Joel Chandler Harris | |
Location | Ralph D. Abernathy Blvd., SW, Atlanta, Georgia |
---|---|
Coordinates | 33°44′16″N84°25′20″W / 33.73764°N 84.42219°W |
Area | 3 acres (1.2 ha) [1] |
Built | 1870 |
Architectural style | Late Victorian |
NRHP reference No. | 66000281 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 [2] |
Designated NHL | December 19, 1962 [3] |
Designated ALB | October 14, 1989 |
Joel Chandler Harris House, also known as The Wren's Nest or Snap Bean Farm, is a Queen Anne style house at 1050 Ralph D. Abernathy Blvd. (formerly Gordon Street.), SW. [3] [2] in Atlanta, Georgia. Built in 1870, it was home to Joel Chandler Harris, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and author of the Uncle Remus Tales , from 1881 until his death in 1908. [3] [4]
The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962 for its association with Harris, and is also designated as a historic building by the City of Atlanta. It is now a historic house museum.
The house was built circa 1868 in an area then known for its upper-class residents. Harris began renting the home in 1881 before buying it two years later thanks to earnings from his first book Uncle Remus: Songs and Sayings. He lived here until his death in 1908. [5] Harris had the home extended with six additional rooms and a new Queen Anne-style facade added in 1884. A furnace, indoor plumbing, and electricity were added circa 1900. [6]
In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Harris's goddaughter, Daisy Baker, who would become Margaret Dumont, lived at Snap Bean Farm. [7]
Harris originally referred to the home as Snap Bean Farm, as a reference to fellow author Eugene Field's home Sabine Farm. The name "Wren's Nest" came from his discovery of a family of wrens living in the mailbox in the spring of 1895. [5]
After several years of correspondence, Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley visited Harris at Wren's Nest in 1900. Harris's children were especially interested in Riley and nicknamed him Uncle Jeems. [6]
Ultimately, Harris wrote more than twenty books while living in the home as well as several editorials for the Atlanta Constitution and various articles for magazines and newspapers — including his own, The Uncle Remus Home Magazine. [8]
After Harris's death, businessman Andrew Carnegie donated $5,000 toward establishing the home as a museum. He had met Harris there in 1900 during a 20-minute visit. [6] From 1913 to 1953, the home was managed by the Uncle Remus Memorial Association, a group of volunteers who operated the house as a museum. In 1983, the organization became known as the Joel Chandler Harris Association. [8]
The home still contains furnishings owned by Harris and utilizes the original paint colors. The house became known as Wren's Nest in 1900 after the Harris children found a wren had built a nest in the mail box; the family built a new mailbox in order to leave the nest undisturbed. The structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962. [1] [3] [9] The original mailbox that housed the family of wrens and led to the home's name was recreated during a renovation in 1991. [6]
The organization that maintains the Wren's Nest offers tours and regular storytelling. The organization also has two writing programs for Atlanta area youth: KIPP Scribes, in partnership with APS charter school KIPP STRIVE Academy, and Wren's Nest Publishing Company, an entirely high school student run literary journal. [10]
Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years, Harris spent most of his adult life in Atlanta working as an associate editor at The Atlanta Constitution.
James Franklin Baskett was an American actor who portrayed Uncle Remus, singing the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" in the 1946 Disney feature film Song of the South.
Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African American folktales compiled and adapted by Joel Chandler Harris and published in book form in 1881. Harris was a journalist in post–Reconstruction era Atlanta, and he produced seven Uncle Remus books. He did so by introducing tales that he had heard and framing them in the plantation context. He wrote his stories in a dialect which was his interpretation of the Deep South African-American language of the time. For these framing and stylistic choices, Harris's collection has garnered controversy since its publication.
West End is a historic neighborhood in the U.S. city of Atlanta, one of the oldest outside Downtown Atlanta, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. West End is located southwest of Castleberry Hill, east of Westview, west of Adair Park Historic District, and just north of Oakland City. Architectural styles within the neighborhood include Craftsman Bungalow, Queen Anne, Stick style, Folk Victorian, Colonial Revival, American Foursquare and Neoclassical Revival.
West End is an elevated rail station on the Red and Gold lines of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) rail system servicing the West End and most of Southwest Atlanta, including neighborhoods bordering Cascade Road and Metropolitan Parkway. The West End station opened on September 11, 1982.
Godfrey Leonard Norrman, was an important architect in the southeastern United States. A number of his commissions are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1897 he was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Br'er Rabbit is a central figure in an oral tradition passed down by African-Americans of the Southern United States and African descendants in the Caribbean, notably Afro-Bahamians and Turks and Caicos Islanders. He is a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit. Popular adaptations of the character, originally recorded by Joel Chandler Harris in the 19th century, include Walt Disney Productions' Song of the South in 1946.
Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear are fictional characters from African-American oral traditions popular in the Southern United States. These characters have been recorded by many different folklorists, but are most well-known from the folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, featuring his character Uncle Remus.
The Sunny South was a weekly literary magazine published in Atlanta from 1874 to 1907.
Walthall Robertson "Cap" Joyner was the 40th Mayor of Atlanta.
Lucy May Stanton was an American painter. She made landscapes, still lifes, and portraits, but Stanton is best known for the portrait miniatures she painted. Her works are in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Self-Portrait in the Garden (1928) and Miss Jule (1926) are part of the museum's permanent collection.
The Sidney Lanier Cottage is a historic cottage on High Street in Macon, Georgia, that was the birthplace of poet, musician, and soldier Sidney Lanier. Sidney Lanier Cottage was purchased by the Middle Georgia Historical Society in 1973, and opened to the public in 1975. Until 2021, the Sidney Lanier Cottage served as a museum, event space, and home of the Lanier Center for Literary Arts. The Historic Macon Foundation sold the cottage and it has since been restored as a single family residence.
Stella Brewer Brookes was a professor of English at Clark College from 1924 to 1969. She was a folklorist and a writer.
The Azalea Regional Library System (AZRLS) is a collection of ten public libraries located partially in the Atlanta metropolitan area and Central Georgia. It is headquartered in Madison, Georgia and serves the counties of Greene, Hancock, Jasper, Morgan, Putnam, and Walton, of which 32% of the population are members of the library.
The literature of Georgia, United States, includes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Representative writers include Erskine Caldwell, Carson McCullers, Margaret Mitchell, Flannery O’Connor, Charles Henry Smith, and Alice Walker.
Myrta Lockett Avary was an American white supremacist writer and journalist. Her books include Dixie After the War (1906), The Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens (1910) and Uncle Remus and the Wren's Nest (1913). She died on February 14, 1946, in Atlanta.
Julia Collier Harris was an American writer and journalist. She wrote the earliest biography of Joel Chandler Harris, her husband's father. As owners and publishers of the Columbus Enquirer Sun she and her husband won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. She has been inducted into three Georgia halls of fame: Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame, Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and Georgia Women of Achievement.
Joseph Frederick Waring was an American scholar, preservationist and author. A Yale College graduate, he went on to teach at several schools, including over thirty years at the Western Reserve Academy. He also wrote three books.
Lucian Lamar Knight was an American journalist, editor, author, and historian. He was the founder of the Georgia Archives. In 1919, in recognition of his work in history, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts of England. The University of Georgia awarded him an LL. D., while his master's degree came from Princeton University. He was also a Phi Beta Kappa.
Margaret O'Connor Wilson was an American civic leader and philanthropist. Prominent in civic and patriotic organizations in Atlanta for many years, she was also known also for her religious and philanthropic work. Among the many positions that she held, Wilson served as President General of the Confederated Southern Memorial Association (CSMA).
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