This episode contains graphic depictions of violence. Listener discretion is advised.

By Monday morning after the murder of Rosa Trice, the storms had moved out of Atlanta. The paper's

weather prophecy for that day simply said, cloudy and cooler. Atlanta had three major white

newspapers then, the Atlanta Constitution, the Atlanta Georgian,

in the Atlanta Journal. These papers were the informational lifeblood of Atlanta life in the early

1900s. Remember, it's 1911, so there's no TV and commercial radio wouldn't arrive until 1922.

Newspapers were the source for local, national, and international

news. The three Atlanta papers were highly competitive and rival journalists were in a never-ending

battle to out-scoop each other. It wasn't uncommon for newspapers to publish several editions

per day, sometimes printing a morning, afternoon, and evening edition.

The morning edition of the Constitution was only 10 pages long on Monday, January 23rd.

I've browsed hundreds, possibly thousands of pages of newspapers from back then,

and I can tell you that the news on this day was pretty standard. Lots of mundane things.

A list of acts playing in Atlanta's downtown theaters, an upcoming basketball game between the

Birmingham Athletic Club and the Atlanta Athletic Club, an ad from a local department store

advertising $2 hats, half-price underwear, and something called a fancy stiff

bosom shirt for 50 cents. I have no idea what a fancy stiff bosom shirt is, but 50 cents seems like a

steel. Unsurprisingly, there were lots of agricultural updates that day as well. In 1911, the rising city of Atlanta was a tiny dot of urbanism situated in a sea of rural farmland.

That day's paper had a guy who sold 300 hogs for a, quote, small fortune.

An article about bull weevils devastating southern cotton crops, though the pests had not yet

arrived in Georgia then.

It had a section where people could write a letter to a farm expert with questions.

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