Susan Cobb Milton Atkinson

Susan Cobb Milton Atkinson’s concern about education for young women led to the establishment of the Georgia Normal and Industrial School, which later became Georgia State College for Women, now Georgia College & State University, in Milledgeville. The day her husband introduced a legislative bill to establish the school, she provided him with petitions of endorsement from 200,000 Georgia men, women and girls. When he was later elected governor, she was a distinguished first lady and after his death she supported herself and their six children by starting an insurance business. She later persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to name her postmaster of Newnan. Atkinson Hall at Georgia College & State University was built and named for the Atkinsons in 1896.