The Atlanta History Center (AHC) is a history museum and research center located in the Buckhead district of Atlanta, Georgia. The Museum was founded in 1926, and currently consists of six permanent, and several temporary, exhibitions. The AHC campus is 33-acres and features historic gardens and houses located on the grounds, including Swan House, Tullie Smith Farm, and Wood Family Cabin. The AHC's research arm, the Kenan Research Center, includes 3.5 million resources and a reproduction of historian Franklin Garrett's (1906â€"2000) office. The AHC holds one of the largest collections of Civil War artifacts in the United States.
Exhibitions
The Atlanta History Center operates three types of exhibitions - permanent, temporary, and traveling. The six permanent exhibitions include:
- Centennial Olympic Games Museum is made up of two sections. One is the upper Sports Lab, accessible by elevator, in which one is able to test himself against the Olympic records. There is also the main area, in which there are artifacts from the Olympics, interactives, information, and films. One of the main attractions is the 12-part test, which allows one to test himself on his Olympic knowledge, and then posts a score.
- Turning Point: The American Civil War exhibition contains 1,400 of the Atlanta History Center's enormous collection of Civil War artifacts.
- Metropolitan Frontiers exhibit chronicles Atlanta's expansion from farm to city in four stages: Rural Region, Transportation Center, Commercial City, and Suburban Metropolis. Currently being updated under the working title, Atlanta Stories - set to open in April 2016.
- Shaping Traditions: Folk Arts in a Changing South exhibit shows the development and attributes of Southern folk art. It includes forms ranging from clothing and food to singing and storytelling and presents both the traditional and the modern.
- Down the Fairway with Bobby Jones exhibit is based on the life of Georgia's most famous golfer, Bobby Jones, and chronicles the early development of golf in the United States.
- Philip Trammell Shutze: Atlanta Classicist, Connoisseur, and Collector exhibit tells the story of Philip Trammell Shutze, one of Atlanta's foremost architects, who was also known for his art collections. A Phillip Trammell Shutze designed house, the Swan House, is also on the grounds of the Atlanta History Center.
The Kenan Research Center includes 3.5 million resources and a reproduction of historian Franklin Garrett's office.
Historic house museums
- The Tullie Smith House is an antebellum farmhouse built by the Robert Smith family and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was originally a small farm in Dekalb County with 11 slaves, comprising 200 acres (0.81Â km2). The house was moved to the Atlanta History Center grounds in 1969, and it currently comprises the farm house, kitchen, blacksmith shop, smokehouse, double corncrib, log cabin, and barn, and several gardens. The barn contains several animals including angora goats and sheep
- The Victorian and Lee playhouses are miniature houses. The Lee playhouse is located between the McElreath Hall and the Tullie Smith Farm. It was donated to the Atlanta History Center in 1998. The Victorian playhouse is located beside the Boxwood Garden. It was donated to the Atlanta History Center in 1980, and has gone through six owners.
- The Swan House, designed by Philip Trammell Shutze in the 1920s, is named for its many swan designs. It is surrounded by the Boxwood Garden, based upon Italian gardens as created in 18th century England by Lord Burlington and William Kent. The front landscape, two cloverleaf fountains and a terraced lawn, is one of the most photographed places in America.
- The Wood Family Cabin is a log structure located within the Swan House woods. It is used to interpret North Georgia settler and Native American life in the 1820s and 1830s, in the context of the Georgia land lotteries. Some of its logs were originally used for the home of Elias and Jane Wood, early settlers in the Piedmont region of Georgia (where today's Buckhead district in Atlanta resides). The original home was situated approximately two miles from the site of the Creek Indian settlement of Standing Peachtree and one mile south of the Chattahoochee River. The cabin was donated to the Atlanta History Center by Dr. and Mrs. Carl Hartrampf Jr., descendants of the Wood family, in 2014.
- The historic gardens are located next to the historic houses. The Cherry Sims garden contains Asian and native south-eastern plants. The Frank A. Smith Rhododendron Garden and the Swan House Boxwood Garden feature native plants. The Quarry Garden features pre-settlement plants only. The Tullie Smith Farm Garden features plants used in 1860s gardening, and includes two parts: a field, filled with profitable vegetables, and a smaller slave's garden.
- The Atlanta History Center also owns the restored Margaret Mitchell House & Museum, home of Margaret Mitchell from 1925-1932 while she was writing the novel Gone With The Wind. The house includes the Gone With The Wind movie museum, the reconstructed apartment #1 in which Mitchell lived, changing exhibitions, and The Literary Center. This is ticketed separately and is located near the Midtown MARTA station.
History
The Atlanta History Center was founded in 1926 as the Atlanta Historical Society (AHS). Initially, the society operated as an institution for historical discussion and appreciation but, by the next year, began publishing the Atlanta Historical Bulletin. The AHS was first led by Walter McElreath (1867â€"1951), an Atlanta lawyer, legislator, and author for whom the Center's McElreath Hall is named. The periodical was later named Atlanta History: A Journal of Georgia and the South; it was published until 2006.
In 1986 the still relatively small group received the DuBose Collection of Civil War artifacts, donated by Mrs. Beverly M. DuBose Jr. In 1989, the Atlanta Historical Society built the current museum to house the DuBose collection.
In 1990, the Atlanta Historical Society was renamed the Atlanta History Center. The $15,000,000 museum opened in 1993 with five exhibitions, including its first signature Atlanta history exhibition, Metropolitan Frontiers. An $11,000,000 expansion, finished in 1996, added two new permanent exhibitions, Shaping Traditions: Folk Arts in a Changing South and Turning Point: The American Civil War. The Kenan Research Center library was later expanded and the gardens reorganized, with a fourth permanent exhibition added, Down the Fairway with Bobby Jones. In 2006, the Centennial Olympic Museum was completed.
In 2014, the city of Atlanta announced its intentions to relocate the Atlanta Cyclorama and its artifacts to the Atlanta History Center, including the antebellum Western & Atlantic locomotive, the Texas. The museum plans to construct an expansion to house the 360-degree panoramic painting of the Civil War, the Battle of Atlanta, as well as the Texas locomotive, and other pieces in the Cyclorama collection. The expanded history center is planned to be completed in 2018.
Accessibility
Paved pathways through the historic gardens connect to the Swan House and the Tullie Smith Farm, but most paths are unpaved. Large-print books are available for a few exhibitions in the Atlanta History Museum and videos have subtitles. Maps are available in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.
References
External links
- Atlanta History Center website
- Atlanta History Center on Google Cultural Institute
- Atlanta, Georgia, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
