{{Short description|American politician}} {{Use American English|date=May 2024}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2017}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = William Yates Atkinson | image = William Yates Atkinson.jpg | caption = Atkinson, {{Circa|1898}} | order = 55th Governor of Georgia | term_start = October 27, 1894 | term_end = October 29, 1898 | predecessor = William J. Northen | successor = Allen D. Candler | birth_name = William Yates Atkinson | birth_date = {{birth date|1854|11|11}} | birth_place = Meriwether County, Georgia, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1899|8|8|1854|11|11}} | death_place = Newnan, Georgia, U.S. | resting_place = Oak Hill Cemetery | party = Democratic | spouse = {{marriage|Susan Cobb Milton|1880}} | alma_mater = University of Georgia {{small|(LL.B.)}} }}
'''William Yates Atkinson''' (November 11, 1854 – August 8, 1899) was an American politician who served as the 55th governor of Georgia from 1894 to 1898.
==Early life== Atkinson was born in the Oakland community in Meriwether County, Georgia, on November 11, 1854. He graduated from the University of Georgia with an LL.B in 1877. He married Susan Cobb Milton, granddaughter of Florida Governor John Milton,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ham|first1=Henry Wilkes Jones|title=Representative Georgians. Biographical sketches of men now in public life|date=1887|publisher=Morning News Print|location=Savannah|page=[https://archive.org/details/representativege00hamh/page/191 191]|url=https://archive.org/details/representativege00hamh|quote=William Yates Atkinson.|access-date=June 18, 2016}}</ref> in 1880.
==Political life== After graduating from the University of Georgia, Atkinson began practicing law in Newnan. Atkinson was the solicitor of the Coweta Superior Court circuit. He then represented Coweta County as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives (1886–94), where he was the speaker, or presiding officer, during the last two years. As a state representative, he introduced a bill that established the Georgia Normal and Industrial College, which later became Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. He was also the Georgia Democratic Party state chair from 1890 to 1892. [[File:Governor William Y. Atkinson, 1895.png|thumb|223x223px|1895 cartoon of Atkinson in ''The Atlanta Constitution'']] Atkinson won the 1894 election and was elected Governor of Georgia. He was reelected to a second term in 1896.<ref>{{cite web|title=William Yates Atkinson|url=http://www.nga.org/cms/home/governors/past-governors-bios/page_georgia/col2-content/main-content-list/title_atkinson_william.default.html|publisher=National Governors Association|access-date=June 18, 2016}}</ref> During his administration, he hired the first woman salaried employee in state government, Helen Dortch, as assistant state librarian. In 1897, he vetoed a law that would have prohibited football in the state, due in part to an impassioned letter from Rosalind Burns Gammon, whose son's death had initiated the anti-football legislation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/vongammon.htm |title=Von Gammon |work=Georgia Info |publisher=Digital Library of Georgia |access-date=May 14, 2012}}</ref> He was vehement in his opposition to the practice of lynching.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Arnold|first1=Edwin T.|title=What virtue there is in fire : cultural memory and the lynching of sam hose.|date=2012|publisher=Univ Of Georgia Press|location=Athens|isbn=978-0820340647|page=99}}</ref>
Atkinson was mentioned by William Henry Holtzclaw, later founder of Utica Institute in Mississippi, as giving him the money he needed to go back to Tuskegee Institute for college - as well as a kindly lecture on the advisability of staying out of politics.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Holtzclaw|first1=William H.|title=The Black Man's Burden|date=1915|page=58|publisher=New York, The Neale Publishing company|url=https://archive.org/stream/blackmans00holtrich#page/58/mode/1up}}</ref>
After his two terms as governor, Atkinson bravely confronted the mob in the infamous Sam Hose lynching and tried to get them to allow the legal justice system to take its course.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Thurston|first1=Robert W.|title=Lynching : American mob murder in global perspective|date=2011|publisher=Ashgate|location=Farnham, Surrey, England|isbn=978-1409409083|page=118}}</ref> He was unsuccessful, however, and Hose was lynched soon after Atkinson confronted the mob.
==Death and legacy==
Atkinson died on August 8, 1899, at the age of 44. He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Newnan. Atkinson County, Georgia, is named for him.
His son, William Yates Atkinson Jr., was the Georgia Democratic state chair in 1942 as well as a Georgia state Supreme Court justice from 1943 to 1948.
Atkinson Hall, on the campus of Georgia College and State University, is named for him.<ref>{{cite web|title=Atkinson Hall (Georgia College & State University)|url=http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/larc/id:jlc0338|publisher=Digital Library of Georgia|access-date=June 18, 2016}}</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|Biography}} * List of speakers of the Georgia House of Representatives
==References== {{reflist}} *[http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/tdgh-nov/nov11.htm ''This Day in Georgia History:November 11th'', Ed Jackson and Charly Pou, Carl Vinson Institute of Government, The University of Georgia]
==External links== {{commons category}} * Hulett, Keith. [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/william-y-atkinson-1854-1899 "William Y. Atkinson (1854-1899)."] New Georgia Encyclopedia. September 25, 2014. Web. June 17, 2016. * {{cite BDA1906 |wstitle= Atkinson, William Yates |volume= 1 |page= 160 |short=}} *[http://www.sos.state.ga.us/onlinetour/2ndfloor/portarits/william_y_atkinson.html Portrait of William Yates Atkinson] *{{Find a Grave|7957529}} *[http://collectionsdev.atlantahistorycenter.com:2011/cdm/ref/collection/athpc/id/445 Picture of Georgia Governor William Yates Atkinson (foreground) with his military staff on horseback at the corner of Peachtree Street and Cain Street (now Andrew Young International Boulevard) in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.] Atlanta History Photograph Collection, Atlanta History Center, presented in the Digital Library of Georgia. Web. June 17, 2016. *{{cite web|title=Governor William Yates Atkinson historical marker|url=http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/topics/historical_markers/county/coweta/governor-william-yates-atkinson|publisher=Digital Library of Georgia|access-date=June 18, 2016}}
{{S-start}} {{s-ppo}} {{s-bef|before=William J. Northen}} {{s-ttl|title=Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia|years=1894, 1896}} {{s-aft|after=Allen D. Candler}} {{s-off}} {{succession box|title=Governor of Georgia |before=William J. Northen|after=Allen D. Candler| years=1894{{spaced ndash}}1898}} {{S-end}}
{{Governors of Georgia}} {{Speakers of the Georgia House of Representatives}} {{Democratic Party of Georgia}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atkinson, William Yates}} Category:1854 births Category:1899 deaths Category:Democratic Party governors of Georgia (U.S. state) Category:People from Newnan, Georgia Category:People from Meriwether County, Georgia Category:University of Georgia School of Law alumni Category:Speakers of the Georgia House of Representatives Category:Democratic Party members of the Georgia House of Representatives Category:State political party chairs of Georgia (U.S. state) Category:19th-century members of the Georgia General Assembly