Polk County Courthouse, Ivy Ledbetter Lee

02/20/09

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Photo Gallery: Polk County Courthouse, Ivy Ledbetter Lee

The markers below are located in front of the new courthouse, shown in the first photo. The old courthouse is seen in the last photo in the set below.

Marker Text, Polk County:
Created December 20, 1851 and named for President James Knox Polk. Cedartown is fittingly named for the trees which flourish in this beautiful valley. The city is a railroad center, has a thriving textile industry, and a large paper mill.
Rockmart, thirteen miles to the east, has textile mills that give the area much employment and a large payroll, and as well is the center of portland cement production.
115-1A Georgia Historical Commission 1953

Marker Text, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, Founder of Modern Public Relations:
Ivy Ledbetter Lee, public relations expert, author, lecturer, and philanthropist, was born July 16, 1877, near Cedartown. He attended Emory College for two years and then went to Princeton, where he earned his A.B. in 1898, paying his way by working on university and New York newspapers. In January, 1899, he arrived in New York "with a raincoat, a diploma, and five dollars," and found work as a reporter.
In 1904 pursuing his idea that Big Business needed better public relations, he opened a counseling office in New York. By 1915 he had begun a lifetime association as John D. Rockefeller's publicity counsel, especially in Rockefeller's widespread benevolences. Among Lee's other clients were the Pennsylvania Railroad and Bethlehem Steel, as well as numerous charities and churches to which he donated his services.
The founder of the profession of Public Relations, Ivy Lee, a Georgia gentleman who described himself as a "physician to corporate bodies," believed that corporations should not conceal the truth from the press and that business leaders should not shun publicity. His principles helped to make American business more public-spirited and humanitarian. He died of a brain tumor in New York City, Nov. 8, 1934.
115-7 Georgia Historical Commission 1965

Travel Main | Cedartown Commercial Historic District | Cedartown Waterworks, Big Spring Park, Woman's Building District | Dodge & Davis at Peek's Spring | Hawkes Children's Library | Logan's 15th Corps at Swaintown | McPherson's March to Dallas | Polk County Courthouse, Ivy Ledbetter Lee | Sterling Holloway 1903-1992 | US Post Office Cedartown

This site was last updated 02/20/09