Photography in our History: Troup County’s Photographers
This panoramic image was taken by Snelson Davis at a picnic of the Dixie Cotton mills employees with their families on July 5, 1927. TCA Collections Recognizing that photographs are an integral part of our historical record, Troup County Archives first director, Faye Phillips, addressed the subject in an article published in [...]
Portraiture
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. - Pablo Picasso During an interview, Barbara Bush, former First Lady of the United States, was asked if she would sit for her son George W. to paint she replied “Absolutely not. As good as he is, it might look like me!” Portraiture [...]
The Camera: Eye of History
This ambrotype was created through a similar process to a daguerreotype although an ambrotype produced a negative image that became visible when the glass plate was backed by dark material. This particular ambrotype is of Nicholas Wesley Miller and his bride, Sadie Little Miller. Their marriage was recorded in Harris County on August [...]
The FDA: Food, Drugs, and Regulations
The meat counter at Rogers Store in LaGrange, c. 1940. TCA Collections The history of the Food and Drug Administration is also the history of consumer protection as applied to food, drugs, and other products. The story began long before the letters, “F”, “D”, and “A” were household words. Scientists working to [...]
Pe-kahn or Pee-can: America’s Original Nut
Many of the foods featured in our latest exhibit, Gather ‘Round the Table: Troup County’s Culinary History, became Southern favorites after long and convoluted journeys from exotic origins. That is not the case with pecans. A colorized photograph of a praliniere sitting in Jackson Square in New Orleans, 1929. Image courtesy Louisiana Historical [...]
Beyond the Region of Bread: Early Settler and Antebellum Cuisine in Troup County
"Sowing and Reaping," was printed in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on May 23, 1863 in response to the bread riot in Richmond, VA. Protests-turned-riots occurred in a number of cities across the South, including Mobile, AL, Columbus, Macon, Atlanta, and Augusta. Image courtesy Library of Congress The South of the early nineteenth [...]
A Fly-By of History: B-29 Superfortress
A photograph of Longshore in the blister of a B-29 Superfortress. TCA Collections donated by Guy Longshore. Guy Longshore, of LaGrange, served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He was a Command Gunner on a B-29 Superfortress stationed in Guam and Saipan from 1944 to 1945. As with [...]
Pimento Capital of the World
When James Bond enjoyed his martini, “shaken, not stirred,” it is likely that the pimento, stuffed in the olive that garnished his favorite cocktail was grown in Troup or a neighboring county. Of course, Agent 007 is a fictional character, but our area of Georgia, in the mid-twentieth century, produced ninety percent of the [...]
