Standard Telephone Company Records documenting Standard Telephone Company’s provision of services to rural northeast Georgians for the past century are now available online.

Selected by statewide cultural heritage stakeholders and funded by the DLG’s competitive digitization grant program, this collection is the Habersham County Historical Society’s first collaboration with the DLG and is available here:

Standard Telephone Company Records

The collection contains historical materials dating from 1904 to 1999 that come from the archives of the independently-owned Standard Telephone Company. Headquartered in Cornelia, it provided telephone service to rural northeast Georgians. Among the materials are items recognizing fifty years of service from the Standard Telephone Company’s longtime employee, Henry Davis, an African-American telephone engineer, the first in Georgia and possibly the nation.

Dean C. Swanson, former president of STC Holdings, and Jim Johnson, former president of Standard Telephone Company, jointly establish the importance of making this work accessible freely online.

“The Independent Telephone Companies in Georgia had the most difficult economic and physical deployments due to the nature of the rural areas; these pioneers persevered with great risks. Digitization would be a great tribute to them.  Additionally, the circumstances and conditions under which the Standard Telephone Company was developed are highly generalizable. They can serve to glean similar processes in other rural areas for which this kind of history is not available. While the Habersham County Historical Society has a museum of Standard Telephone’s history and phone apparatus, we know too well that the younger generation will often turn to online digitized history to learn about the history of this industry. Given that, we feel digitizing this information is of great value to future generations.”

About the Habersham County Historical Society 

The Habersham County Historical Society was formed on February 22, 1973, by twelve citizens from Clarkesville, Cornelia, and Demorest on the campus of Piedmont College. In 2018, the society compiled the county’s history in a bicentennial publication: A Brief History 1818 – 2018, Habersham200: New Thoughts of Old Things. To celebrate the society’s 50th Year Golden Jubilee – a commemorative edition was published and is available on Amazon. The celebration was hosted by Piedmont University on March 11, 2023, and celebrated the entire county.

Visit https://www.habershamcountyhistorical50.com/ for highlights of the celebration.

You can find Habersham County Historical Society online at: https://habershamhistoricalsociety.org/.

 

About the Digital Library of Georgia

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) serves as Georgia’s statewide cultural heritage digitization initiative. It is a joint project between the University of Georgia Libraries and GALILEO. The DLG collaborates with Georgia’s cultural heritage and educational institutions to provide free online access to historic resources in Georgia. The DLG not only develops, maintains, and preserves digital collections and online resources but also partners to build digitization capacity and technical infrastructure. It acts as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and facilitates cooperative digitization initiatives. The DLG serves as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia’s print journalism preservation project.

 

Selected images from the collection:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Telephone Directory 1945

URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/hchsi_stcr_stc-pd1945

Collection: Standard Telephone Company records

Courtesy of the Habersham County Historical Society (Ga.)

Description: 1945 telephone directory for the Standard Telephone Company of Cornelia, Georgia, which served Habersham County in northeast Georgia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Original company charter STC

URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/hchsi_stcr_stc-charter 

Collection: Standard Telephone Company records

Courtesy of the Habersham County Historical Society (Ga.)

Description: Original company charter for the Standard Telephone Company of Cornelia, Georgia.

 

Title: DEDICATION Henry Davis Building June 21, 1986

URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/hchsi_stcr_stc-dedication

Collection: Standard Telephone Company records

Courtesy of the Habersham County Historical Society (Ga.)

Description: Page 2 of a pamphlet celebrating the dedication of the Henry Davis Building, recognizing fifty years of service from the Standard Telephone Company’s longtime employee, Henry Davis. Davis was an African American telephone engineer, the first in Georgia and possibly the nation.

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New collection features over 50 years of digitized African American funeral programs from Evans County, Georgia, and are now available freely online.

Selected by statewide cultural heritage stakeholders and funded by the DLG’s competitive digitization grant program, over 3,000 pages of digitized African American funeral programs from Evans County, Georgia, and other Southeastern towns and cities are now freely available in the Digital Library of Georgia and can be seen online here:

African American Funeral Programs, 1960-2022

The collection of 637 individual programs dates between 1961-2022, with the birth dates of the people represented going back to 1870.

Pharris D. Johnson, former mayor of Bellville, Georgia, chairman of the Savannah College of Art and Design Board of Trustees, and Vice President of the Evans County Historical Society says:

“The Evans County Community Center and African American Archive Museum serves our community in an outstanding manner. They accomplish their mission with a small budget and through dedicated volunteers. As we know, funeral programs provide valuable social and genealogical information.  [These materials from] the Evans County Community Center Archives are an important resource for the residents of Evans and surrounding counties.”

Documenting an underrepresented region of Georgia, this collection provides important information for genealogical research and for understanding African American life during different time periods. 

Funeral programs provide valuable social and genealogical information and typically include a photograph of the deceased individual, an obituary, a list of surviving relatives, and information about the funeral service. Some programs provide more extensive genealogical information such as birth and death dates, maiden names, past residences, accomplishments, affiliations, and burial locations. For marginalized populations, this information can often be difficult to find, as the records of many in these communities were often either destroyed, kept privately, or never created in the first place.

The Evans County African American Archive Museum has collected funeral programs for over twenty years. Since then, residents have contributed to the collection. 

Darin McCoy of the Evans County Historical Society notes: 

“[Our] facility operates within an under-served rural county in terms of digitized African American history. However, the Evans County Historical Society alumni and the Evans County African American Archive Museum leadership team are well-known advocates for the preservation and collection of local African American history and artifacts. Our featured displays, public events, and family presentations are unique and emphasize the historical value of these entities. The vision, collections, and the preservation of artifacts, begun over twenty (20) years ago, have now come to fruition.”

Digitization and access have been made possible through the Digital Library of Georgia’s competitive digitization subgrant program and are displayed and searchable within their online portal. The Digital Library of Georgia has also partnered with local libraries and the Georgia Public Library Service to digitize African American funeral programs for people connected to the Atlanta, Augusta-Richmond County, and Thomas County areas. 

 

About the Evans County African American Archive Museum (Claxton, Ga.)

The mission of the Evans County African American Archive Museum is to provide means for all citizens of Evans County to obtain an excellent quality of life through programs and services. The Archive was the recipient of a 2021 GHRAC Award for History Advocacy. Their Facebook group is: https://www.facebook.com/Evans-County-Community-Center-343942125941003/ 

Selected images from the collection:

Title: Funeral program for Charles L. Bailey
URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/eccca_aafp-ec_ecaaam-470
Collection: African American Funeral Programs, 1960-2022
Courtesy of the Evans County Community Center (Claxton, Ga.)
Description: Funeral program for Charles L. Bailey. Date of funeral service: June 18, 2011. Location of funeral service: St. John Missionary Baptist Church, Claxton, Georgia, 11:00 a.m. Birth date: November 19, 1916. Death date: June 12, 2011.
Title: Funeral program for Earlene Harris
URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/eccca_aafp-ec_ecaaam-632
Collection: African American Funeral Programs, 1960-2022
Courtesy of the Evans County Community Center (Claxton, Ga.)
Description: Funeral program for Earlene Harris. Date of funeral service: November 4, 2021. Location of funeral service: Beulah Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, 11:00 a.m. Birth date: April 8, 1935. Death date: October 28, 2021.
Title: Funeral program for Reverend Lee Jones
URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/eccca_aafp-ec_ecaaam-402
Collection: African American Funeral Programs, 1960-2022
Courtesy of the Evans County Community Center (Claxton, Ga.)
Description: Funeral program for Reverend Lee Jones. Date of funeral service: June 5, 2008. Location of funeral service: Pittman Park United Methodist Church, Statesboro, Georgia, 1:00 p.m. Birth date: October 6, 1926. Death date: June 02, 2008.
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