Georgia – Page 2 – the DLG B

Black and white photograph of a young African American boy standing next to a cow in a fenced pasture. — Julia King Collection – boy with cow https://dlg.usg.edu/record/midm_jkic_682

In partnership with the Midway Museum, the Digital Library of Georgia has just made the Julia R. King Collection available online.

King (1863–1952) was a descendant of the Roswell King (1765–1844) family of Georgia plantation owners and managers who owned land, property, and enslaved people across Georgia dating back to the 1700s.

The collection includes essential documents related to slavery, including estate appraisals and inventories that include the first names of enslaved African Americans. It will be of particular interest to those doing family research on people enslaved in Liberty County, Georgia.

Stacy Ashmore Cole, the creator of “TheyHadNames.net: African Americans in Early Liberty County Records, secretary of the Midway Museum Board of Governors, and president of the Coastal Georgia Genealogical Society, describes the importance of these records.

“The Midway Museum’s Julia R. King Collection contains essential references to enslaved people unavailable elsewhere.

These documents will interest them and others who have not yet discovered their ancestry.

The study of these enslaver families, including the Kings, is critical to Liberty County African American genealogical and historical research.

They had a long tradition of keeping enslaved people within their families through inheritance, lending, and gifting, including down the white female lines. Because of this, the only way to trace a particular enslaved person is often through probate and enslaving family documents.

The small size of the collection and its relative geographical remoteness have made it difficult for academic researchers to prioritize. The Midway Museum is also in an area vulnerable to hurricanes.

Digitization ensures that we preserve these materials and make them easily accessible for future generations.”

View the entire collection online

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About the Midway Museum

Since its founding, the Midway Museum has been supported by the descendants of the Midway Church members, who have provided 18th- and 19th-century family heirlooms, documents, books, genealogical lineages, and heirloom furnishings, paintings, and artifacts. Many Midway Church descendants still live in Liberty County and coastal Georgia, serve on the Board of Governors, and visit during the Midway Church’s annual Homecoming. Visit themidwaymuseum.org/

About the Digital Library of Georgia

The Digital Library of Georgia is an award-winning GALILEO initiative housed at the University of Georgia Libraries. With the state’s cultural heritage organizations, the DLG shares Georgia’s history online for free through its websites. The project supports its partner organizations by offering free and low-cost services. The DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper preservation project.

Visit our website at dlg.usg.edu
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Twitter: @DigLibGA
Instagram: @diglibga
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Selected images from the collection:

Image courtesy of Midway Museum

Title : Julia King Collection – Man with Hands.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/midm_jkic_704

Image courtesy of Midway Museum

Title : Exchange of Slaves between Mary Maxwell and Julia R. King, 1842.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/midm_jkic_282-53

Drawings by Georgia’s first female landscape architect Clermont Lee are now publicly available online thanks to a collaboration between the Georgia Historical Society and the Digital Library of Georgia.

From 1940 through the mid-1980s, she made landscape designs for clients in Savannah, Georgia, and throughout the Southeast.

“These designs provide insight into the less-well documented elements of preservation and restoration projects throughout the state,” notes G. Andrew Fleming, the Friends of Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites executive director.

“Clermont Lee was a pioneering figure in the history of landscape architecture,” says Nate Pedersen, Manager of the Archival and Reference Team at the Georgia Historical Society. “We expect her drawings to be of significant interest to historic preservationists, landscape architects, gardeners, and scholars around the country. As such, we are delighted to be able to freely share her drawings online and are grateful for the support from the Digital Library of Georgia.”

Plans for many Georgia and South Carolina residences, churches, schools, city blocks, office buildings, parks, airports, and historic sites are among the detailed design drawings now available at GHS. Lee is probably best-known locally for her mid-to-late twentieth-century work designing formal gardens for several of Savannah’s historic house museums, including the Owens-Thomas House and the Green-Meldrim House, as well as plans for several of the Landmark District’s beloved squares. Across the state, Lee’s designs include plans for the Chief Vann House in Murray County and Baptist Village in Waycross.

Fleming also adds: “These types of records are invaluable in helping establish a complete picture of our state’s historic spaces.”

About Clermont Lee

Clermont Huger Lee, born in Savannah in 1914, was the city’s first female architect in private practice. She worked as an assistant to T.M. Baumgardner of the Sea Island Corporation during the Great Depression. She became interested in historic gardens in the 1940s after receiving her education at Barnard and Smith Colleges.

As one of the first professional female landscape architects in Georgia, Lee worked with and independently of some of her era’s leading preservationists. She focused on preserving, recreating, and reinterpreting historic gardens and landscapes. This was an aspect of the preservation movement that she felt was ignored in many plans that focused on historic structures.

Lee represents a less recognized part of the movement’s story as both a professional woman working in the field and as a preservationist focused on the natural environment. Historic preservation, particularly during the mid-twentieth century, was associated primarily with professional male architects and developers. Women (usually wealthy white women) worked as volunteers and activists.

In addition to her work in Savannah, she worked on projects throughout Georgia and in cities such as Jacksonville, Florida, and Hilton Head, South Carolina. Lee also worked on the founding of the Georgia State Landscape Architects Board.

Clermont Lee passed away in 2006 on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

About the Georgia Historical Society

Georgia Historical Society (GHS) is the premier independent statewide research and educational institution responsible for collecting, examining, and teaching Georgia history. GHS houses the oldest and most distinguished collection of materials related exclusively to Georgia history in the nation. Visit georgiahistory.com/

Selected Images: