Purpose+and+Significance

Background

The Smith Family Farm is a collection of nineteenth century farm buildings currently located on the grounds of the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The Tullie Smith House, which serves as the centerpiece of the property, is a plantation-plain style house built by Robert Smith in the 1840s. Robert Smith was a yeoman farmer who originally relocated from North Carolina to DeKalb County, Georgia, in the 1830s and, by the mid-nineteenth century, maintained an 800 acre farm with the assistance of his family and fourteen slaves. Robert Smith’s great-great-granddaughter, Tullie, was the last member of the Smith family to occupy the property. In 1972, the home and its detached kitchen building was donated to the Atlanta Historical Society (now the Atlanta History Center) and moved to its current site. The outbuildings that surround the house and kitchen were all built in 1850s and have been relocated and restored or were replicated using traditional materials, methods, and tools. As a recreation of a typical nineteenth century Georgia farm, the Smith Family Farm offers a tangible link to daily life in the American South on the eve of the Civil War.

The Smith House itself consists of two stories, with a porch and attached “travelers’ room” in the front, four rooms on the first floor, and two rooms on the second that are accessible by a narrow staircase near the front entrance. The detached kitchen is located directly behind the house and features an open-hearth chimney that is still used for kitchen demonstrations. The buildings that surround the Smith House are typical of those that would have been found on a nineteenth century farm and include a blacksmith shop, a double corncrib, a barn, a smokehouse, a privy, and a pioneer cabin that is currently used to interpret slave life during the nineteenth century. All of the buildings, with the exception of the blacksmith shop and the replica privy, were originally constructed in the mid-nineteenth century and have since been relocated and restored. The blacksmith shop was constructed using traditional materials, tools, and methods by the Tullie Smith House Blacksmith Guild and features a bellows that is over 100 years old. The grounds of the Smith Family Farm also include two vegetable gardens, an herb garden, and a cotton field.

Purpose

The purpose of the Smith Family Farm is to interpret the conditions and activities of daily life on a typical farm in the nineteenth century American South.

Significance

1. The Smith House and its surrounding outbuildings and gardens provide an excellent example of the architecture and plan of a typical nineteenth century farm in the American South. 2. The integral role that these buildings and the activities associated with them played in the daily lives of southern families make them a tangible link to the past and allow for a deeper understanding of the experiences of “average” people on the eve of the Civil War. 3. The Smith House and surrounding outbuildings provide a unique opportunity to experience an “immersive environment” where visitors can “experience” history. 4. The Smith Family Farm speaks directly to the mission of the Atlanta History Center by inviting examination of the lives of people in the past, a comparison of their experience with the conditions of the present, and speculation about what the future may hold.

Themes

The Smith Family Farm tells the story of the daily lives of a typical (middle class?) farm family in the nineteenth century American South.

Interpretation of this theme will encourage visitors to a deeper understanding of what life was like for those outside of southern elites. It will include discussions and demonstrations of daily farm chores, of the primacy of agriculture, of the processes involved in home manufacturing, and of the roles that each member of the family played in maintaining the farm.

The residents on a southern farm often included slaves whose lives were different from those of their owners.

Interpretation of this theme will emphasize the fact that the daily conditions of life for slaves differed from those of their masters, even if, on smaller farms, white families worked alongside their slaves.

The lives of a typical farm family were marked by both the activities of daily life and the extraordinary events that accompanied significant milestones.

Interpretation of this theme will encourage visitors to identify major life events, such as birth, marriage, and death, to understand the cultural practices that marked each milestone, and to compare the practices of various groups (elites, typical families, slaves) to one another.

In addition, this theme will incorporate the extraordinary historical events, such as the American Civil War, industrialization, and urbanization, that disrupted and transformed the daily lives of individuals.

Many of the activities and concerns of individuals in the nineteenth century still resonate with people in modern times.

Interpretation of this theme will help visitors make connections between the lives of individuals of generations past and their own experiences. This theme will tie in closely to the first and third themes by demonstrating that people throughout time have had to be concerned with earning a living, with providing material goods for their families, and with marking significant lifetime events.

Life at farms like the Smith Family Farm demonstrates change over time.

Interpretation of this theme will include discussions of how farm practices changed as new methods and tools arrived on the scene, as purchasing options expanded with the growth of Atlanta, and as family members grew and ultimately left.

This theme may also include a juxtaposition of the buildings of the farm to the nearby urban skyline, allowing for an examination of how life and surroundings in Atlanta, in Georgia, and in the American South have changed.

Collections Needs

To a large degree, interpreting the first theme outlined in this plan can be met by the existing collection at the Atlanta History Center. Items already in the Smith House and outbuildings, such as the loom, the bellows, the kitchen utensils, the children’s toys, the rope bed, and other furnishings, decorations, and tools will all form a solid foundation for discussions and depictions of daily life and the importance of agriculture in the nineteenth century South.

The second theme, which focuses specifically on the lives of slaves at farms like the one modeled at the Smith Farm, will require substantially more collection efforts. At present, the only interpretative materials in the “slave cabin” are text panels which do very little for the “immersive” environment that the site is trying to achieve. Examples of clothing, blankets, furniture, tools, dishes, and personal trinkets might be acquired to populate the space of the cabin, allowing the panels to be removed as the space becomes actively interpreted by docents. In addition, because the space is small, it may be the some of the objects (replica examples) might be placed outside at the beginning of each day to suggest a “lived-in” feeling.

The third theme, which seeks to incorporate a discussion of “milestones” into the site’s interpretative frame work, will also require collection development. Items relating to major life changes, such as birth, marriage, and death will need to be acquired. Midwives tools, for example, might help to illustrate the practice of home birth. Reproductions of typical wedding clothing, including bridal trinkets, might be used in programs that depict a typical wedding and other objects, such as a dowry chest and examples of embroidery, could be used to demonstrate some of the gifts that might be given as a couple set up housekeeping. Coffins with their accompanying trimmings and mourning clothes and accessories for both men and women could be used to explore how death was typically met in the home during the nineteenth century and how the family and community structured the customs that accompanied the end of life. Other celebrations, such as birthdays, might also be explored through material culture.

As the third theme also seeks to interpret the impact of extraordinary historical events on the daily lives of individuals, objects should be acquired that demonstrate the effects of and reactions to momentous occurrences. Reproductions of newspapers, for example, as well as replicas of new consumer goods introduced by innovations in technology and made available through the growth of transportation, will help to illustrate the material impact that significant historic events and changes had on individual lives.

In many ways, the fourth theme and fifth themes seek to tie together the other themes and will be served by the collections efforts for other themes. While the final two themes encourage visitors to link lifestyles in the past to their experiences in the present, actively bringing in objects from the modern era will undermine the attempt to create an immersive environment.

Research Needs

For the first theme, further, more individualized research will need to be done to “flesh out” the lives of the inhabitants of nineteenth century farms like the one modeled at the site. While docents currently give information on the Smith parents and children and the activities that their daily lives may have included, this information is presented without any real coherent framework. Specifically, the lives, duties, and expectations of men, women, and male and female children should be addressed and the differences for each should be highlighted. Specific points of comparison should be established to help guests realize that each individual fulfilled a certain role in the household. Such individualization will also help visitors to imagine themselves living in the era as a husband or a wife, as a mother or a father, as a young man or a young woman, or as a young boy or girl. Another fruitful area for research might be into the lives of the travellers who might have stayed in the “parson’s room” and will invite a discussion of the rigors of travel in the nineteenth century and the basic elements of hospitality.

While significant research has gone into developing the interpretative panels in the “slave cabin,” more research might be necessary to translate the text into actual immersive programs. Typical tools and their uses, how slaves marked milestones and reacted to extraordinary events, and how slaves on a small farm interacted with their owners will all provide useful topics for research.

The third theme will require the most research. In addition to researching the material necessities of events like childbirth and death in the nineteenth century, cultural practices, such as those that occur at weddings and birthdays, will also need to be researched. In particular, materials and information should be compiled that deal specifically with the class of people who lived at typical southern farms like the one modeled at the Smith Farm. The material impact of specific historical events such as the Civil War may also need further research.

While the fourth theme will rely more upon guests to make connections between the information they have seen presented for other Smith Farm themes, the fifth theme may tie in research done for other topics at the Atlanta History Center. The progression of time demonstrated in Metropolitan Frontiers, for example, may be used to illustrate how life has changed from the era of the Smith Farm to the modern era. It might be helpful, however, to identify specific touchstones or eras to demonstrate change in lifestyles over time. Comparisons might be made, for example, between antebellum and postbellum Georgia, between decades, or between the times of major technological or commercial turning points.

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 * (FIRST DRAFT)**===
 * //Background//**

The Smith Family Farm is a collection of nineteenth century farm buildings currently located on the grounds of the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. The Tullie Smith House, which serves as the centerpiece of the property, is a plantation-plain style house built by Robert Smith in the 1840s. Robert Smith was a yeoman farmer who originally relocated from North Carolina to DeKalb County, Georgia, in the 1830s and, by the mid-nineteenth century, maintained an 800 acre farm with the assistance of his family and fourteen slaves. Robert Smith’s great-great-granddaughter, Tullie, was the last member of the Smith family to occupy the property. In 1972, the home and its detached kitchen building was donated to the Atlanta Historical Society (now the Atlanta History Center) and moved to its current site. The outbuildings that surround the house and kitchen were all built in 1850s and have been relocated and restored or were replicated using traditional materials, methods, and tools. As a recreation of a typical nineteenth century Georgia farm, the Smith Family Farm offers a tangible link to daily life in the American South on the eve of the Civil War. The Smith House itself consists of two stories, with a porch and attached “travelers’ room” in the front, four rooms on the first floor, and two rooms on the second that are accessible by a narrow staircase near the front entrance. The detached kitchen is located directly behind the house and features an open-hearth chimney that is still used for kitchen demonstrations. The buildings that surround the Smith House are typical of those that would have been found on a nineteenth century farm and include a blacksmith shop, a double corncrib, a barn, a smokehouse, a privy, and a pioneer cabin that is currently used to interpret slave life during the nineteenth century. All of the buildings, with the exception of the blacksmith shop and the replica privy, were originally constructed in the mid-nineteenth century and have since been relocated and restored. The blacksmith shop was constructed using traditional materials, tools, and methods by the Tullie Smith House Blacksmith Guild and features a bellows that is over 100 years old. The grounds of the Smith Family Farm also include two vegetable gardens, an herb garden, and a cotton field. The purpose of the Smith Family Farm is to interpret the conditions and activities of daily life on a typical farm in the nineteenth century American South.
 * //Purpose//**
 * //Significance//**

**1.** The Smith House and its surrounding outbuildings and gardens provide an excellent example of the architecture and plan of a typical nineteenth century farm in the American South. **2.** The integral role that these buildings and the activities associated with them played in the daily lives of southern families make them a tangible link to the past and allow for a deeper understanding of the experiences of “average” people on the eve of the Civil War. **3.** The Smith Family Farm speaks directly to the mission of the Atlanta History Center by inviting examination of the lives of people in the past, a comparison of their experience with the conditions of the present, and speculation about what the future may hold. **//Themes//**

**The Smith Family Farm tells the story of the daily lives of a typical (middle class?) farm family in the nineteenth century American South.**

Interpretation of this theme will encourage visitors to a deeper understanding of what life was like for those outside of southern elites. It will include discussions of daily farm chores, of the primacy of agriculture, of the processes involved in home manufacturing, and of the roles that each member of the family played in maintaining the farm. **The residents on a southern farm often included slaves whose lives were different from those of their owners.**

Interpretation of this theme will emphasize the fact that the daily conditions of life for slaves differed from those of their masters, even if, on smaller farms, white families worked alongside their slaves. **The lives of a typical farm family were marked by both the activities of daily life and the extraordinary events that accompanied significant milestones.**

Interpretation of this theme will encourage visitors to identify major life events, such as birth, marriage, and death, to understand the cultural practices that marked each milestone, and to compare the practices of various groups (elites, typical families, slaves) to one another. **Life at farms like the Smith Family Farm demonstrates change over time.**

Interpretation of this theme will include discussions of how farm practices changed as new methods and tools arrived on the scene, as purchasing options expanded with the growth of Atlanta, and as family members grew and ultimately left. This theme may also include a juxtaposition of the buildings of the farm to the nearby urban skyline, allowing for an examination of how life and surroundings in Atlanta, in Georgia, and in the American South have changed. **Many of the activities and concerns of individuals in the nineteenth century still resonate with people in modern times.**

Interpretation of this theme will help visitors make connections between the lives of individuals of generations past and their own experiences.