Coca-Cola’s Robert Woodruff wielded unrivaled power over Atlanta.

Evidence

Chief among these was Robert Woodruff. As head of the Coca-Cola Company, Woodruff controlled the city’s pride and joy, a business that was then already worth nearly a half billion dollars. But Coca-Cola was only the beginning of Woodruff’s power. He also served on the boards of General Electric and the Southern Railway and presided over the powerful Trust Company of Georgia. He held considerable sway at Emory University as well, since he had personally underwritten the medical school and helped establish the research laboratory that would become the Centers for Disease Control. Needless to say, Woodruff cast an enormous shadow. “When he gets an idea,” Hughes Spalding noted, “you can depend on it, others will get the idea.” Mills Lane, a powerful banker in his own right, agreed: “He was the only man in Atlanta who could snap his fingers and everybody would genuflect.” — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 70

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Coca-Cola’s Woodruff bankrolled Mayor Hartsfield’s political rise — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 71

Broader Connections

• Coca-Cola’s Woodruff bankrolled Mayor Hartsfield’s political rise #exemplifies (0.90) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 71