In beam carpet tufting operations, strands from approximately twelve large beams of yarn are guided into the needles of a tufting machine. Courtesy of Shaw Industries, Inc. The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print. All requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource must be submitted to the rights holder.

The setting for generations of pirate lore and tales of buried treasure, coastal Georgia’s Blackbeard Island has had a compelling history for at least 200 years, including a period when it was the largest federal marine quarantine station on the south Atlantic coast. The 5,618-acre island, northeast of Sapelo Island in McIntosh County, was named for Edward Teach, best known as “Blackbeard,” a pirate who conducted raids on merchant shipping in the region in the early eighteenth century.

Among the more consequential U.S. Supreme Court cases of the late twentieth century, Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law that criminalized consensual gay sex within one’s private residence. The Georgia Supreme Court invalidated the same law in 1998, and in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its earlier ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. Background Michael Hardwick was born in Miami, Florida in 1954. Raised in a middle-class family, he graduated high school, studied botany at a local college, and found work in a nursery.

The student center at Brunswick Junior College (later College of Coastal Georgia) in Glynn County is pictured in 1965. The first graduating class matriculated from the college, which was founded in 1961, the following year. Courtesy of College of Coastal Georgia. Photograph by Calvin DeWeese, Director of Media Services The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.

W. Cameron Forbes, a U.S. ambassador to Japan and one-time governor of the Philippines, established Birdwood Plantation in Thomas County in 1932. During the 1950s his plantation was converted into Birdwood College, which later became Thomas University. Courtesy of Thomas University The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.