Architectural records documenting segregated health care facilities in Baldwin, Richmond, Treutlen, Ware, and Wayne counties in Georgia now available online

In partnership with Kennesaw State University’s Department of Museums, Archives & Rare Books, the Digital Library of Georgia has just added a collection of oversized technical drawings from the Gregson and Ellis Architectural Drawings Collection that document the experiences of “living and receiving medical and mental health care in the mid-20th century segregated South,” according to Helen Thomas, the outreach archivist at Kennesaw State University Archives.

The collection, available at https://dlg.usg.edu/collection/gkj_gead, features facilities located across Baldwin, Richmond, Treutlen, Ware, and Wayne counties in Georgia. The digitized drawings will also be made available through KSU’s Scholarly Online Access Repository (SOAR) at https://soar.kennesaw.edu/handle/11360/5132.

Some images from the collection include:

Title: Treutlen County Hospital. Details of nurses station
Collection: Gregson and Ellis Architectural Drawings
https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gkj_gead_treutlen-020
Title: Augusta State Hospital Complex. [Floor plan – first floor]
Collection: Gregson and Ellis Architectural Drawings
https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gkj_gead_augusta-005

Thomas, who works regularly with these materials, adds: “Architectural records demonstrate not only trends in construction and design, but also reflect the society in which the buildings exist…The materials we proposed to digitize depict public facilities, from small rural hospitals to large medical complexes, representing the medical services available to all Georgians regardless of their level of income.”

She concludes: “Since each set of drawings shows public facilities built in Georgia before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, these drawings demonstrate how buildings were constructed to segregate not only by the facility but also within facilities. While some of the drawings in this collection reveal separate buildings constructed for the same purpose, but each restricted to white or African-American citizens (such as separate psychiatric buildings in the Milledgeville complex for white and African-American patients), some show how individual buildings were segregated. An example of the latter is the Augusta State Hospital, which shows separate entrances, waiting areas, restrooms, cafeterias, pharmacies, pediatric wings, and locker rooms for white and African-American patients and employees.”

Barbara Berney, Ph.D., MPH, used the Gregson and Ellis materials in her documentary Power to Heal: Medicare and the Civil Rights Revolution, and says:

“This documentary examines the history of inequality in Americans’ access to health care, and specifically how Medicare was used to desegregate thousands of hospitals across the country. As a scholar of public health and the U. S. health care system, I was inspired to produce the film by hearing eyewitness accounts from physicians, nurses, and government staffers involved in the integration effort and those who struggled to provide health services in rural areas lacking the most basic medical care. The Gregson and Ellis collection provided context for these firsthand accounts by illustrating the physical space in which these health care professionals were working…In addition to providing multiple examples of public hospitals of this era, these drawings show that the public medical facilities available to African Americans were not only separate but could also be limited in size and capabilities.”

About the Kennesaw State University Archives

The Kennesaw State University Archives is a destination for university and community members to research the history of Kennesaw State University and people and organizations in north and northwest Georgia. The mission of the KSU Archives is to identify, collect and make accessible records of enduring value to preserve institutional and community memory into the future. For more information, visit archives.kennesaw.edu.

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Georgia Historic Newspaper Update – Spring 2018

The Digital Library of Georgia has added several new newspaper titles to the Georgia Historic Newspapers (GHN) website in 2018. Included below are a list of the most recent additions.

Augusta Chronicle and Gazette of the State, 1789-1806

Augusta Herald, 1799-1821

Augusta Washingtonian, 1843-1845

Daily Chronicle & Sentinel (Augusta), 1840-1859

Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta), 1847-1851

Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta), 1856-1859

Georgia State Gazette, or, Independent Register (Augusta), 1786-1789

Houston Home Journal (Perry), 1991-1993

Lyons Progress, 1905-1924

Mirror of the Times (Augusta), 1808-1814

Southern Centinel, and Gazette of the State, 1795-1796

Tri-Weekly Chronicle & Sentinel, 1839-1851, 1872-1875

Tri-Weekly Constitutionalist (Augusta), 1850-1867

Tri-Weekly Republic (Augusta), 1849-1851

Toombs County Local (Vidalia), 1911

Washingtonian, or Total Abstinence Advocate (Augusta), 1842-1843

Weekly Chronicle & Sentinel (Augusta), 1838-1857

Weekly Constitutionalist (Augusta), 1856-1863

Weekly Georgia Constitutionalist (Augusta), 1851

Weekly Georgia Constitutionalist and Republic (Augusta), 1851-1855

Weekly State Rights’ Sentinel (Augusta), 1836

 

The DLG has also added several previously digitized newspaper titles to the GHN website, including:

Advertiser (Brunswick), 1875

Advertiser and Appeal (Brunswick), 1882-1886

Albany Weekly Herald, 1892-1901

Albany Patriot, 1845-1866

Bainbridge Democrat, 1881-1909

Bainbridge Weekly Democrat, 1872-1876

Brunswick Advertiser, 1875-1881

Brunswick Advertiser and Appeal, 1881

Cuthbert Appeal, 1867-1884

Cuthbert Enterprise and Appeal, 1884-1888

Post-Search Light (Bainbridge), 1903-1913

Red and Black (Athens), 1994-2006

Search Light (Bainbridge), 1901-1903

Tifton Gazette, 1892-1919

Tri-Weekly Sumter Republican (Americus), 1866-1867

Vienna News, 1902-1918

Waycross Evening Herald, 1911

Waycross Weekly Herald, 1894-1902

Waycross Weekly Herald, 1908-1910

Weekly Advertiser-Appeal (Brunswick), 1888

Weekly Sumter Republican (Americus), 1870-1885

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