Overview

At eight years of age, he owned nothing but a nickel and a few spools of thread. Within a decade he had acquired his own store. By the time he was 30, he was a leading textile man in his town. Another dozen years and he had become a giant in the textile world, a major force in railroads and banking, and a trusted advisor to state and national leaders. This is the story of Fuller Earle Callaway, a man of inexhaustible energy, relentless drive, and visionary, calculated risk. In the generation following the devastation of the Civil War, Callaway became a personification of the New South. Embracing the revolution in Southern industry, transportation, and trade, he soon came to stand at the forefront of the South's modernization efforts. Known principally to history as a textile magnate, Callaway in fact was at heart a merchant, an expert in both retail and wholesale, with a gift for advertising as well as for buying and selling. He was also one of the South's leading authorities on railroads, gaining his experience through battles against the rail monopolies in venues ranging from the boardroom to the Supreme Court. Callaway was in addition a successful banker, spurred on by his need to capitalize his many business concerns in the face of an impoverished Southern economy. Fiercely independent and an opponent of the labor union movement sweeping turn of the century America, Callaway nevertheless was foremost among Progressive industrialists and became a noted advisor to Woodrow Wilson's administration. Here, too, is the story of LaGrange, the heart of Troup County, Georgia. Barely a generation removed from the frontier in the year of Callaway's birth, it became, through the efforts of Callaway and his generation, a showplace of Southern progress and industry.

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9781929619603

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Reviews

With the publication of this engaging new biography, Callaway receives the attention he has long deserved. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the story of American business, in the power of transformational leadership, and in how modern Georgia was created. --W. Todd Groce, President and CEO, Georgia Historical Society After this biography, it will be impossible to think of business history in the New South and the nation without putting Fuller Callaway in the top ranks of his peers. --Jamil S. Zainaldin, President, Georgia Humanities Council Buck and Carol Melton's deeply researched and full-bodied biography captures both the public and private lives of this self-made industrialist . . . In telling Callaway's story, the Meltons also tell us much about Georgia's central role in creating and defining the New South. --John C. Inscoe, Editor, The New Georgia Encyclopedia; Albert B. Saye Professor of History, The University of Georgia

Author Information

Carol WIllcox Melton (Ph.D., History, Duke University) is the author of Between War and Peace: Woodrow Wilson and the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, 1918-1921. She is Associate Professor of History at Middle Georgia State University. Buckner F. Melton, Jr. (Ph.D., History, Duke University; J.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is the author of a number of books including Aaron Burr: Conspiracy to Treason; A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers; and Sea Cobra: Admiral Halsey's Task Force and the Great Pacific Typhoon. A former Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Mercer University, he currently teaches at Middle Georgia State University.

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