Our Newest Georgia Exhibit “Thy Neighbor as Thyself” (March 2024)

Photo of the Graduating Class of the Atlanta School of Social Work, 1920

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) and the New Georgia Encyclopedia (NGE) are pleased to present Georgia Exhibits’ newest exhibition, curated by Kailey Joy McAlpin, “‘Thy Neighbor As Thyself’: The Women Who Shaped Georgia’s Civic Landscape.” 

Kailey Joy McAlpin, a Ph.D. student at Georgia State University, explores Georgia’s women reformers of the Progressive Era, some of whom include Mary Latimer McLendon, Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Carrie Steele, Helen Pendleton, Lugenia Burns Hope, Jessie Daniel Ames, Selena Sloan Butler, Martha Berry, and Julia Flisch.

Photo of Lugenia Burns Hope
“Lugenia Burns Hope.” 1871/1947. February 27, 2024. Courtesy of New Georgia Encyclopedia

These women came from different class backgrounds and had different racial attitudes and practices. McAlpin uses the theme and motto “Thy Neighbor as Thyself” to center the work done by Black women during the Progressive Era, both with and without the support of their white Progressive counterparts.

Photo of the Graduating Class of the Atlanta School of Social Work, 1920
“Graduating Class of Atlanta School of Social Work, circa 1920.” February 27, 2024. Courtesy of Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library

McAlpin’s work dedicates itself to bringing the differences between white and Black women reformers to light. She explains that access to materials, resources, and support was much more abundant to white women than their Black peers, not to mention the actual risk of life and limb posed to Black women, particularly with regard to suffrage. She states:

“While Black suffragists in the North could form organizations and advocate for voting rights, the hostile racial climate of the South and fear of violent retaliation from Southern whites kept many Black women from making public demands for suffrage. Despite the looming threat of assault and death, some Black women did publicly advocate for suffrage, and examples of Black suffrage organizations have been recovered in Tuskegee, Alabama, Charleston, South Carolina, and Memphis, Tennessee. While evidence of Black women’s suffrage in the Jim Crow South has often been hidden from the historical record, there was doubtless support for voting rights that took place behind closed doors in spaces removed from white surveillance.”

For better or worse, the engagement of these women and their respective organizations with their day’s pressing political issues and social concerns had a tremendous impact on voting access, child labor laws, rural education, public health legislation, racial inequality and injustice, and other social causes.

Photo of Selena Sloan Butler
Box 7, Folder 4, Selena Sloan Butler papers, Archives Division, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System.. “Photographs, Selena Sloan Butler, undated.” 1886/1893. February 27, 2024. Courtesy of Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History

Each year, DLG and NGE staff and graduate student interns curate Georgia Exhibits exhibitions to shed new light on understudied corners of the state’s history and showcase the remarkable breadth and depth of authoritative resources and historical content in the DLG and NGE. We offer all of these resources freely online.

You can view the exhibition at https://georgia-exhibits.galileo.usg.edu/spotlight/women-reformers and the rest of our Georgia Exhibits at https://georgia-exhibits.galileo.usg.edu.

K-12 educators take note: This exhibit serves our Georgia K-12 social studies audience by aligning with the Georgia Social Studies Standards of Excellence (GSE) standard SSUSH13: Evaluate efforts to reform American society and politics in the Progressive Era.

 

#HistoricPreservation #ProgressiveEra #Equality #WomensReform #CivilRights

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Forthcoming Newspapers – Spring 2024

This year, the Digital Library of Georgia will be adding a variety of new newspaper titles to the Georgia Historic Newspapers (GHN) website (https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/).  Below is the list of titles currently slated to be added to GHN in the Spring and Summer of 2024.

Titles funded by the Chattooga County Historical Society

Summerville News, 1980-2000

Titles funded by the Georgia Public Library Service

Alamo News, 1912

Baker County News (Newton), 1939-1947

Bryan County Enterprise (Pembroke), 1924-1927

Bulletin (Irwinton), 1912-1954

Clayton County News and Farmer (Jonesboro), 1936-1955

Enterprise (Pembroke), 1913-1923

Forest Park Free Press and Clayton County News and Farmer, 1955-1967

Forest Park Free Press and Clayton County News and Farmer and Forest Park News, 1968-1969

Forest Park News, 1956-1967

Irwinton Bulletin, 1907-1911

Pembroke Journal, 1927-1970

Wheeler County Eagle (Alamo), 1913-1972

Wheeler Herald (Alamo), 1913

Titles funded by the Lucy Hilton Maddox Memorial Library Trust

Early County News, 1967-1983

Titles funded by the Monroe County Historical Society 

Monroe Advertiser, 1910-1930

Titles funded by the Newton County Library System

Covington News, 1942-1969

Titles funded by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta

Georgia Bulletin, 1981-1990

Titles funded by the University of Georgia Libraries

Athens Banner-Herald, 1929-1965

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