1. The history

2. The start on paper  Chartered by the Georgia General Assembly in 1785, UGA was the first university in America to be created by a state government, and the principles undergirding its charter helped lay the foundation for the American system of public higher education.  In February 1784, just after the close of the Revolutionary War, the General Assembly of Georgia earmarked 40,000 acres of land to endow "a college or seminary of learning.

3. Abraham Baldwin’s Role Abraham Baldwin, a lawyer and minister educated at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who had settled in Georgia in 1783, wrote the charter that created the University of Georgia. Reflecting the exuberance of newfound freedom sweeping through the colonies, Baldwin created a populist document that departed sharply from conventional notions about higher education. The charter asserted that an educated citizenry is essential to a free government, that government has a responsibility to see that its citizens receive an education, and that all people—not just the wealthy and privileged— have a right to education. The legislature's approval of the charter on January 27, 1785, made UGA the first university established by a state government and provided the framework for what would become the American system of publicly supported colleges and universities.

4. Franklin College  For the next sixteen years the university existed only on paper, as Georgia's leaders, occupied with the more pressing business of creating a state, used the land designated for a college for other purposes. In 1801 interest in the university revived, and John Milledge, a lawyer and legislator, bought 633 acres along the frontier on the Oconee River and donated the land as a site for the school.

5. Franklin College  The first permanent university building, a three-story brick structure, was completed in 1806 and named Franklin College in honor of Benjamin Franklin. It was the only university building until 1821, and for many years the university was commonly known as Franklin College, though its official name was the University of Georgia.

6. And you thought my math was bad…  Only the College of Arts and Sciences existed until 1859, when the School of Law was started. Closed for two years during the Civil War (1861-65), the university escaped possible bankruptcy in 1872 when it was designated a land- grant institution under the Morrill Act.

7. The beginning of the modern school. Schools of pharmacy, forestry, education, business, journalism, and home economics and a graduate school were started in the early twentieth century, and in 1918 women were admitted as regular students. The creation of the University System of Georgia in 1932 brought the university and the state's twenty-five other public colleges together under the centralized administrative control of the State College of Agriculture Board of Regents and spun off several university branch campuses as separate institutions

8. The Morrell Act  Sponsored by Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill, the Morrill Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862. Officially titled "An Act Donating Public Lands to the Several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts," the Morrill Act provided each state with 30,000 acres of Federal land for each member in their Congressional delegation. The land was then sold by the states and the proceeds used to fund public colleges that focused on agriculture and the mechanical arts. Sixty-nine colleges were funded by these land grants, including the University of Georgia, Cornell University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

9. What to Know  UGA was the first school started by a government to be public.  A land grant school is one where the federal government gave 30,000 acres of land to be used to FINANCE the school.  Even though UGA started before the Morrell Acts, it is still considered a land grant school because it took advantage of the acts to stay in business.

10. The move inland  By the mid-1780s the new upcountry settlers outnumbered those in the older coastal counties, and upcountry legislators demanded a state capital in a more western location than Savannah for ease of assembly and defense. On January 26, 1786, the assembly passed a law appointing Nathan Brownson, William Few Jr., and Hugh Lawson as commissioners charged with finding a site for the seat of government. Legislators also specified that the new capital would be named Louisville in honor of King Louis XVI of France, America's Revolutionary War ally.

11. Louisville then and now.

12. Louisville  Organizers envisioned Louisville as a trade center, and Commissioners Brownson, Few, and Lawson purchased 1,000 acres on the south side of Rocky Comfort Creek near the Ogeechee River to take advantage of the river transportation. The original city plan, modeled after Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, included a raised statehouse in the central square, with streets and town blocks radiating out from that focal point and forming right angles.

13. Louisville  Louisville served as the state capital for ten years. Criticism of the site arose over the vulnerability of its residents to malaria outbreaks, disappointment with the Ogeechee river trade, and the town's inaccessibility to the growing western population. In the fall of 1807 the state government relocated to Milledgeville.

14. What to know  William Few and others started the town of Louisville to serve as the state capital.  The city is named in honor of the French king that helped us in the Revolutionary War.  The move was to make the capital more accessible to the shifting population of the state.  After a decade the capital was moved to Milledgeville for reasons that varied from the reputation of disease to lack of trade.

15. Where do people settle in GA?  People want to live where it is easiest to survive. Rivers provide water and transportation.

16. Show me the money.  Cotton was one of the biggest cash crops and in early U.S. history, only the Sea Island cotton was practical to grow and harvest.

17. Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin  Cotton and tobacco were the major crops in Georgia after the American Revolution (1775-83), and cotton soon became the dominant commodity grown. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 while he was visiting a friend near Savannah revolutionized the cotton industry. By 1860 there were 68,000 farms in the state, and they produced 700,000 bales of cotton. Only 3,500 farms had 500 acres or more, and 31,000 had less than 100 acres of land.

18. Expanded area  With the invention of the cotton gin (Eli Whitney’s version) short staple cotton became a viable and much easier to grow option for early settlers.

19. What did the Gin do to the slavery population?  The cotton gin made it where less slaves were needed per acre…… but since the more hardy cotton could now be grown the amount of farm land multiplied by a tremendous amount. This increased the demand for slave labor.

20. Eli Whitney  While southern planters would reap great profits as a result of his invention, Whitney was less fortunate. After completing his model in 1793, he returned to Connecticut to secure a patent and begin work constructing his gins for commercial use. But before he could deliver his own gins to the southern market, the region was already awash with illegal replications of his design.  He pioneered the "uniformity system" of industrial production by manufacturing muskets with interchangeable parts. This represented a giant technological leap forward, expediting the manufacturing process and allowing for the repair of items that previously would have been rendered useless.

21. Railroads  When the railroads started to be built in Georgia it not only opened up new areas, but due to Georgia’s foresight they propelled Georgia into being the business hub of the south.

22. Moving goods

23. What to know  Some of the technology advances are going to have profound effects not just on commerce and personal fortunes, but on population distribution and the whole way of life.  Eli Whitney's cotton gin is going to really make the antebellum south a reality.  The cotton gin coupled with the railroads will lead to Georgia not only populating the western lands, but also becoming the business hub of the south.