About the HRC Archive
England Chapel United Methodist Church
The England Chapel United Methodist Church building with a view of the entryway, front drive, and sign, taken in Spring.The Historic Rural Church Archive is a collaborative digital collection that includes photographs, documents, maps, and other items related to the histories of rural churches across Georgia. The most unique feature of the Archive is the combination of items from different denominational repositories and community members.
Contributors
Each of the libraries listed below have contributed items to this collaborative digital collection. If you represent an institution with a large repository of related items, please contact HRCGA (info@hrcga.org) to discuss partnership options.
Pitts Theology Library, Emory University
(View all Pitts items in the Archive)
- United Methodist Church (U.S.) North Georgia Conference, Local Church histories, 1788-2017
- United Methodist Church (U.S.) North Georgia Conference Augusta District Mayfield Circuit records, 1896-1990
Jack Tarver Library, Mercer University
(View all Tarver items in the Archive)
- Baptist Association Minutes and Histories
- Baptist Church Minutes and Histories
- Georgia Baptist Historical Society
John Bulow Campbell Library, Columbia Theological Seminary
(View all Campbell items in the Archive)
- Presbyterian Women History collection
- Various Church Records
Historic Rural Churches of Georgia
(View all HRCGA items in the Archive)
- Photographs and brief histories of historic rural churches across Georgia
Community Submissions
The Archive also facilitates collecting contributions from community members and local organizations. Users are able to upload images and enter metadata in response to plain-language prompts. Library staff review contributions and publish the materials as appropriate.
Outreach with local communities will be led by the Historic Rural Churches of Georgia in partnership with Georgia Public Library System and local schools.
Project History
Historic Rural Churches of Georgia was founded by Sonny Seals and George Hart after they stumbled upon long-lost relatives buried in the cemetery of the abandoned Powelton Methodist Church in Hancock County, Georgia. Realizing that much of rural Georgia’s past was in danger of disappearing along with these at-risk churches, they built a website to collect photographs and histories of the rural churches and their communities. The website led to an award-winning book published by University of Georgia Press and Georgia Humanities with a foreword by Jimmy Carter. Increasing interest in the topic of historic rural churches led to a Facebook group with nearly 70,000 followers.
As the HRC community grew, Seals and Hart met many former congregants and descendants who had bits and pieces of church histories and wanted to contribute these to be preserved but had no way to do so. They also discovered that much of the history was sometimes located in obscure publications located in the county libraries. They resolved to find a way to preserve those memories and the documents they found in the old church minutes, ledgers, bibles and newspaper articles. Finding the existing digital tools complicated and laborious, they imagined a platform that functioned like a desk drawer, in which one could just place assorted items for others to browse and search through. Since that initial brainstorm, the project has gone through many phases of development. This version, the Historic Rural Church Archive, is the culmination of that earlier work and an attempt to realize that vision.
The project has gone through several phases of development and funding. Past partners have included Georgia Institute of Technology's Interactive Media Technology Center (IMTC) and Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, with funding from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation and a National Endowment for the Humanities Level II grant. The present website is a collaborative effort between Pitts Theology Library at Emory University, Jack Tarver Library at Mercer University, John Bulow Campbell Library at Columbia Theological Seminary, and Historic Rural Churches of Georgia. Funding for the implementation phase was provided by the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation.