Gwinnett County

In Gwinnett County’s two hundred years, the area has been western, southern, rural, suburban, and now increasingly urban. Its stories include the displacement of Native peoples, white settlement, legal battles over Indian Removal, slavery and cotton, the Civil War and the Lost Cause, New South railroad and town development, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, business development and finance in a national economy, a Populist uprising and Black outmigration, the entrance of women into the political arena, the evolution of cotton culture, the development of modern infrastructure, and the transformation from rural to suburban to a multicultural urbanizing place. Gwinnett, as its chamber of commerce likes to say, has it all. However, Gwinnett has yet to be the focus of a major historical exploration—until now. Through a compilation of essays written by professional historians with expertise in a diverse array of eras and fields, Michael Gagnon and Matthew Hild’s collection finally tells these stories in a systematic way—avoiding the pitfalls of nonprofessional local histories that tend to ignore issues of race, class, or gender. While not claiming to be comprehensive, this book provides general readers and scholars alike with a glimpse at Gwinnett through the ages.

The African-American community of Gwinnett County boasts a rich heritage brought to life in scenes captured by early photography. These residents faced challenges and hardships both during and after slavery and entered into the turbulent 20th century poised for social change; theirs is an engaging story told by the proud faces in this volume. Men and women who built homes and businesses, who defended their country in times of war, and who educated their young make up the diverse and determined African-American citizenry of this greater Atlanta community.

On July 3, 1992, seven-month-old Haley Hardwick was reported kidnapped. Her father Kenny Hardwick told police that he had stopped to assist two stranded motorists and, upon returning to his own vehicle, discovered his daughter missing. The case became a media sensation overnight. People in the metropolitan Atlanta area became obsessed with the mystery of the baby's disappearance. Huge searches by hundreds of volunteers produced no trace of the child. Although they spent hundreds of man-hours following up leads about the kidnapping, the police began to believe that the father was responsible and, with the media, began a campaign to pressure him into revealing the truth.Numerous interviews with the lead investigators and the child's mother have provided in-depth insight into the case from two very different perspectives. While the police followed one lead after another, the child's mother was torn between believing a husband she loved and the authorities who kept telling her he was responsible for the baby's disappearance. As the investigation dragged on, Haley Hardwick became everybody's baby.