An American Literary Landscape: Life, History, and Memory in Putnam County, Georgia

FAIN: ZH-258495-18

University of Georgia (Athens, GA 30602-0001)
Nicholas Allen (Project Director: May 2017 to May 2024)

An oral history program for high school students in Putnam County, Georgia, focused on the African American experience.  

One of America’s most complex literary landscapes is virtually unknown to most of its citizens, and even to most residents of the state in which it exists. The birthplace of figures as diverse as Joel Chandler Harris and Alice Walker, Putnam County, Georgia, has a current poverty rate of 17% for those under the age of eighteen, according to the 2010 census. Our proposal is designed to engage Putnam County High School students and their teachers in curating oral histories of their own community. The project is an extension of an established partnership between the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at the University of Georgia and the Putnam County Charter School System to include Georgia Humanities and the National Archives and Records Administration. Our goal is to enable students and teachers to collect and share stories of Putnam County residents through segregation and Civil Rights to the present.