CHURCHILL VISITS ATLANTA 1932

Late in life he said, "I have always made my living by my pen and by my tongue." He was in the US on a speaking tour, one that nearly killed him in New York when hew was struck by a taxi. After his recovery the tour resumed and Atlanta was a major stop before he visited friend Bernard Baruch at his South Carolina plantation.

The lecture was advertised in advance in the Atlanta newspapers.  It was during the depths of the Great Depression and the article announced "ticket prices were being kept as low as possible consistent with meeting essential expenses".  

Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt would miss each other in Atlanta by about six months when FDR, the Democratic nominee, would make a historic speech at the Fox Theatre nearby in the fall.

Churchill spoke about his fears of the armed might building up in Europe. As an offset to this threat he insisted that cooperation between the English speaking peoples was critical.  He began by saying "We have quarreled in the past...."

Churchill stayed at the Biltmore Hotel near the Ga Tech campus.  It was the finest hotel in Atlanta at the time - where else would "Mr. Churchill is satisfied with the best of everything" stay?  He reviewed the Army and Navy ROTC cadets at Grant Field and praised the role the South had always played in the military history of the United States.

Daughter Diana, mother of Celia Sandys, accompanied her father on this trip.  

We think the other person in the image is then Georgia Tech president Marion Brittain, but we aren't sure.  Can you help?

Bill Fisher researched Winston's visit in advance of granddaughter Celia Sandys' in 2007.  In the days before Google he searched on the web for info on the visit and got a hit on a "photographer geek" blog. There was a posting about 'finding negatives in grandfather's attic about what appeared to be Winston Churchill at Georgia Tech'.  Bill contacted the person in New Mexico who said grandfather worked on Ga Tech newspaper as a student.  He sent us high res images and the rest is history. We frame it as an honorarium for our speakers.

Bill did much of the research looking at microfiche copies of the Atlanta newspapers around February 24, 1932. Buried among the articles on the Churchill visit were a number of seemingly un-related stories that would prove to be an uncanny "six degrees of separation", including this headline.

This article described how Josef Goebbels was tossed from the Reichstag after allegedly insulting Von Hindenburg, declaring Hitler "the man of tomorrow is coming".

The US Army at the time was the 15th largest in the world, right behind Bulgaria. There wasn't a lot of movement in the officer corps so it was news when it happened. (all newspapers kept a stash of "filler articles" of a specific length)

This article noted the posting of Major George S. Patton, Jr. to Fort Myer VA.

IMAGINE IN THE SAME THREE DAYS OF NEWSPAPER COVERAGE IN 1932

Churchill

Hitler

Goebbels

Patton

All seemed unrelated at the time but destiny would cause these all to converge. So when you read today's newspaper or your iPad where are the dots that are yet to be connected?