Yesterday, I was excited to present some of my Atlanta baseball research at the Atlanta Studies Symposium. The symposium was held at Georgia State University and featured historians, geographers, economists, and more, all of whom are analyzing Atlanta’s past and present.
My paper was part of a session organized by Dr. Clif Stratton on Atlanta baseball, titled “Stadiums, Suburbs, and Prison Yards: How Baseball Explains the Spatial Inequalities of Race and Class in Atlanta.” The session featured Dr. Andy Walter of West Georgia speaking about land use and the Atlanta Braves, Dr. Stratton speaking about integrated baseball games at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in the 1910s, and my paper on Cobb County and professional sports.
The paper I presented (included below) is based on an article published by Atlanta Studies last year. In the paper, I compared Cobb County’s attempts to attract professional baseball in the 1950s, and the successful building of SunTrust (now Truist) Park in the 2010s.
Other presentations I went to looked at Atlanta’s cemeteries, Antebellum Atlanta, the historic Chinese Community, the 1996 Olympics, and more. The event featured two keynote addresses, one by Dr. Augustus Wood on the Black Working Class and one by Dr. Brian Goldstone on homelessness in Atlanta. Dr. Goldstone’s book, There Is No Place for Us, received a Pulitzer Prize last week.
Overall, it was a fascinating symposium, and I hope to attend again in the future!
Thank you to the organizers of the symposium, and to Dr. Stratton and Dr. Walter!
Andrew J. Bramlett 