Augusta Public Library Local History and Genealogy

Join us on Tuesday, June 16th at 6:00 pm in the main auditorium of the Augusta Public Library for a lecture by Wendy Venet, Ph.D, which will be given in conjunction with the traveling exhibition, “Lincoln: The Constitution and The Civil War.” Dr. Venet is a professor of history at Georgia State University, where she teaches classes on nineteenth century U.S. history, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and American Women’s History. Her research focuses on the Civil War period. As part of an advisory board of historians, she helped to conceptualize exhibits for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library. It opened in 2005. She is the author, editor and co-editor of six books; the most recent, A CHANGING WIND: COMMERCE AND CONFLICT IN CIVIL WAR ATLANTA (Yale University Press, 2014.) Wendy Venet’s presentation will focus on how Georgians reacted to Abraham Lincoln, including his election in 1860, his handling of the secession crisis, issues involving civil liberties during the war, slavery, and the Lincoln assassination.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2015-05-18/help-us-learn-more-about-way-we-were

Wednesday, May 20, 2015
6:00 pm
Join the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library for the opening of the traveling exhibition Lincoln: The Constitution and The Civil War. Our guest speaker for the evening is Orville Vernon Burton, Ph.D. Dr. Burton is Creativity Professor of Humanities, Professor of History, Sociology, and Computer Science at Clemson University, and the Director of the Clemson CyberInstitute. His 2007 work, The Age of Lincoln won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Literary Award for Nonfiction and was selected for Book of the Month Club, History Book Club, and Military Book Club. One reviewer proclaimed, “If the Civil War era was America’s ‘Iliad,’ then historian Orville Vernon Burton is our latest Homer.” Dr. Burton’s lecture, “Lincoln and Liberty,” will address the changes made to the Constitution during this tumultuous time in American history. The National Constitution Center and the American Library Association Public Programs Office organized the exhibit with the help of a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): great ideas brought to life. The traveling exhibition is based on an exhibition of the same name developed by the National Constitution Center.

The Augusta Richmond County Historical Society is soliciting bids for a new cumulated index of the Society’s journal, Augusta Richmond County History. The index should include author, title and subject links. A controlled vocabulary can be deduced from prior indexes. The journal has been published since 1969, one volume per year, consisting of two issues. Each issue is 20 to 40 pages long. There are usually four to six articles on local history in each issue. Several print indexes have been issued; one covers volumes 1-15 (1969-1983) an other covers volumes 16-20 (1984-1989), and the latest covers volumes 21-39 (1990-2008). See the Society’s web site (http://www.thearchs.org/), under the link to ASU for a link to the existing indexes. It is desirable to have the updated index both in print and machine readable over the internet. The journal is available at Reese Library, GRU, Augusta-Richmond County Public Library, and the High School and Middle School Libraries of Richmond County. Other libraries also hold this journal. A set of issues could be made available to an indexer.

Interested indexers should call or email Tom Sutherland, 706-738-3885, c.sutherland44@comcast.net.

©2009 Alusiv, Inc.

“Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War,” a national traveling exhibition which focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to meet the constitutional challenges of the Civil War, opens at the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library on May 13th and ends on June 26th.
Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth President of the United States in 1860, at a time when the nation was falling apart. By the time he took the oath of office, seven states had already seceded from the Union. The exhibition vividly evokes Lincoln’s struggle to resolve the basic questions that divided Americans at the most perilous moment in the nation’s history: Was the United States truly one nation, or was it a confederacy of sovereign and separate states? How could a country founded on the belief that “all men are created equal” tolerate slavery? In a national crisis, would civil liberties be secure?
The National Constitution Center and the American Library Association Public Programs Office organized the exhibit with the help of a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): great ideas brought to life. The traveling exhibition is based on an exhibition of the same name developed by the National Constitution Center.
The Augusta-Richmond County Public Library is offering free programs and other events for the public in connection with the exhibition. Please call 706-826-1511 for details, or visit www.arcpls.org

April is National Poetry Month, so the Georgia Heritage Room today honors Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Steven Vincent Benet, who was born in 1898, and spent his early years living in the Benet House, built sometime between 1827 and 1829 and serving as officer’s quarters at the old arsenal. The house was named for Steven Vincent Benet’s father, Col. James Walker Benet.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/stephen-vincent-benaet

The Georgia Heritage Room is celebrating National Library Week with an exhibit highlighting the history of the Augusta Public Library. The exhibit is located on the third floor of the headquarters library at 823 Telfair Street.

The eighteenth century origin of the Augusta Library is a bit convoluted, but sometime between the two recorded dates of 1732 and 1750, Augusta, Georgia saw the formation of its first public library. In the early 1830s a number of wealthy benefactors from Britain donated books for a public library in the colony, many of which arrived on the ship, Charming Nancy. In Augusta, public sentiment was high for the formation of a library, and by 1750, Augusta had ten titles listed in the Catalogue of Augusta’s First Library, for public use.

Several groups and societies were involved in the early establishment of the public library; among them, The Augusta Library Society (1730), and The Thespian Society and Library Company of Augusta (1808), but finally in 1848, with the formation of the Young Men’s Library Association, Augusta’s first official public library was opened. The Young Men’s Library Association and Reading Room was opened on March 13, 1848. By 1855, the library housed 2,000 volumes, which had grown to 12,000 by 1908. Until 1926, when the library was moved into the Old Richmond Academy Building, several locations were home to the growing collection, and sadly the library was temporarily closed in 1906 due to a lack of funding.

The library remained in the Richmond Academy Building until 1960 when all 103,542 volumes were moved to the newly constructed midcentury modern facility designed by architects, Eve and Stulb, on the corner of 9th and Greene Streets. Finally, the library had a permanent home, until June 25, 2010 when it was moved to its present location on Telfair Street.

In honor of National Library Week, Sunday, April 12-Satuday, April 18, 2015, the Georgia Heritage Room is hosting an exhibit honoring the history of the Augusta Public Library. The display is located on the third floor of the Headquarters Library at 823 Telfair Street.

Catalogue of Augusta’s First Library
199 Years of Augusta’s Library by Berry Fleming

Common Prayer Books, 22 copies
Companion of the Sick, 12 copies
Duty of Man, 13 copies
Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man, 12 copies
Help and Guide to Christian Families, 20 copies
How to Walk with God, 50 copies
Spelling Books, 12 copies
The Great Importance of a Religious Life Considered, 6 copies
The Young Christian Instructed, 12 copies

On exhibit through April, a collection of St. John United Methodist Church historic and current documents highlighting its founding in 1798 as the first Methodist church in Augusta, Georgia to the present.

Preserving Memories: Heritage Scrapbooking Class
Monday, April 27
2:00 pm
In honor of Preservation Week, April 26-May 2, the Georgia Heritage Room will offer a scrapbooking workshop with the Library’s own, Aspasia Luster. Learn artful ways of preserving old family pictures, memorabilia and documents within the pages of a beautiful scrapbook. Some supplies included, but feel free to bring your own. This class is limited to ten participants, so call to register (706) 826-1511.