Wallace Putnam Reed
Wallace Putnam Reed (1849–1903) was an American historian (sometimes referred to as "one of Atlanta's first historians"[1]) and journalist active in Georgia, in the post-Civil War period.
Biography and career
[edit]Reed was born in 1849 in Rockdale County, Georgia, according to some sources[2] although others have him as coming from Alabama, including Mildred Lewis Rutherford[3] and possibly Joel Chandler Harris, if Harris, "his inseparable friend and editorial associate"[4] at the Atlanta Constitution, indeed wrote Reed's entry in the Memoirs of Georgia.[5]
His biography in Memoirs of Georgia claims he was born in Wilcox County, Alabama, and grew up in Montgomery; he moved to Atlanta with his parents in 1859. The Civil War was an interruption to his education, and he spent two years working in a bookstore. He published his first story at age 15, and throughout his life wrote hundreds of stories and sketches. He passed the bar before he turned 21 and briefly worked as a solicitor. He turned to journalism, first editing two country newspapers, and worked for a variety of papers in and around Atlanta as well as some national newspapers.[5]
Reed was the editor of History of Atlanta, Georgia (D. Mason & Co., 1889), a book considered a building block for Franklin Garrett's authoritative history of the city.[6] He was a colleague of Joel Chandler Harris at the Atlanta Constitution,[7] where he worked since 1883.[8] Reed wrote short stories as well.[9]
Reed's wife was Kate Shaver, the daughter of the Reverend David Shaver.[10] David Shaver was a Baptist preacher, born in Virginia around 1815 and married there at Lynchburg, who moved to Atlanta with his family in 1867, his wife dying in Augusta in 1893.[11] Shaver was the editor of the Atlanta Christian Index for over 28 years.[11] Reed's brother-in-law, Addison Hill Shaver son of David, was born in Hampton, Virginia, went to Mercer University, and became a newspaperman in 1876; working for many newspapers including the Atlanta Constitution and, after marrying Lula McCord in 1890, becoming the editor and proprietor of the Dalton Argus (serving Dalton and the surrounding Whitfield County) in 1892.[12]
Reed died in 1903.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ Link 2013, p. 137.
- ^ a b Garrett 2011, p. 447.
- ^ Rutherford 1907, p. 842.
- ^ CL 1890, p. 11.
- ^ a b SHA 1895a, pp. 903–904, Wallace Putnam Reid.
- ^ Levy 2023.
- ^ Harris 1993, pp. 11–12, 75.
- ^ SHA 1895a, p. 903, Wallace Putnam Reid.
- ^ CL 1889, p. 468.
- ^ SHA 1895a, p. 904, Wallace Putnam Reid.
- ^ a b SHA 1895b, p. 1042, Addison Hill Shaver.
- ^ SHA 1895b, pp. 1042–1043, Addison Hill Shaver.
Bibliography
[edit]- "Fulton County Sketches". Memoirs of Georgia. Vol. 1. Atlanta: Southern Historical Association. 1895. (Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people at the HathiTrust Digital Library)
- "Whitfield County Sketches". Memoirs of Georgia. Vol. 2. Atlanta: Southern Historical Association. 1895. (Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people at the Internet Archive)
- Levy, Jessica Ann (2023). "Atlanta". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.1052. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
- Garrett, Franklin M. (2011). Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1880s–1930s (reprinted ed.). University of Georgia Press. p. 447. ISBN 9780820339047.
- Link, William A. (2013). Atlanta, Cradle of the New South: Race and Remembering in the Civil War's Aftermath. UNC Press. pp. 59, 137. ISBN 9781469607771.
- Rutherford, Mildred Lewis (1907). The South in History and Literature: A Hand-book of Southern Authors, from the Settlement of Jamestown, 1607, to Living Writers. Franklin-Turner Company. p. 842.
- Harris, Joel Chandler (1993). Keenan, Hugh T. (ed.). Dearest Chums and Partners: Joel Chandler Harris's Letters to His Children: a Domestic Biography. University of Georgia Press. pp. 74–75. ISBN 9780820314808.
- "General gossip of authors and writers". Current Literature. Vol. 2, no. 6. Current Literature Publishing Company. June 1889. pp. 464–468. (Current Literature at the Internet Archive)
- "General gossip of authors and writers". Current Literature. Vol. 5, no. 1. Current Literature Publishing Company. July 1890. pp. 11–12. (Current Literature at the HathiTrust Digital Library)