, the Harvard graduate became friends with common men, had his active lifestyle of hunting and fishing photographed by the national press and fought with local politicians. Sadly he died here in 1945. Through images, audio and video clips, and oral histories, Kaye Minchew explores this fascinating chapter of Georgia and America’s history. 

Kaye Lanning Minchew is a public history consultant in LaGrange, GA. She served as director of the Troup County Archives from 1985 to 2015. She has degrees from the UNC at Asheville and UNC Chapel Hill. Her book A President in Our Midst: FDR In Georgia was published by UGA Press in May 2016. She co-authored Managing Local Government Archives with John Slate of the City of Dallas, Texas, which was published by Rowman-Littlefield in July 2016. 

The First Sunday Lecture series is sponsored by the Friends of Smyrna Library and Smyrna Library.