Mark your calendars for Saturday, April 4, for the 2020 Georgia Archives Symposium. This year’s topic, From Field to Mill Town: Cotton and Textile Culture in Georgia, will feature a variety of presentations and a lunchtime slideshow of images from collections at the Georgia Archives.

The symposium is from 9:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

The 9:00 a.m. symposium topic is Building a Community: Callaway Mills in LaGrange. Presenters are Haley Merciers, Assistant Tour and Programs Coordinator at Hills & Dales Estate in Lagrange, GA;  Alex Hughes, Assistant Director of Archives and Records at the Troup County Historical Society, Archives, and Legacy Museum; and Carleton B. Wood, Executive Director of Hills and Dales Estate, LaGrange, GA.

The 10:00 a.m. topic is Silvertown: From the Center of Tire Cord Production to a Local Treasure. Presenters are Jane Burdette, Project Coordinator for Silvertown Historic Preservation Project, Jamesan Gramme, Director, Thomaston-Upson Archives; and Chris Jackson, Historic Preservation Specialist, WLA Studio.

The 11:30 a.m. topic is Legacies of Cotton Industrialization in Georgia: Architecture and Transportation. Presenters are Heather Meadows, a graduate student in Heritage Preservation at Georgia State University who works in education operations at the Atlanta History Center. She will speak about “Folk Architecture in Whittier Mills Village.” Dr. James “Jim” Hoogerwerf, retired Delta Air Lines Captain with a PhD in the History of Technology from Auburn University, will present “Huff Daland Dusters, Macon, GA. and the move to Monroe, LA.”

The final topic at 1:30 p.m. is The West Georgia Textile Heritage Trail: Documenting and Interpreting the History of the Textile Industry. Several presentations are part of this topic. “Establishing the West Georgia Textile Heritage Trail” will be presented by Keri Adams, Assistant Director of the Center for Public History and Lecturer in the History Department, University of West Georgia (UWG); and Dr. Ann McCleary, Director of the Center for Public History, Professor of History, and the Director of Museum Studies Program, University of West Georgia.

“Interpreting the Textile Industry” will be presented by Jarrett Craft, Textile Trail Curator for Center of Public History and graduate student at UWG; and Dr. Will Stoutamire, Assistant Professor of History and Co-Director of the Center for Public History, UWG.

“Mapping the Textile Industry” will be presented by Tinaye Gibbons, honors undergraduate history major at UWG, who works in the Center for Public History; Annie Shirley, undergraduate history major at UWG, who also works at the Center for Public History, and Dr. Andy Walter, Professor of Geography at UWG.

Lunch will be available for a cash donation and the break will be sponsored by Friends of Georgia Archives and History.