Book Fair

Georgia College history professor John Fair publishes his sixth book

Professor of History John Fair has taken Georgia history into his own hands by writing a book about an influential family from southern Georgia. Fair’s newest book, entitled “The Tifts of Georgia: Connecticut Yankees in King Cotton’s Court,” enumerates the achievements of the Tift family, who first came to Georgia from Connecticut in the 1800s to found two large Georgian communities: Tifton and Albany.

“They, like myself, came to the South and contributed something to the South, and like myself were influenced, or you might say corrupted, by the South. In other words they became true blue Southerners,” Fair said, “They supported the South in the Civil War. One of them signed the articles of succession, one of them even built two ironclads.”

Fair has much in common with the Tifts of Georgia in that he also came to the South from a northern state, more specifically a little town called Waynesboro, Pa.

“I was born a mile north of the Mason-Dixon Line, near Gettysburg,” Fair said.

Fair, like the Tifts, became a Southerner in many respects.

“I married into the South, had southern children, and enjoy the South. I can even speak Southern if I want to,” Fair said.

Fair, a physical culture historian, became interested in the Tift family by way of Bob Hoffman, weightlifter and founder of the magazine “Muscular Development,” which Fair—a weightlifter himself—grew up reading. Knowing that Hoffman was born in Tifton.

Fair decided to make a trip to Tifton to find out more about Hoffman’s past.

“I ran down to Tifton, and found a good bit about Hoffman in the newspapers and library. In the process of finding out stuff about him, I ran across the Tift family,” Fair said. “I found their story ultimately fascinating.”

Fair then went on an escapade to several states, tracking down Tift family members and holding interviews in order to find out more about their ancestors. Fair eventually came to find that the Tifts’ story was one of paternalism.

“The Tifts were paternalists, in other words father figures, not only for their communities, but they gave away a lot of money, they were very active in civic affairs. They donated a lot of their time and their money.

Some of the Tifts are still doing that in fact,” Fair said.

“The Tifts of Georgia” is not only a story of paternalism, but of internal migration and the southern region of Georgia, two areas of study that Fair feels tend to be overlooked.

“There is a lot of knowledge out there about immigration, but there’s very little study done on internal migration. In that sense this book fills a sort of gap,” Fair said. “It’s also a study on a neglected area of Georgia. Most studies of Georgia history are done on the coastal areas, Savannah, especially, or north Georgia, about the development of Atlanta. So the book kind of fills that gap as well.”

“The Tifts of Georgia” is Fair’s sixth book, and a completed project from a multitude that Fair is currently working on, including a book about Mr. America.

“I’m constantly seeing topics I want to do,” Fair said. “ It just comes from the fact that I’m interested in things around me, especially culture and people, why they are the way they are.”