GERTRUDE BENSON ARNALL
Second wife of Henry Clay Arnall
Wesleyan College, Class of 1881
Mrs. Arnall's last serving sibling, Admiral William Shepherd Benson, died in 1932. Gertrude lived another twenty years. Following the death of her mother in 1908, Gertrude was the matriarch of the Brewer-Benson family. Catherine Elizabeth Brewer married Richard Aaron Benson. All of their family in Georgia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and beyond knew Aunt Gertrude as matriarch, but to Admiral Benson, Gertrude was his little sister. Admiral Benson's own son named a daughter Gertrude in honor of his father's beloved sister, Mrs. Gertrude Benson Arnall.
Gertrude was born on November 12, 1864 in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, to Richard Aaron Benson and his wife Catherine Elizabeth Brewer Benson. Both parents were residents of Vineville and later lived in Macon.
Gertrude's first and only marriage was later in life. Miss Gertrude Benson and Henry Clay Arnall of Newnan were married in 1922. She was his second wife. Mr. Arnall had several children. Gertrude did not have children of her own.
Gertrude's husband Mr. Arnall was the paternal grandfather of Ellis Gibbs Arnall, 69th Governor of Georgia. A liberal Democrat, Governor Arnall helped lead efforts to abolish the poll tax and to reduce Georgia's voting age to 18. Following his departure from office, Arnall became a highly successful attorney and businessman. Ellis Gibbs Arnall was a friend of Gertrude's brother Admiral William Shepherd Benson. Both Admiral Benson and Arnall (future governor of Georgia) were friends of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Additionally, Admiral Benson was a close colleague and cousin of FDR.
Gertrude was living when Ellis Gibbs Arnall was elected governor, and she witnessed Governor Arnall's term as the state of Georgia's highest elected official and his later work under the Truman administration. Gertrude's family had been associated with the Arnall family of Newnan for many years – certainly by way of Alvan Dean Freeman, a lawyer and judge whose married daughter in Vineville was a neighbor to the Brewer family. When Gertrude married Henry Clay Arnall, she became a part of his life in Newnan. Therefore, included below is information about the Arnall family and about Ellis Gibbs Arnall. I had gathered some facts and posted screenshots here about Gertrude, also involving topics relevant to her life, but these screenshots have disappeared. An effort will be made to recover these items, and to create a biography about Gertrude. Until this is accomplished, the information below does tell much about those with whom Gertrude socialized and about the man (and family) she married, providing context integral to understanding Gertrude's later life as it was. The persons to whom one connects herself socially, and the man to whom one marries, is obviously extremely relevant information. Therefore, this is provides a glimpse at the great lady Gertrude Benson herself indeed was.
Miss Gertude Benson
Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia
https://archive.org/details/wesleyanfemalecollege_1914_15/page/n100/mode/1up?q=Brewer
Arnall, Gertrude Benson
Lot 3, Block 3, Sec FH
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/bibb/cemeteries/rosehillc.txt
BREWER
Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines, Volume One
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89066183567&view=1up&seq=142&skin=2021
JAPPIE - BENSON Marriage
The Evening Post
New York, New York
18 May 1820, Thursday • Page 3
Like Gertrude herself, Gertrude's niece Mamie married for the first time later in life. As a matter of coincidence, Mamie and Gertrude married at about the same time – in the years following World War I and before 1923. Following her marriage, Gertrude's niece Mamie lived in Senoia as Mrs. Van Porter Enloe, Sr. Mr. Henry Clay Arnall had family and business interests in Senoia. FDR visited this area often in the 1920s. Information about the Arnall family and their business interests in Senoia is relevant for these reasons, and therefore included in this biography.
Centennial Parade Float
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/22
The float in this photograph was in the parade commemorating Coweta County and Newnan's 100th anniversary on September 28, 1927. The float was sponsored by Arnall Mills, which is now owned by Bibb Manufacturing Company of Macon. Shown on the float are Henry C. Arnall, Governor Arnall's grandfather; Joe G. Arnall, his father; and uncles Alton W. Arnall, H.C. Arnall Jr., and Frank M. Arnall.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Date
September 28, 1927
Contributor
former Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall
Arnall Grocery Opening, 1929
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/215
Subject
Arnall Grocery Opening, 1929
Description
This crowd was gathered for the opening of a new self-service grocery started by the H.C. Arnall Merchandise Company on April 17, 1929. The photo, a companion to another published in this feature April 21, 1987, is provided by Dorsey Beavers, present owner of Arnall Grocery Company on East Broad. The company had moved from what is now the Kessler's building to the former Burdett warehouse building on the northeast corner of Perry and East Washington Street. Arnall Merchandise, founded in 1869, was celebrating 60 years of business in Newnan with a grand opening sale. The retail store where customers served themselves rather than having orders filled by clerks was a new concept, and the was the first such self-service super store in Georgia, according to Beavers. The company continued to operate a wholesale grocery business in part of the building. In later years the store was known as the Krazy Kat. Shortly after World War II, the company name was shortened to Arnall Grocery Company. The building that covered half a city block burned February 18 and 19, 1978, in a fire so intense that it cracked windows of Craft Cleaners across the street. At that time, Beavers noted that the location was once a slave market, that during the Civil War it was a hospital for soldiers, and after the Battle of Brown's Mill was a prison for federal soldiers. Used as warehouse and full of cotton, a building at the spot burned at one point and was built again, Beavers said. At the time of the 1978 fire, Millians and Thompson grocery had been operating in the East Broad Street end of the building for 13 months and Arnall Grocery was using the back for storage. Arnall Grocery Company had been purchased by Beavers in 1976 from Joe Arnall, father of former Gov. Ellis Arnall, and moved to a larger building down East Broad. After the debris was cleared, Gov. Arnall later agreed for the land to be used as a city parking lot.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Date
April 17, 1929
Contributor
Dorsey Beavers
Senoia Hardware Company
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/236
Subject
Senoia Hardware Company
Description
Senoia Hardware Company was owned by L.L. Hutchinson and Walt Arnall and located on the north side of Main Street in downtown Senoia. Standing inside the store in this scene are Walt Arnall, left, and Elbert Caldwell, right. The building is still standing and is across from Hollberg's Furniture.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Contributor
Jimmy Hutchinson
Ellis Gibbs Arnall
Georgia Encyclopedia
Ellis Arnall's four years as governor of Georgia (1943-47) are considered to be among the most progressive and effective in the modern history of the state. Arnall undertook an ambitious ten-point reform program that was approved by the legislature within twenty-four days of his assuming the governorship—a record still unequalled in Georgia. He accomplished these and other democratic reforms and, in the process, paid off a state debt of $36 million.
Family and Political Career
Ellis Gibbs Arnall was born on March 20, 1907, in Newnan, the son of Bessie Lena Ellis and Joseph Gibbs Arnall. He had one brother, Frank Marion II. After attending public school in Newnan, Arnall attended Mercer University and later transferred to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1928 with a degree in Greek. After graduating, Arnall entered the law school at the University of Georgia, where he served as president of his class, his legal fraternity, the student body, the Interfraternity Council, and the Gridiron Club. He finished law school in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. In 1935 he married Mildred Delaney Slemons, and they had two children, Alvan and Alice. Following the death of Mildred in 1980, Arnall married Ruby Hamilton McCord.
Arnall's rise to political power is one of the most remarkable chapters in the state's political history. In 1932 voters in his home county of Coweta elected him to the Georgia House of Representatives when he was only twenty-five years old. The members of the lower house twice elected him to the position of Speaker pro tempore, that body's second-highest elective office. Governor E. D. Rivers appointed Arnall to fill a vacancy in the office of state attorney general and, two years later, named him attorney general; Arnall was thirty-one years old. This appointment made him the nation's youngest attorney general.
In 1942 Arnall ran against Governor Eugene Talmadge, who was seeking reelection. Talmadge's interference in the running of the state's university system, in what became known as the Cocking affair, had resulted in the loss of accreditation of most of the state's public colleges. On this issue, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Gubernatorial Accomplishments
Arnall provided four years of progressive reform, replacing the state's "Tobacco Road" national image with that of a progressive and forward-looking state. He successfully led efforts to restore accreditation to Georgia's institutions of higher learning. He reformed the state penal system, repealed the poll tax, lowered the voting age, revised the state constitution, established a teachers' retirement system, and paid off the long-existing state debt. Promising to end gubernatorial dictatorship in the state, Arnall led efforts to create eight constitutional boards in an effort to reduce the power of the governor. He also created a merit system for state employees and the State Ports Authority. Arnall successfully led the South's fight against discriminatory railroad freight rates, which had hampered the region's industrial development. As a result of his reform program, members of the national press found themselves in the unusual position of praising rather than condemning a governor of Georgia.
Just as remarkable as Arnall's political ascendancy was his political decline. The state constitution prohibited gubernatorial succession, and Arnall suffered his first major defeat when he failed to persuade the legislature to propose a constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Arnall also lost popularity by leading the efforts at the 1944 National Democratic Convention to renominate Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The liberal Wallace was unpopular in Georgia. But most damaging to Arnall's political career was his stance on allowing Blacks to vote in the state's white primaries. A federal district court held that the state's white primaries were unconstitutional. Arnall refused to follow the examples of other southern states, which tried to evade the court's mandate. His inaction allowed the Eugene Talmadge faction to denounce him as a traitor to the white race. Many white Georgians believed Arnall was too liberal on the race issue, and a politically revived Talmadge won the 1946 primary by promising to restore the state's white primary. Many also resented Arnall's best-selling books, The Shore Dimly Seen (1946) and What the People Want (1948), and his nationwide lecture tour that, they believed, belittled the South.
Government & Politics
Governors of Georgia
Statehood
Twentieth Century
Ellis Arnall
1907-1992
Media (2)
Cite
Author
Harold Paulk Henderson, Abraham Baldwin College
Later Career
Ellis Arnall's four years as governor of Georgia (1943-47) are considered to be among the most progressive and effective in the modern history of the state. Arnall undertook an ambitious ten-point reform program that was approved by the legislature within twenty-four days of his assuming the governorship—a record still unequalled in Georgia. He accomplished these and other democratic reforms and, in the process, paid off a state debt of $36 million.
Family and Political Career
Ellis Gibbs Arnall was born on March 20, 1907, in Newnan, the son of Bessie Lena Ellis and Joseph Gibbs Arnall. He had one brother, Frank Marion II. After attending public school in Newnan, Arnall attended Mercer University and later transferred to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1928 with a degree in Greek. After graduating, Arnall entered the law school at the University of Georgia, where he served as president of his class, his legal fraternity, the student body, the Interfraternity Council, and the Gridiron Club. He finished law school in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. In 1935 he married Mildred Delaney Slemons, and they had two children, Alvan and Alice. Following the death of Mildred in 1980, Arnall married Ruby Hamilton McCord.
Arnall's rise to political power is one of the most remarkable chapters in the state's political history. In 1932 voters in his home county of Coweta elected him to the Georgia House of Representatives when he was only twenty-five years old. The members of the lower house twice elected him to the position of Speaker pro tempore, that body's second-highest elective office. Governor E. D. Rivers appointed Arnall to fill a vacancy in the office of state attorney general and, two years later, named him attorney general; Arnall was thirty-one years old. This appointment made him the nation's youngest attorney general.
[Image] Herman Talmadge and Ellis Arnall
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries.
In 1942 Arnall ran against Governor Eugene Talmadge, who was seeking reelection. Talmadge's interference in the running of the state's university system, in what became known as the Cocking affair, had resulted in the loss of accreditation of most of the state's public colleges. On this issue, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Gubernatorial Accomplishments
Arnall provided four years of progressive reform, replacing the state's "Tobacco Road" national image with that of a progressive and forward-looking state. He successfully led efforts to restore accreditation to Georgia's institutions of higher learning. He reformed the state penal system, repealed the poll tax, lowered the voting age, revised the state constitution, established a teachers' retirement system, and paid off the long-existing state debt. Promising to end gubernatorial dictatorship in the state, Arnall led efforts to create eight constitutional boards in an effort to reduce the power of the governor. He also created a merit system for state employees and the State Ports Authority. Arnall successfully led the South's fight against discriminatory railroad freight rates, which had hampered the region's industrial development. As a result of his reform program, members of the national press found themselves in the unusual position of praising rather than condemning a governor of Georgia.
Just as remarkable as Arnall's political ascendancy was his political decline. The state constitution prohibited gubernatorial succession, and Arnall suffered his first major defeat when he failed to persuade the legislature to propose a constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Arnall also lost popularity by leading the efforts at the 1944 National Democratic Convention to renominate Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The liberal Wallace was unpopular in Georgia. But most damaging to Arnall's political career was his stance on allowing Blacks to vote in the state's white primaries. A federal district court held that the state's white primaries were unconstitutional. Arnall refused to follow the examples of other southern states, which tried to evade the court's mandate. His inaction allowed the Eugene Talmadge faction to denounce him as a traitor to the white race. Many white Georgians believed Arnall was too liberal on the race issue, and a politically revived Talmadge won the 1946 primary by promising to restore the state's white primary. Many also resented Arnall's best-selling books, The Shore Dimly Seen (1946) and What the People Want (1948), and his nationwide lecture tour that, they believed, belittled the South.
[Image] Ellis Arnall
Courtesy of Georgia Archives.
The end of Arnall's tenure as governor proved to be as memorable as anything he actually achieved in office because of the "three governors controversy," a dispute over the rightful heir to the governorship that erupted in the wake of Talmadge's death one month after winning the election. With both the lieutenant governor Melvin E. Thompson and Talmadge's son, Herman, vying for the post-election vacancy, Arnall made it a three-way contest by refusing to vacate the governor's office until the dispute was settled. He dropped his claim to the office two months before the matter was resolved by the state supreme court, which ruled that Thompson would serve as acting governor until a special election could be held the following year.
Later Career
After leaving the governorship in 1947, Arnall became a successful attorney and businessman in Atlanta. For a brief period he served in the administration of U.S president Harry S. Truman as director of the office of price stabilization. Truman offered him the position of U.S. solicitor general, but he declined. Arnall again ran for governor in 1966. He was the front-runner in the Democratic primary in a field of six candidates, but he was forced into a runoff with Lester Maddox, a well-known segregationist. Maddox defeated Arnall in the runoff. The former governor never sought public office again.
Ellis Arnall died in 1992 at the age of eighty-five. In 2011 a historical marker honoring him was dedicated in Newnan.
— Originally published Aug 12, 2002
Last edited Aug 19, 2020
Henderson, Harold. "Ellis Arnall." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Aug 19, 2020. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ellis-arnall-1907-1992/
Second wife of Henry Clay Arnall
Wesleyan College, Class of 1881
Mrs. Arnall's last serving sibling, Admiral William Shepherd Benson, died in 1932. Gertrude lived another twenty years. Following the death of her mother in 1908, Gertrude was the matriarch of the Brewer-Benson family. Catherine Elizabeth Brewer married Richard Aaron Benson. All of their family in Georgia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and beyond knew Aunt Gertrude as matriarch, but to Admiral Benson, Gertrude was his little sister. Admiral Benson's own son named a daughter Gertrude in honor of his father's beloved sister, Mrs. Gertrude Benson Arnall.
Gertrude was born on November 12, 1864 in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, to Richard Aaron Benson and his wife Catherine Elizabeth Brewer Benson. Both parents were residents of Vineville and later lived in Macon.
Gertrude's first and only marriage was later in life. Miss Gertrude Benson and Henry Clay Arnall of Newnan were married in 1922. She was his second wife. Mr. Arnall had several children. Gertrude did not have children of her own.
Gertrude's husband Mr. Arnall was the paternal grandfather of Ellis Gibbs Arnall, 69th Governor of Georgia. A liberal Democrat, Governor Arnall helped lead efforts to abolish the poll tax and to reduce Georgia's voting age to 18. Following his departure from office, Arnall became a highly successful attorney and businessman. Ellis Gibbs Arnall was a friend of Gertrude's brother Admiral William Shepherd Benson. Both Admiral Benson and Arnall (future governor of Georgia) were friends of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Additionally, Admiral Benson was a close colleague and cousin of FDR.
Gertrude was living when Ellis Gibbs Arnall was elected governor, and she witnessed Governor Arnall's term as the state of Georgia's highest elected official and his later work under the Truman administration. Gertrude's family had been associated with the Arnall family of Newnan for many years – certainly by way of Alvan Dean Freeman, a lawyer and judge whose married daughter in Vineville was a neighbor to the Brewer family. When Gertrude married Henry Clay Arnall, she became a part of his life in Newnan. Therefore, included below is information about the Arnall family and about Ellis Gibbs Arnall. I had gathered some facts and posted screenshots here about Gertrude, also involving topics relevant to her life, but these screenshots have disappeared. An effort will be made to recover these items, and to create a biography about Gertrude. Until this is accomplished, the information below does tell much about those with whom Gertrude socialized and about the man (and family) she married, providing context integral to understanding Gertrude's later life as it was. The persons to whom one connects herself socially, and the man to whom one marries, is obviously extremely relevant information. Therefore, this is provides a glimpse at the great lady Gertrude Benson herself indeed was.
Miss Gertude Benson
Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia
https://archive.org/details/wesleyanfemalecollege_1914_15/page/n100/mode/1up?q=Brewer
Arnall, Gertrude Benson
Lot 3, Block 3, Sec FH
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/bibb/cemeteries/rosehillc.txt
BREWER
Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines, Volume One
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89066183567&view=1up&seq=142&skin=2021
JAPPIE - BENSON Marriage
The Evening Post
New York, New York
18 May 1820, Thursday • Page 3
Like Gertrude herself, Gertrude's niece Mamie married for the first time later in life. As a matter of coincidence, Mamie and Gertrude married at about the same time – in the years following World War I and before 1923. Following her marriage, Gertrude's niece Mamie lived in Senoia as Mrs. Van Porter Enloe, Sr. Mr. Henry Clay Arnall had family and business interests in Senoia. FDR visited this area often in the 1920s. Information about the Arnall family and their business interests in Senoia is relevant for these reasons, and therefore included in this biography.
Centennial Parade Float
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/22
The float in this photograph was in the parade commemorating Coweta County and Newnan's 100th anniversary on September 28, 1927. The float was sponsored by Arnall Mills, which is now owned by Bibb Manufacturing Company of Macon. Shown on the float are Henry C. Arnall, Governor Arnall's grandfather; Joe G. Arnall, his father; and uncles Alton W. Arnall, H.C. Arnall Jr., and Frank M. Arnall.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Date
September 28, 1927
Contributor
former Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall
Arnall Grocery Opening, 1929
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/215
Subject
Arnall Grocery Opening, 1929
Description
This crowd was gathered for the opening of a new self-service grocery started by the H.C. Arnall Merchandise Company on April 17, 1929. The photo, a companion to another published in this feature April 21, 1987, is provided by Dorsey Beavers, present owner of Arnall Grocery Company on East Broad. The company had moved from what is now the Kessler's building to the former Burdett warehouse building on the northeast corner of Perry and East Washington Street. Arnall Merchandise, founded in 1869, was celebrating 60 years of business in Newnan with a grand opening sale. The retail store where customers served themselves rather than having orders filled by clerks was a new concept, and the was the first such self-service super store in Georgia, according to Beavers. The company continued to operate a wholesale grocery business in part of the building. In later years the store was known as the Krazy Kat. Shortly after World War II, the company name was shortened to Arnall Grocery Company. The building that covered half a city block burned February 18 and 19, 1978, in a fire so intense that it cracked windows of Craft Cleaners across the street. At that time, Beavers noted that the location was once a slave market, that during the Civil War it was a hospital for soldiers, and after the Battle of Brown's Mill was a prison for federal soldiers. Used as warehouse and full of cotton, a building at the spot burned at one point and was built again, Beavers said. At the time of the 1978 fire, Millians and Thompson grocery had been operating in the East Broad Street end of the building for 13 months and Arnall Grocery was using the back for storage. Arnall Grocery Company had been purchased by Beavers in 1976 from Joe Arnall, father of former Gov. Ellis Arnall, and moved to a larger building down East Broad. After the debris was cleared, Gov. Arnall later agreed for the land to be used as a city parking lot.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Date
April 17, 1929
Contributor
Dorsey Beavers
Senoia Hardware Company
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/236
Subject
Senoia Hardware Company
Description
Senoia Hardware Company was owned by L.L. Hutchinson and Walt Arnall and located on the north side of Main Street in downtown Senoia. Standing inside the store in this scene are Walt Arnall, left, and Elbert Caldwell, right. The building is still standing and is across from Hollberg's Furniture.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Contributor
Jimmy Hutchinson
Ellis Gibbs Arnall
Georgia Encyclopedia
Ellis Arnall's four years as governor of Georgia (1943-47) are considered to be among the most progressive and effective in the modern history of the state. Arnall undertook an ambitious ten-point reform program that was approved by the legislature within twenty-four days of his assuming the governorship—a record still unequalled in Georgia. He accomplished these and other democratic reforms and, in the process, paid off a state debt of $36 million.
Family and Political Career
Ellis Gibbs Arnall was born on March 20, 1907, in Newnan, the son of Bessie Lena Ellis and Joseph Gibbs Arnall. He had one brother, Frank Marion II. After attending public school in Newnan, Arnall attended Mercer University and later transferred to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1928 with a degree in Greek. After graduating, Arnall entered the law school at the University of Georgia, where he served as president of his class, his legal fraternity, the student body, the Interfraternity Council, and the Gridiron Club. He finished law school in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. In 1935 he married Mildred Delaney Slemons, and they had two children, Alvan and Alice. Following the death of Mildred in 1980, Arnall married Ruby Hamilton McCord.
Arnall's rise to political power is one of the most remarkable chapters in the state's political history. In 1932 voters in his home county of Coweta elected him to the Georgia House of Representatives when he was only twenty-five years old. The members of the lower house twice elected him to the position of Speaker pro tempore, that body's second-highest elective office. Governor E. D. Rivers appointed Arnall to fill a vacancy in the office of state attorney general and, two years later, named him attorney general; Arnall was thirty-one years old. This appointment made him the nation's youngest attorney general.
In 1942 Arnall ran against Governor Eugene Talmadge, who was seeking reelection. Talmadge's interference in the running of the state's university system, in what became known as the Cocking affair, had resulted in the loss of accreditation of most of the state's public colleges. On this issue, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Gubernatorial Accomplishments
Arnall provided four years of progressive reform, replacing the state's "Tobacco Road" national image with that of a progressive and forward-looking state. He successfully led efforts to restore accreditation to Georgia's institutions of higher learning. He reformed the state penal system, repealed the poll tax, lowered the voting age, revised the state constitution, established a teachers' retirement system, and paid off the long-existing state debt. Promising to end gubernatorial dictatorship in the state, Arnall led efforts to create eight constitutional boards in an effort to reduce the power of the governor. He also created a merit system for state employees and the State Ports Authority. Arnall successfully led the South's fight against discriminatory railroad freight rates, which had hampered the region's industrial development. As a result of his reform program, members of the national press found themselves in the unusual position of praising rather than condemning a governor of Georgia.
Just as remarkable as Arnall's political ascendancy was his political decline. The state constitution prohibited gubernatorial succession, and Arnall suffered his first major defeat when he failed to persuade the legislature to propose a constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Arnall also lost popularity by leading the efforts at the 1944 National Democratic Convention to renominate Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The liberal Wallace was unpopular in Georgia. But most damaging to Arnall's political career was his stance on allowing Blacks to vote in the state's white primaries. A federal district court held that the state's white primaries were unconstitutional. Arnall refused to follow the examples of other southern states, which tried to evade the court's mandate. His inaction allowed the Eugene Talmadge faction to denounce him as a traitor to the white race. Many white Georgians believed Arnall was too liberal on the race issue, and a politically revived Talmadge won the 1946 primary by promising to restore the state's white primary. Many also resented Arnall's best-selling books, The Shore Dimly Seen (1946) and What the People Want (1948), and his nationwide lecture tour that, they believed, belittled the South.
Government & Politics
Governors of Georgia
Statehood
Twentieth Century
Ellis Arnall
1907-1992
Media (2)
Cite
Author
Harold Paulk Henderson, Abraham Baldwin College
Later Career
Ellis Arnall's four years as governor of Georgia (1943-47) are considered to be among the most progressive and effective in the modern history of the state. Arnall undertook an ambitious ten-point reform program that was approved by the legislature within twenty-four days of his assuming the governorship—a record still unequalled in Georgia. He accomplished these and other democratic reforms and, in the process, paid off a state debt of $36 million.
Family and Political Career
Ellis Gibbs Arnall was born on March 20, 1907, in Newnan, the son of Bessie Lena Ellis and Joseph Gibbs Arnall. He had one brother, Frank Marion II. After attending public school in Newnan, Arnall attended Mercer University and later transferred to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1928 with a degree in Greek. After graduating, Arnall entered the law school at the University of Georgia, where he served as president of his class, his legal fraternity, the student body, the Interfraternity Council, and the Gridiron Club. He finished law school in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. In 1935 he married Mildred Delaney Slemons, and they had two children, Alvan and Alice. Following the death of Mildred in 1980, Arnall married Ruby Hamilton McCord.
Arnall's rise to political power is one of the most remarkable chapters in the state's political history. In 1932 voters in his home county of Coweta elected him to the Georgia House of Representatives when he was only twenty-five years old. The members of the lower house twice elected him to the position of Speaker pro tempore, that body's second-highest elective office. Governor E. D. Rivers appointed Arnall to fill a vacancy in the office of state attorney general and, two years later, named him attorney general; Arnall was thirty-one years old. This appointment made him the nation's youngest attorney general.
[Image] Herman Talmadge and Ellis Arnall
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries.
In 1942 Arnall ran against Governor Eugene Talmadge, who was seeking reelection. Talmadge's interference in the running of the state's university system, in what became known as the Cocking affair, had resulted in the loss of accreditation of most of the state's public colleges. On this issue, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Gubernatorial Accomplishments
Arnall provided four years of progressive reform, replacing the state's "Tobacco Road" national image with that of a progressive and forward-looking state. He successfully led efforts to restore accreditation to Georgia's institutions of higher learning. He reformed the state penal system, repealed the poll tax, lowered the voting age, revised the state constitution, established a teachers' retirement system, and paid off the long-existing state debt. Promising to end gubernatorial dictatorship in the state, Arnall led efforts to create eight constitutional boards in an effort to reduce the power of the governor. He also created a merit system for state employees and the State Ports Authority. Arnall successfully led the South's fight against discriminatory railroad freight rates, which had hampered the region's industrial development. As a result of his reform program, members of the national press found themselves in the unusual position of praising rather than condemning a governor of Georgia.
Just as remarkable as Arnall's political ascendancy was his political decline. The state constitution prohibited gubernatorial succession, and Arnall suffered his first major defeat when he failed to persuade the legislature to propose a constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Arnall also lost popularity by leading the efforts at the 1944 National Democratic Convention to renominate Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The liberal Wallace was unpopular in Georgia. But most damaging to Arnall's political career was his stance on allowing Blacks to vote in the state's white primaries. A federal district court held that the state's white primaries were unconstitutional. Arnall refused to follow the examples of other southern states, which tried to evade the court's mandate. His inaction allowed the Eugene Talmadge faction to denounce him as a traitor to the white race. Many white Georgians believed Arnall was too liberal on the race issue, and a politically revived Talmadge won the 1946 primary by promising to restore the state's white primary. Many also resented Arnall's best-selling books, The Shore Dimly Seen (1946) and What the People Want (1948), and his nationwide lecture tour that, they believed, belittled the South.
[Image] Ellis Arnall
Courtesy of Georgia Archives.
The end of Arnall's tenure as governor proved to be as memorable as anything he actually achieved in office because of the "three governors controversy," a dispute over the rightful heir to the governorship that erupted in the wake of Talmadge's death one month after winning the election. With both the lieutenant governor Melvin E. Thompson and Talmadge's son, Herman, vying for the post-election vacancy, Arnall made it a three-way contest by refusing to vacate the governor's office until the dispute was settled. He dropped his claim to the office two months before the matter was resolved by the state supreme court, which ruled that Thompson would serve as acting governor until a special election could be held the following year.
Later Career
After leaving the governorship in 1947, Arnall became a successful attorney and businessman in Atlanta. For a brief period he served in the administration of U.S president Harry S. Truman as director of the office of price stabilization. Truman offered him the position of U.S. solicitor general, but he declined. Arnall again ran for governor in 1966. He was the front-runner in the Democratic primary in a field of six candidates, but he was forced into a runoff with Lester Maddox, a well-known segregationist. Maddox defeated Arnall in the runoff. The former governor never sought public office again.
Ellis Arnall died in 1992 at the age of eighty-five. In 2011 a historical marker honoring him was dedicated in Newnan.
— Originally published Aug 12, 2002
Last edited Aug 19, 2020
Henderson, Harold. "Ellis Arnall." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Aug 19, 2020. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ellis-arnall-1907-1992/
GERTRUDE BENSON ARNALL
Second wife of Henry Clay Arnall
Wesleyan College, Class of 1881
Mrs. Arnall's last serving sibling, Admiral William Shepherd Benson, died in 1932. Gertrude lived another twenty years. Following the death of her mother in 1908, Gertrude was the matriarch of the Brewer-Benson family. Catherine Elizabeth Brewer married Richard Aaron Benson. All of their family in Georgia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and beyond knew Aunt Gertrude as matriarch, but to Admiral Benson, Gertrude was his little sister. Admiral Benson's own son named a daughter Gertrude in honor of his father's beloved sister, Mrs. Gertrude Benson Arnall.
Gertrude was born on November 12, 1864 in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, to Richard Aaron Benson and his wife Catherine Elizabeth Brewer Benson. Both parents were residents of Vineville and later lived in Macon.
Gertrude's first and only marriage was later in life. Miss Gertrude Benson and Henry Clay Arnall of Newnan were married in 1922. She was his second wife. Mr. Arnall had several children. Gertrude did not have children of her own.
Gertrude's husband Mr. Arnall was the paternal grandfather of Ellis Gibbs Arnall, 69th Governor of Georgia. A liberal Democrat, Governor Arnall helped lead efforts to abolish the poll tax and to reduce Georgia's voting age to 18. Following his departure from office, Arnall became a highly successful attorney and businessman. Ellis Gibbs Arnall was a friend of Gertrude's brother Admiral William Shepherd Benson. Both Admiral Benson and Arnall (future governor of Georgia) were friends of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Additionally, Admiral Benson was a close colleague and cousin of FDR.
Gertrude was living when Ellis Gibbs Arnall was elected governor, and she witnessed Governor Arnall's term as the state of Georgia's highest elected official and his later work under the Truman administration. Gertrude's family had been associated with the Arnall family of Newnan for many years – certainly by way of Alvan Dean Freeman, a lawyer and judge whose married daughter in Vineville was a neighbor to the Brewer family. When Gertrude married Henry Clay Arnall, she became a part of his life in Newnan. Therefore, included below is information about the Arnall family and about Ellis Gibbs Arnall. I had gathered some facts and posted screenshots here about Gertrude, also involving topics relevant to her life, but these screenshots have disappeared. An effort will be made to recover these items, and to create a biography about Gertrude. Until this is accomplished, the information below does tell much about those with whom Gertrude socialized and about the man (and family) she married, providing context integral to understanding Gertrude's later life as it was. The persons to whom one connects herself socially, and the man to whom one marries, is obviously extremely relevant information. Therefore, this is provides a glimpse at the great lady Gertrude Benson herself indeed was.
Miss Gertude Benson
Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia
https://archive.org/details/wesleyanfemalecollege_1914_15/page/n100/mode/1up?q=Brewer
Arnall, Gertrude Benson
Lot 3, Block 3, Sec FH
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/bibb/cemeteries/rosehillc.txt
BREWER
Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines, Volume One
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89066183567&view=1up&seq=142&skin=2021
JAPPIE - BENSON Marriage
The Evening Post
New York, New York
18 May 1820, Thursday • Page 3
Like Gertrude herself, Gertrude's niece Mamie married for the first time later in life. As a matter of coincidence, Mamie and Gertrude married at about the same time – in the years following World War I and before 1923. Following her marriage, Gertrude's niece Mamie lived in Senoia as Mrs. Van Porter Enloe, Sr. Mr. Henry Clay Arnall had family and business interests in Senoia. FDR visited this area often in the 1920s. Information about the Arnall family and their business interests in Senoia is relevant for these reasons, and therefore included in this biography.
Centennial Parade Float
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/22
The float in this photograph was in the parade commemorating Coweta County and Newnan's 100th anniversary on September 28, 1927. The float was sponsored by Arnall Mills, which is now owned by Bibb Manufacturing Company of Macon. Shown on the float are Henry C. Arnall, Governor Arnall's grandfather; Joe G. Arnall, his father; and uncles Alton W. Arnall, H.C. Arnall Jr., and Frank M. Arnall.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Date
September 28, 1927
Contributor
former Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall
Arnall Grocery Opening, 1929
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/215
Subject
Arnall Grocery Opening, 1929
Description
This crowd was gathered for the opening of a new self-service grocery started by the H.C. Arnall Merchandise Company on April 17, 1929. The photo, a companion to another published in this feature April 21, 1987, is provided by Dorsey Beavers, present owner of Arnall Grocery Company on East Broad. The company had moved from what is now the Kessler's building to the former Burdett warehouse building on the northeast corner of Perry and East Washington Street. Arnall Merchandise, founded in 1869, was celebrating 60 years of business in Newnan with a grand opening sale. The retail store where customers served themselves rather than having orders filled by clerks was a new concept, and the was the first such self-service super store in Georgia, according to Beavers. The company continued to operate a wholesale grocery business in part of the building. In later years the store was known as the Krazy Kat. Shortly after World War II, the company name was shortened to Arnall Grocery Company. The building that covered half a city block burned February 18 and 19, 1978, in a fire so intense that it cracked windows of Craft Cleaners across the street. At that time, Beavers noted that the location was once a slave market, that during the Civil War it was a hospital for soldiers, and after the Battle of Brown's Mill was a prison for federal soldiers. Used as warehouse and full of cotton, a building at the spot burned at one point and was built again, Beavers said. At the time of the 1978 fire, Millians and Thompson grocery had been operating in the East Broad Street end of the building for 13 months and Arnall Grocery was using the back for storage. Arnall Grocery Company had been purchased by Beavers in 1976 from Joe Arnall, father of former Gov. Ellis Arnall, and moved to a larger building down East Broad. After the debris was cleared, Gov. Arnall later agreed for the land to be used as a city parking lot.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Date
April 17, 1929
Contributor
Dorsey Beavers
Senoia Hardware Company
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/236
Subject
Senoia Hardware Company
Description
Senoia Hardware Company was owned by L.L. Hutchinson and Walt Arnall and located on the north side of Main Street in downtown Senoia. Standing inside the store in this scene are Walt Arnall, left, and Elbert Caldwell, right. The building is still standing and is across from Hollberg's Furniture.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Contributor
Jimmy Hutchinson
Ellis Gibbs Arnall
Georgia Encyclopedia
Ellis Arnall's four years as governor of Georgia (1943-47) are considered to be among the most progressive and effective in the modern history of the state. Arnall undertook an ambitious ten-point reform program that was approved by the legislature within twenty-four days of his assuming the governorship—a record still unequalled in Georgia. He accomplished these and other democratic reforms and, in the process, paid off a state debt of $36 million.
Family and Political Career
Ellis Gibbs Arnall was born on March 20, 1907, in Newnan, the son of Bessie Lena Ellis and Joseph Gibbs Arnall. He had one brother, Frank Marion II. After attending public school in Newnan, Arnall attended Mercer University and later transferred to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1928 with a degree in Greek. After graduating, Arnall entered the law school at the University of Georgia, where he served as president of his class, his legal fraternity, the student body, the Interfraternity Council, and the Gridiron Club. He finished law school in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. In 1935 he married Mildred Delaney Slemons, and they had two children, Alvan and Alice. Following the death of Mildred in 1980, Arnall married Ruby Hamilton McCord.
Arnall's rise to political power is one of the most remarkable chapters in the state's political history. In 1932 voters in his home county of Coweta elected him to the Georgia House of Representatives when he was only twenty-five years old. The members of the lower house twice elected him to the position of Speaker pro tempore, that body's second-highest elective office. Governor E. D. Rivers appointed Arnall to fill a vacancy in the office of state attorney general and, two years later, named him attorney general; Arnall was thirty-one years old. This appointment made him the nation's youngest attorney general.
In 1942 Arnall ran against Governor Eugene Talmadge, who was seeking reelection. Talmadge's interference in the running of the state's university system, in what became known as the Cocking affair, had resulted in the loss of accreditation of most of the state's public colleges. On this issue, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Gubernatorial Accomplishments
Arnall provided four years of progressive reform, replacing the state's "Tobacco Road" national image with that of a progressive and forward-looking state. He successfully led efforts to restore accreditation to Georgia's institutions of higher learning. He reformed the state penal system, repealed the poll tax, lowered the voting age, revised the state constitution, established a teachers' retirement system, and paid off the long-existing state debt. Promising to end gubernatorial dictatorship in the state, Arnall led efforts to create eight constitutional boards in an effort to reduce the power of the governor. He also created a merit system for state employees and the State Ports Authority. Arnall successfully led the South's fight against discriminatory railroad freight rates, which had hampered the region's industrial development. As a result of his reform program, members of the national press found themselves in the unusual position of praising rather than condemning a governor of Georgia.
Just as remarkable as Arnall's political ascendancy was his political decline. The state constitution prohibited gubernatorial succession, and Arnall suffered his first major defeat when he failed to persuade the legislature to propose a constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Arnall also lost popularity by leading the efforts at the 1944 National Democratic Convention to renominate Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The liberal Wallace was unpopular in Georgia. But most damaging to Arnall's political career was his stance on allowing Blacks to vote in the state's white primaries. A federal district court held that the state's white primaries were unconstitutional. Arnall refused to follow the examples of other southern states, which tried to evade the court's mandate. His inaction allowed the Eugene Talmadge faction to denounce him as a traitor to the white race. Many white Georgians believed Arnall was too liberal on the race issue, and a politically revived Talmadge won the 1946 primary by promising to restore the state's white primary. Many also resented Arnall's best-selling books, The Shore Dimly Seen (1946) and What the People Want (1948), and his nationwide lecture tour that, they believed, belittled the South.
Government & Politics
Governors of Georgia
Statehood
Twentieth Century
Ellis Arnall
1907-1992
Media (2)
Cite
Author
Harold Paulk Henderson, Abraham Baldwin College
Later Career
Ellis Arnall's four years as governor of Georgia (1943-47) are considered to be among the most progressive and effective in the modern history of the state. Arnall undertook an ambitious ten-point reform program that was approved by the legislature within twenty-four days of his assuming the governorship—a record still unequalled in Georgia. He accomplished these and other democratic reforms and, in the process, paid off a state debt of $36 million.
Family and Political Career
Ellis Gibbs Arnall was born on March 20, 1907, in Newnan, the son of Bessie Lena Ellis and Joseph Gibbs Arnall. He had one brother, Frank Marion II. After attending public school in Newnan, Arnall attended Mercer University and later transferred to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1928 with a degree in Greek. After graduating, Arnall entered the law school at the University of Georgia, where he served as president of his class, his legal fraternity, the student body, the Interfraternity Council, and the Gridiron Club. He finished law school in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. In 1935 he married Mildred Delaney Slemons, and they had two children, Alvan and Alice. Following the death of Mildred in 1980, Arnall married Ruby Hamilton McCord.
Arnall's rise to political power is one of the most remarkable chapters in the state's political history. In 1932 voters in his home county of Coweta elected him to the Georgia House of Representatives when he was only twenty-five years old. The members of the lower house twice elected him to the position of Speaker pro tempore, that body's second-highest elective office. Governor E. D. Rivers appointed Arnall to fill a vacancy in the office of state attorney general and, two years later, named him attorney general; Arnall was thirty-one years old. This appointment made him the nation's youngest attorney general.
[Image] Herman Talmadge and Ellis Arnall
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries.
In 1942 Arnall ran against Governor Eugene Talmadge, who was seeking reelection. Talmadge's interference in the running of the state's university system, in what became known as the Cocking affair, had resulted in the loss of accreditation of most of the state's public colleges. On this issue, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Gubernatorial Accomplishments
Arnall provided four years of progressive reform, replacing the state's "Tobacco Road" national image with that of a progressive and forward-looking state. He successfully led efforts to restore accreditation to Georgia's institutions of higher learning. He reformed the state penal system, repealed the poll tax, lowered the voting age, revised the state constitution, established a teachers' retirement system, and paid off the long-existing state debt. Promising to end gubernatorial dictatorship in the state, Arnall led efforts to create eight constitutional boards in an effort to reduce the power of the governor. He also created a merit system for state employees and the State Ports Authority. Arnall successfully led the South's fight against discriminatory railroad freight rates, which had hampered the region's industrial development. As a result of his reform program, members of the national press found themselves in the unusual position of praising rather than condemning a governor of Georgia.
Just as remarkable as Arnall's political ascendancy was his political decline. The state constitution prohibited gubernatorial succession, and Arnall suffered his first major defeat when he failed to persuade the legislature to propose a constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Arnall also lost popularity by leading the efforts at the 1944 National Democratic Convention to renominate Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The liberal Wallace was unpopular in Georgia. But most damaging to Arnall's political career was his stance on allowing Blacks to vote in the state's white primaries. A federal district court held that the state's white primaries were unconstitutional. Arnall refused to follow the examples of other southern states, which tried to evade the court's mandate. His inaction allowed the Eugene Talmadge faction to denounce him as a traitor to the white race. Many white Georgians believed Arnall was too liberal on the race issue, and a politically revived Talmadge won the 1946 primary by promising to restore the state's white primary. Many also resented Arnall's best-selling books, The Shore Dimly Seen (1946) and What the People Want (1948), and his nationwide lecture tour that, they believed, belittled the South.
[Image] Ellis Arnall
Courtesy of Georgia Archives.
The end of Arnall's tenure as governor proved to be as memorable as anything he actually achieved in office because of the "three governors controversy," a dispute over the rightful heir to the governorship that erupted in the wake of Talmadge's death one month after winning the election. With both the lieutenant governor Melvin E. Thompson and Talmadge's son, Herman, vying for the post-election vacancy, Arnall made it a three-way contest by refusing to vacate the governor's office until the dispute was settled. He dropped his claim to the office two months before the matter was resolved by the state supreme court, which ruled that Thompson would serve as acting governor until a special election could be held the following year.
Later Career
After leaving the governorship in 1947, Arnall became a successful attorney and businessman in Atlanta. For a brief period he served in the administration of U.S president Harry S. Truman as director of the office of price stabilization. Truman offered him the position of U.S. solicitor general, but he declined. Arnall again ran for governor in 1966. He was the front-runner in the Democratic primary in a field of six candidates, but he was forced into a runoff with Lester Maddox, a well-known segregationist. Maddox defeated Arnall in the runoff. The former governor never sought public office again.
Ellis Arnall died in 1992 at the age of eighty-five. In 2011 a historical marker honoring him was dedicated in Newnan.
— Originally published Aug 12, 2002
Last edited Aug 19, 2020
Henderson, Harold. "Ellis Arnall." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Aug 19, 2020. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ellis-arnall-1907-1992/
Second wife of Henry Clay Arnall
Wesleyan College, Class of 1881
Mrs. Arnall's last serving sibling, Admiral William Shepherd Benson, died in 1932. Gertrude lived another twenty years. Following the death of her mother in 1908, Gertrude was the matriarch of the Brewer-Benson family. Catherine Elizabeth Brewer married Richard Aaron Benson. All of their family in Georgia, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and beyond knew Aunt Gertrude as matriarch, but to Admiral Benson, Gertrude was his little sister. Admiral Benson's own son named a daughter Gertrude in honor of his father's beloved sister, Mrs. Gertrude Benson Arnall.
Gertrude was born on November 12, 1864 in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, to Richard Aaron Benson and his wife Catherine Elizabeth Brewer Benson. Both parents were residents of Vineville and later lived in Macon.
Gertrude's first and only marriage was later in life. Miss Gertrude Benson and Henry Clay Arnall of Newnan were married in 1922. She was his second wife. Mr. Arnall had several children. Gertrude did not have children of her own.
Gertrude's husband Mr. Arnall was the paternal grandfather of Ellis Gibbs Arnall, 69th Governor of Georgia. A liberal Democrat, Governor Arnall helped lead efforts to abolish the poll tax and to reduce Georgia's voting age to 18. Following his departure from office, Arnall became a highly successful attorney and businessman. Ellis Gibbs Arnall was a friend of Gertrude's brother Admiral William Shepherd Benson. Both Admiral Benson and Arnall (future governor of Georgia) were friends of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Additionally, Admiral Benson was a close colleague and cousin of FDR.
Gertrude was living when Ellis Gibbs Arnall was elected governor, and she witnessed Governor Arnall's term as the state of Georgia's highest elected official and his later work under the Truman administration. Gertrude's family had been associated with the Arnall family of Newnan for many years – certainly by way of Alvan Dean Freeman, a lawyer and judge whose married daughter in Vineville was a neighbor to the Brewer family. When Gertrude married Henry Clay Arnall, she became a part of his life in Newnan. Therefore, included below is information about the Arnall family and about Ellis Gibbs Arnall. I had gathered some facts and posted screenshots here about Gertrude, also involving topics relevant to her life, but these screenshots have disappeared. An effort will be made to recover these items, and to create a biography about Gertrude. Until this is accomplished, the information below does tell much about those with whom Gertrude socialized and about the man (and family) she married, providing context integral to understanding Gertrude's later life as it was. The persons to whom one connects herself socially, and the man to whom one marries, is obviously extremely relevant information. Therefore, this is provides a glimpse at the great lady Gertrude Benson herself indeed was.
Miss Gertude Benson
Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia
https://archive.org/details/wesleyanfemalecollege_1914_15/page/n100/mode/1up?q=Brewer
Arnall, Gertrude Benson
Lot 3, Block 3, Sec FH
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/bibb/cemeteries/rosehillc.txt
BREWER
Dawes-Gates Ancestral Lines, Volume One
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89066183567&view=1up&seq=142&skin=2021
JAPPIE - BENSON Marriage
The Evening Post
New York, New York
18 May 1820, Thursday • Page 3
Like Gertrude herself, Gertrude's niece Mamie married for the first time later in life. As a matter of coincidence, Mamie and Gertrude married at about the same time – in the years following World War I and before 1923. Following her marriage, Gertrude's niece Mamie lived in Senoia as Mrs. Van Porter Enloe, Sr. Mr. Henry Clay Arnall had family and business interests in Senoia. FDR visited this area often in the 1920s. Information about the Arnall family and their business interests in Senoia is relevant for these reasons, and therefore included in this biography.
Centennial Parade Float
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/22
The float in this photograph was in the parade commemorating Coweta County and Newnan's 100th anniversary on September 28, 1927. The float was sponsored by Arnall Mills, which is now owned by Bibb Manufacturing Company of Macon. Shown on the float are Henry C. Arnall, Governor Arnall's grandfather; Joe G. Arnall, his father; and uncles Alton W. Arnall, H.C. Arnall Jr., and Frank M. Arnall.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Date
September 28, 1927
Contributor
former Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall
Arnall Grocery Opening, 1929
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/215
Subject
Arnall Grocery Opening, 1929
Description
This crowd was gathered for the opening of a new self-service grocery started by the H.C. Arnall Merchandise Company on April 17, 1929. The photo, a companion to another published in this feature April 21, 1987, is provided by Dorsey Beavers, present owner of Arnall Grocery Company on East Broad. The company had moved from what is now the Kessler's building to the former Burdett warehouse building on the northeast corner of Perry and East Washington Street. Arnall Merchandise, founded in 1869, was celebrating 60 years of business in Newnan with a grand opening sale. The retail store where customers served themselves rather than having orders filled by clerks was a new concept, and the was the first such self-service super store in Georgia, according to Beavers. The company continued to operate a wholesale grocery business in part of the building. In later years the store was known as the Krazy Kat. Shortly after World War II, the company name was shortened to Arnall Grocery Company. The building that covered half a city block burned February 18 and 19, 1978, in a fire so intense that it cracked windows of Craft Cleaners across the street. At that time, Beavers noted that the location was once a slave market, that during the Civil War it was a hospital for soldiers, and after the Battle of Brown's Mill was a prison for federal soldiers. Used as warehouse and full of cotton, a building at the spot burned at one point and was built again, Beavers said. At the time of the 1978 fire, Millians and Thompson grocery had been operating in the East Broad Street end of the building for 13 months and Arnall Grocery was using the back for storage. Arnall Grocery Company had been purchased by Beavers in 1976 from Joe Arnall, father of former Gov. Ellis Arnall, and moved to a larger building down East Broad. After the debris was cleared, Gov. Arnall later agreed for the land to be used as a city parking lot.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Date
April 17, 1929
Contributor
Dorsey Beavers
Senoia Hardware Company
Newnan-Coweta Historical Society
https://newnancowetahistoricalsociety.omeka.net/items/show/236
Subject
Senoia Hardware Company
Description
Senoia Hardware Company was owned by L.L. Hutchinson and Walt Arnall and located on the north side of Main Street in downtown Senoia. Standing inside the store in this scene are Walt Arnall, left, and Elbert Caldwell, right. The building is still standing and is across from Hollberg's Furniture.
Publisher
Newnan Times-Herald
Contributor
Jimmy Hutchinson
Ellis Gibbs Arnall
Georgia Encyclopedia
Ellis Arnall's four years as governor of Georgia (1943-47) are considered to be among the most progressive and effective in the modern history of the state. Arnall undertook an ambitious ten-point reform program that was approved by the legislature within twenty-four days of his assuming the governorship—a record still unequalled in Georgia. He accomplished these and other democratic reforms and, in the process, paid off a state debt of $36 million.
Family and Political Career
Ellis Gibbs Arnall was born on March 20, 1907, in Newnan, the son of Bessie Lena Ellis and Joseph Gibbs Arnall. He had one brother, Frank Marion II. After attending public school in Newnan, Arnall attended Mercer University and later transferred to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1928 with a degree in Greek. After graduating, Arnall entered the law school at the University of Georgia, where he served as president of his class, his legal fraternity, the student body, the Interfraternity Council, and the Gridiron Club. He finished law school in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. In 1935 he married Mildred Delaney Slemons, and they had two children, Alvan and Alice. Following the death of Mildred in 1980, Arnall married Ruby Hamilton McCord.
Arnall's rise to political power is one of the most remarkable chapters in the state's political history. In 1932 voters in his home county of Coweta elected him to the Georgia House of Representatives when he was only twenty-five years old. The members of the lower house twice elected him to the position of Speaker pro tempore, that body's second-highest elective office. Governor E. D. Rivers appointed Arnall to fill a vacancy in the office of state attorney general and, two years later, named him attorney general; Arnall was thirty-one years old. This appointment made him the nation's youngest attorney general.
In 1942 Arnall ran against Governor Eugene Talmadge, who was seeking reelection. Talmadge's interference in the running of the state's university system, in what became known as the Cocking affair, had resulted in the loss of accreditation of most of the state's public colleges. On this issue, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Gubernatorial Accomplishments
Arnall provided four years of progressive reform, replacing the state's "Tobacco Road" national image with that of a progressive and forward-looking state. He successfully led efforts to restore accreditation to Georgia's institutions of higher learning. He reformed the state penal system, repealed the poll tax, lowered the voting age, revised the state constitution, established a teachers' retirement system, and paid off the long-existing state debt. Promising to end gubernatorial dictatorship in the state, Arnall led efforts to create eight constitutional boards in an effort to reduce the power of the governor. He also created a merit system for state employees and the State Ports Authority. Arnall successfully led the South's fight against discriminatory railroad freight rates, which had hampered the region's industrial development. As a result of his reform program, members of the national press found themselves in the unusual position of praising rather than condemning a governor of Georgia.
Just as remarkable as Arnall's political ascendancy was his political decline. The state constitution prohibited gubernatorial succession, and Arnall suffered his first major defeat when he failed to persuade the legislature to propose a constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Arnall also lost popularity by leading the efforts at the 1944 National Democratic Convention to renominate Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The liberal Wallace was unpopular in Georgia. But most damaging to Arnall's political career was his stance on allowing Blacks to vote in the state's white primaries. A federal district court held that the state's white primaries were unconstitutional. Arnall refused to follow the examples of other southern states, which tried to evade the court's mandate. His inaction allowed the Eugene Talmadge faction to denounce him as a traitor to the white race. Many white Georgians believed Arnall was too liberal on the race issue, and a politically revived Talmadge won the 1946 primary by promising to restore the state's white primary. Many also resented Arnall's best-selling books, The Shore Dimly Seen (1946) and What the People Want (1948), and his nationwide lecture tour that, they believed, belittled the South.
Government & Politics
Governors of Georgia
Statehood
Twentieth Century
Ellis Arnall
1907-1992
Media (2)
Cite
Author
Harold Paulk Henderson, Abraham Baldwin College
Later Career
Ellis Arnall's four years as governor of Georgia (1943-47) are considered to be among the most progressive and effective in the modern history of the state. Arnall undertook an ambitious ten-point reform program that was approved by the legislature within twenty-four days of his assuming the governorship—a record still unequalled in Georgia. He accomplished these and other democratic reforms and, in the process, paid off a state debt of $36 million.
Family and Political Career
Ellis Gibbs Arnall was born on March 20, 1907, in Newnan, the son of Bessie Lena Ellis and Joseph Gibbs Arnall. He had one brother, Frank Marion II. After attending public school in Newnan, Arnall attended Mercer University and later transferred to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1928 with a degree in Greek. After graduating, Arnall entered the law school at the University of Georgia, where he served as president of his class, his legal fraternity, the student body, the Interfraternity Council, and the Gridiron Club. He finished law school in 1931 and returned to Newnan to practice law. In 1935 he married Mildred Delaney Slemons, and they had two children, Alvan and Alice. Following the death of Mildred in 1980, Arnall married Ruby Hamilton McCord.
Arnall's rise to political power is one of the most remarkable chapters in the state's political history. In 1932 voters in his home county of Coweta elected him to the Georgia House of Representatives when he was only twenty-five years old. The members of the lower house twice elected him to the position of Speaker pro tempore, that body's second-highest elective office. Governor E. D. Rivers appointed Arnall to fill a vacancy in the office of state attorney general and, two years later, named him attorney general; Arnall was thirty-one years old. This appointment made him the nation's youngest attorney general.
[Image] Herman Talmadge and Ellis Arnall
Courtesy of Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries.
In 1942 Arnall ran against Governor Eugene Talmadge, who was seeking reelection. Talmadge's interference in the running of the state's university system, in what became known as the Cocking affair, had resulted in the loss of accreditation of most of the state's public colleges. On this issue, the thirty-five-year-old Arnall defeated Talmadge to become the youngest governor in the nation.
Gubernatorial Accomplishments
Arnall provided four years of progressive reform, replacing the state's "Tobacco Road" national image with that of a progressive and forward-looking state. He successfully led efforts to restore accreditation to Georgia's institutions of higher learning. He reformed the state penal system, repealed the poll tax, lowered the voting age, revised the state constitution, established a teachers' retirement system, and paid off the long-existing state debt. Promising to end gubernatorial dictatorship in the state, Arnall led efforts to create eight constitutional boards in an effort to reduce the power of the governor. He also created a merit system for state employees and the State Ports Authority. Arnall successfully led the South's fight against discriminatory railroad freight rates, which had hampered the region's industrial development. As a result of his reform program, members of the national press found themselves in the unusual position of praising rather than condemning a governor of Georgia.
Just as remarkable as Arnall's political ascendancy was his political decline. The state constitution prohibited gubernatorial succession, and Arnall suffered his first major defeat when he failed to persuade the legislature to propose a constitutional amendment allowing gubernatorial succession. Arnall also lost popularity by leading the efforts at the 1944 National Democratic Convention to renominate Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The liberal Wallace was unpopular in Georgia. But most damaging to Arnall's political career was his stance on allowing Blacks to vote in the state's white primaries. A federal district court held that the state's white primaries were unconstitutional. Arnall refused to follow the examples of other southern states, which tried to evade the court's mandate. His inaction allowed the Eugene Talmadge faction to denounce him as a traitor to the white race. Many white Georgians believed Arnall was too liberal on the race issue, and a politically revived Talmadge won the 1946 primary by promising to restore the state's white primary. Many also resented Arnall's best-selling books, The Shore Dimly Seen (1946) and What the People Want (1948), and his nationwide lecture tour that, they believed, belittled the South.
[Image] Ellis Arnall
Courtesy of Georgia Archives.
The end of Arnall's tenure as governor proved to be as memorable as anything he actually achieved in office because of the "three governors controversy," a dispute over the rightful heir to the governorship that erupted in the wake of Talmadge's death one month after winning the election. With both the lieutenant governor Melvin E. Thompson and Talmadge's son, Herman, vying for the post-election vacancy, Arnall made it a three-way contest by refusing to vacate the governor's office until the dispute was settled. He dropped his claim to the office two months before the matter was resolved by the state supreme court, which ruled that Thompson would serve as acting governor until a special election could be held the following year.
Later Career
After leaving the governorship in 1947, Arnall became a successful attorney and businessman in Atlanta. For a brief period he served in the administration of U.S president Harry S. Truman as director of the office of price stabilization. Truman offered him the position of U.S. solicitor general, but he declined. Arnall again ran for governor in 1966. He was the front-runner in the Democratic primary in a field of six candidates, but he was forced into a runoff with Lester Maddox, a well-known segregationist. Maddox defeated Arnall in the runoff. The former governor never sought public office again.
Ellis Arnall died in 1992 at the age of eighty-five. In 2011 a historical marker honoring him was dedicated in Newnan.
— Originally published Aug 12, 2002
Last edited Aug 19, 2020
Henderson, Harold. "Ellis Arnall." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Aug 19, 2020. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ellis-arnall-1907-1992/
Inscription
GERTRUDE BENSON
ARNALL
NOV. 12, 1864
JAN. 26, 1952
Gravesite Details
Daughter of Catherine Elizabeth Brewer and Richard Aaron Benson, of Macon, Bibb County, Georgia. Second wife of Henry Clay Arnall, of Newnan, Coweta County, Georgia.
