This 31-story International-style tower was arguably the first “modern” skyscraper in Atlanta, although it’s now pushing 70 years old and looks every day of it.
The tower opened in 1961 as the home of The Bank of Georgia and was purported to be the “tallest structure south of Baltimore,”4 surpassed a few years later by Atlanta’s First National Bank,56 built one block away.
It’s telling that the Bank of Georgia had to hire an out-of-town firm, Hedrick & Stanley of Dallas, to design the building — none of Atlanta’s architects at the time had the chops for such a large-scale project.
Top O’ Peachtree Restaurant. Photograph from an undated postcard published by Stein Craftsmen of Atlanta.
For the first 11 years, the 30th floor of The Bank of Georgia tower was occupied by the Top O’ Peachtree restaurant and “lookout lounge”, later described as ‘”the” place to go for dinner or drinks in its beginning.’7
Based on photographs, Top O’ Peachtree was no doubt an ideal rendezvous for married bank executives and their secretaries. Oh, come on, you know it happened.
Wyatt C. Hedrick Company with Willner & Millkey.89Fulton National Bank (1955). Atlanta. Photograph from an undated postcard published by Dexter Press, Inc. of West Nyack, New York.
When the Bank of Georgia tower was sold in 1979, it was described as one of “the two homeliest buildings in town,” along with the nearby Fulton National Bank building (1955),10 which was entirely accurate — then and now.
Designed by Wyatt C. Hedrick Company of Dallas,11 which later became Hedrick & Stanley, the Fulton National Bank building has been renamed 55 Marietta and remains in active use, now serving as a data center. The Bank of Georgia, however, hasn’t fared as well.
Detail of windows on The Bank of Georgia (34 Peachtree)
Later renamed 34 Peachtree, the former Bank of Georgia has passed through a succession of owners and is currently vacant, with missing windows on the upper floors and its street-level retail spaces obscured by brown paper.
A peek through the doors and windows at night reveals the dead escalators in the lobby and dangling ceiling tiles in the office spaces.
In 2017, pieces of the building’s facade fell to Peachtree Street during a bout of high winds, prompting the closure of several streets.12
Looking at the north elevation of The Bank of Georgia (34 Peachtree)
There have been empty promises to convert 34 Peachtree into residential units,13 but that’s just typical Atlanta bullshitting, quite unlikely to transpire, as the cost to renovate such behemoths is overwhelmingly prohibitive.
Office buildings are rapidly becoming a relic of the past, and as more skyscrapers begin to deteriorate, it will be interesting to see what cities like Atlanta do with them, particularly as the United States plunges headfirst into inevitable social and economic decline.
I suspect that in decades to come, many American cities will be filled with vacant, crumbling towers that no one will have the money to demolish or renovate — unsightly monuments from an age of decadence and arrogance best left forgotten.
Looking at The Bank of Georgia (34 Peachtree) from Edgewood Avenue
References
Erwin, George. “Bank Plans 31-Story Building At 5 Points, Costing 10 Million”. The Atlanta Journal, March 1, 1959, p. 1. ↩︎
The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, April 2, 1961, Bank of Georgia Section. ↩︎
“Bank of Georgia To Open Monday”. The Atlanta Journal, March 28, 1961, p. 33. ↩︎
Veale, Frank. “35,000 Expected At Gala Opening Of New Building”. The Atlanta Journal, April 2, 1961, p. 2-F. ↩︎
Crown, John. “40-Story Bank Building to Rise in Atlanta”. The Atlanta Journal, August 11, 1963, p. 1. ↩︎
“Atlanta Reaches for the Sky–More Giants on Way”. The Atlanta Journal, May 17, 1966, p. 12. ↩︎
Henderson, Barry. “Top O’ Peachtree Sale Set”. The Atlanta Constitution, September 23, 1972, p. 8. ↩︎
“Equipment Came From All Over U.S., Materials From All Over The World”. The Atlanta Journal, October 18, 1955, p. 3-F. ↩︎
“It’s the tops” (advertisement). The Atlanta Constitution, October 19, 1955, p. 2-F. ↩︎
Kossoff, Evan. “New Owner Giving 2 Downtown Buildings a Facelift”. The Atlanta Constitution, December 10, 1979, p. 9-D. ↩︎
“Company Completes 26-story Fulton National Bank Building on schedule!” (advertisement). The Atlanta Journal, October 18, 1955, p. 18-F. ↩︎
Judd, Alan. “Georgia: Irma set to arrive today.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 11, 2017, p. A1-A6. ↩︎
Torpy, Bill. “Can office conversions save downtown?” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 31, 2023, p. A9. ↩︎
Bruce & Morgan. Cherokee County Courthouse (1892-1895). Murphy, North Carolina.
The Background
The following article was published in The State Chroniclein 1890, and includes an illustration and description of the Cherokee County Courthouse in Murphy, North Carolina, designed byBruce & Morgan.
A vernacular interpretation of the Romanesque Revival style, the building depicted in the illustration appears to be a competent effort by A.C. Bruce, and an updated version of his plan for the Newton County Courthouse in Covington, Georgia, completed in 1884.
The only questionable elements in the otherwise cohesive composition are the odd pediment and oversized half-round window above the entrance portico. This wasn’t an exceptional design, by any means, but generally well-proportioned and tastefully executed.
Location of Cherokee County Courthouse
The article states that the county’s leaders were unsure whether the courthouse should be built of brick with marble trimmings or “an entire marble face,” a preposterous question for a rural jurisdiction in the Deep South.
Marble was so cost-prohibitive in the late 19th century that even Atlantans couldn’t afford it as a primary building material, much less the inhabitants of a dirt-poor county in the hills of Carolina.
Unsurprisingly, the finished courthouse was primarily built with pressed brick, while the foundation and steps were composed of marble.1 The initial cost of the project was reported as $21,5002 by one source and $22,5753 by another, but other reports estimated it at $40,000.456
It’s difficult to find a definitive date for the building’s completion, but the cornerstone was laid in July 1891,7 and most sources state it was finished in 1892, which would be a reasonable timeframe.
Despite this article’s claim that the courthouse would “stand the storm of ages”, the building was destroyed by fire on December 13, 1895,8 less than four years after its completion, although the outer walls were left intact.9
In early 1896, Bruce & Morgan were hired as architects for the building’s replacement,10 and it appears they essentially replicated the previous design.
The rebuilt courthouse was also destroyed by fire on January 16, 1926,1112and replaced with an entirely new structure.1314
So much for it being “a monument for centuries to come.”
Murphy’s New Court House.
The State Chronicle is glad to be able to present to its readers to day a picture of the new Court House which the Commissioners and Magistrates of Cherokee county have decided to erect at Murphy. It will be a handsome building and an ornament to the town and county, as well as its best advertisement. It is to have a face and trimmings of marble quarried from the Cherokee county quarries. Marble of almost every shade of color is found in Cherokee, and the Western North Carolina Railroad runs in such close proximity to the marble as to enable parties to load it directly from the quarries into the cars. A marble Court House will advertise this marble better than an hundred agents and an hundred newspapers. The Commissioners and Magistrates have not exactly determined whether it shall have an entire marble face, and have advertised for bids with the marble face and only with marble trimming. But they have decided to build it, and it is a decision in which the entire State is interested. It shows that we are going forward. As the Murphy Bulletin well and truly put it: “The Court House will stand the storm of ages and retain its original beauty and magnificence.” The Commissioners and Magistrates have acted wisely, and the Chronicle rejoices that a spirit of faith in the glorious future of their county has been present with them. This marble Court House will be a monument for centuries to come of the wisdom of the men now living in Cherokee.15
“Cherokee County Court House Swept By Disastrous Fire for Second Time In History, Damage Believed $100,000.” The Sunday Citizen (Asheville, North Carolina), January 17, 1926, p. 20. ↩︎
“Cherokee Courthouse Is Destroyed By Fire”. The Charlotte News (Charlotte, North Carolina), January 16, 1926, p. 1. ↩︎
“Cherokee County Court House Swept By Disastrous Fire for Second Time In History, Damage Believed $100,000.” The Sunday Citizen (Asheville, North Carolina), January 17, 1926, p. 20. ↩︎
“Start Plans For Cherokee Courthouse”. The Asheville Times (Asheville, North Carolina), January 22, 1926, p. 18. ↩︎
“New Courthouse Will Be Built In Cherokee County”. Salisbury Evening Post (Salisbury, North Carolina), January 28, 1926, p. 6. ↩︎
From left to right: Muse’s Department Storesign, The Bank of Georgia/34 Peachtree (1961), Citizens & Southern National Bank (1901), English-American Building (1898). Fairlie-Poplar, Atlanta.
Joseph Amisano of Toombs, Amisano & Wells with J.W. Robinson and Associates, Inc. Robert W. Woodruff Library (1982). Atlanta University Center.1234Looking at the Robert W. Woodruff Library from the southeastSouth elevation of the Robert W. Woodruff LibraryWindows on the south elevation of the Robert W. Woodruff LibrarySkylight on the east facade of the Robert W. Woodruff LibraryLooking at the Robert W. Woodruff Library from the northeastNorth elevation of the Robert W. Woodruff Library
References
Dees, Learned and Hunt, Eunice S. “New AUC Library To Open in Jan.” The Atlanta Voice, November 14, 1981, p. 1B. ↩︎
Salyer, Sharon J. “Library Dedication Is Friday At AUC”. The Atlanta Constitution, April 22, 1982, p. 17-A. ↩︎
Barnes, Beverly. “Woodruff Library Is Dedicated”. The Atlanta Journal-The Atlanta Constitution Weekend, April 24, 1982, p. 14-A. ↩︎
Powell, Kay. “Joe Amisano, admired architect”. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 21, 2008, p. B6. ↩︎
C. Walter Smith. PublicComfort Building at Oakland Cemetery (1899). Atlanta.
The Public Comfort Building in Oakland Cemetery is the only surviving work in Atlanta known to have been designed byC. Walter Smith (1865-1910), an architect who worked for at least seven years as a draughtsman and assistant for G.L. Norrman before embarking on a fairly unremarkable solo career.
Built on a small hill in the western portion of the 48-acre cemetery, this 2-story structure includes a full basement and totals2,800 square feet.1 The exterior is faced in stucco-covered brick2and rusticated granite trimmings, and marble flooring3 is used on the front porch and in the basement.
Modeled after “the old Norman and English castellated churches,”4 the building’s design can be broadly defined as Romanesque, and its focal point is a 50-foot-high crenellated bell tower,5 heavily inspired by similar designs from G.L. Norrman.
Today, Oakland Cemetery refers to the entire structure as the “Bell Tower”.
C. Walter Smith. Public Comfort Building at Oakland Cemetery (1899). Atlanta.6
An illustration from 1899 (pictured above) reveals the building’s original design: a one-story porch topped by battlements originally flanked the south facade, and a porte-cochère to accommodate wagons was attached to the east side.
Curiously, the final design was reversed, with the porte-cochère moved to the west side of the structure, likely one of “a few slight changes” announced before construction began.7
Roman arches on the porch and bell tower, and Gothic-stylearched windows on the second floor completed the appearance of a small, storybook castle — again, Smith borrowed significantly from Norrman for the aesthetic.
South facade of the Public Comfort Building
In its original conception, the building was one of Smith’s better designs. Despite years of training under “the South’s most prominent architect”8 — his words — Smith’s skill never came close to Norman’s high level of artistry, although his work here was at least intriguing.
Unfortunately, the initial vision was compromisedby the later addition of second-floor porchesover the front porch and porte-cochère, topped with flat roofs and punctuated by incongruent half-round openings.
I suspect the porches were added circa 1908, when the cemetery spent $5,000 on a range of improvements9 following its first annual report to the city, which requested $1,000 for “needed changes and repairs in the main building.”10
The effect of the alterations is detrimental: the upper porches add unnecessary visual mass to the structure and pull focus away from the bell tower, robbing the entire composition of the uplifting, monumental effect Smith originally intended.
West elevation of the Public Comfort Building
“Public comfort” was a polite 19th-century euphemism for restrooms, which were originally housed on the ground floor of the structure.
When the building was completed in October 1899, The Atlanta Journal delicately noted: “Here one now finds a convenience and comfort that was lacking for many years.”11 I guess early visitors just had to hold it — or maybe piss on a grave.
There were initially six rooms in the building, including a ladies’ parlor and an “apartment for gentlemen.” All six rooms had tiled mantels,12 which was apparently noteworthy. Two of the mantels remain intact.
The structure also included an office for the cemetery’s sexton,13 and Oakland Cemetery’s website claims the building contained a chapel, with the second floor used as the sexton’s residence. So many uses for such a small structure.
Second-floor windows on the Public Comfort Building
Despite its fanciful design, the building was, at heart, purely utilitarian, “suitable for the purposes for which it is intended,”14 as the Journal put it.
People need to pee, of course, but the building’s other raison d’être was concealed in the basement.15 The structure was built on the site of a converted 2-story farmhouse16 known as the “dead house”17 — you can see where this is going.
As the Journal explained:
“There is a vault with eight catacombs and sixteen racks. This is as strong and substantial as could be made. For the retention of bodies for any length of time the catacombs will answer every purpose, as they are built to be air-tight for years to come. The racks, as a matter of course, are intended as a temporary place of keeping and are conveniently arranged. When the iron gate to the vault is locked entrance is practically impossible.”18
Front porch of the Public Comfort Building
Since Oakland is a public cemetery operated by the city of Atlanta, the building was funded by an appropriation from the city council.19 The Atlanta Building Company secured the contract with the lowest bid, and the project’s total cost was $4,600,20 with $650 spent on the stone.21
Construction on the building was initially slated to begin on April 27, 1899,22 but was apparently delayed until June and completed in four months.23
Although early plans called for the construction of one or two additional public comfort buildings in the cemetery,24 those never materialized, and this structure remained the only significant public building at the site, altered many times over by piecemeal repairs and alterations.
When the Historic Oakland Foundation was formed in 1976 to preserve and maintain the cemetery’s historic integrity, the building became office space for the organization, with the ground floor converted into a small visitors center,25 a function that it served for decades.
East elevation of the Public Comfort Building
In 2022, as Oakland Cemetery prepared to build a much larger visitors’ center outside its main entrance, the former Public Comfort Building was given a gut renovation designed by Smith Dalia Architects, Atlanta’s finest firm for the adaptive reuse of historic structures.
The project included tearing out the hodgepodge of rooms on each floor for larger, open spaces, removing god-awful windows added to the second-floor porches, and making necessary accessibility alterations, which altered a portion of the front porch.2627
The building reopened later that year28 as an event space: the fallback choice when owners don’t know what to do with a historic structure.
Following its renovation, the building now appears a little too clean and gleaming — I actually preferred it when it was worn and shabby — but it still has an undeniable anachronistic charm that’s uncommon in Atlanta.
And as one of just six known extant works by Walter Smith, it’s also a matter of curiosity, if nothing else.
W.H. Parkins. Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (1873). Atlanta.123Entrance of the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate ConceptionNorth elevation of the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate ConceptionTransept on the north elevation of the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate ConceptionBell tower on the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate ConceptionWindows on the east elevation of the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate ConceptionLooking toward the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception from the south
References
“Notice!” (advertisement). The Atlanta Constitution, April 25, 1869, p. 2. ↩︎
“Dedication of the New Roman Catholic Church.” The Atlanta Constitution, December 7, 1873, p. 8. ↩︎
“A Brilliant Day.” The Atlanta Constitution, January 13, 1880, p. 4. ↩︎
A. Ten Eyck Brown with A. Barili, Jr. and J.W. Humphreys, associate architects. United States Post Office (1933). Atlanta.
Don’t let Atlanta historians fool you: A. Ten Eyck Brown (1878-1940) likely had little to do with the design of this monumental structure, which ranks among the most exquisite buildings in the city.
Opened in December 19331 as the United States Post Office, it appearsthe project was primarily designedby Brown’s associate architects, Alfredo Barili, Jr.,andJ. Wharton Humphreys, who established their own firm a few years later.2
Compare the later works credited to Brown with those of his early years, and it’s clear that his own skills were inadequate for the more sophisticated designs that emerged from his firm in the 1920s onwards — this project is no exception.
East facade of the United States Post Office
Designed in the Classical Moderne style, the building sits atop a base of Stone Mountain granite and is sleekly clad in Georgia marble.3
The structure’s otherwise smooth facades on the east and west are punctuated by a trio of slightly recessed bays that recall Brown’s earlier design for the Fulton County Courthouse, but the effect is much more successful here.
Indeed, the courthouse design is a joyless mess: the building’s facade is cluttered with windows of varying sizes, and the deeply-recessed center bay, supported by six multi-story columns, resembles a giant jail grating.
In this design, the variation of the bays is much more subtle, and the windows are given space to breathe, providing enough contrast and visual balance for a pleasing and cohesive composition.
This building also shines in its incorporation of fine textural detail, trimmed with pilasters, friezes, and stringcourses in stark geometric patterns, many of pre-Columbian inspiration. Emphasizing the structure’s bold ziggurat form, the design evokes the image of some ancient American temple dropped into a modern metropolis.
Detail of ornamentation on the United States Post Office
The project was completed for the princely sum of $3 million,4 and the volume of materials used in its construction is staggering: the structure is composed of 12,222 pieces of marble totalling 4,798,404 pounds, with the largest block weighing 8,400 pounds.5
Atlanta, of course, never pays for quality architecture, and this bulwark of a building exists only because it was bankrolled by the United States government.
At the time, federal building projects were supervised by the U.S. Treasury, and Brown was a natural choice to pick as the lead architect, since he began his career in the office of the supervising architect of the Treasury.67
Brown was approaching the end of his life and career in the 1930s and was well-respected in Atlanta and the Southeast. Known as “Tony” to his friends,8 he became one of the city’s wealthiest architects in the early 20th century, with his firm designing dozens of large-scale public buildings across multiple states, although it appears his fortunes were greatly reduced during the Depression.
Preston Stevens of Stevens & Wilkinson described him as “debonair and attractive,” and recalled a claim by another architect, Francis P. Smith, who said that ‘”Tony” could almost hypnotize his clients by sitting across the table from them and sketching designs upside down.’9
Detail of the bay on the southwest corner of the United States Post Office
I can’t criticize Brown too much for claiming primary credit on this project, as most architects of the era did the same. The myth of the lone designer had long become untenable, and by the turn of the 20th century, every Atlanta architect managed a team of design assistants.
As building projects grew increasingly larger, costlier, and more complex to manage, most prominent architects effectively became figureheads, promoting their businesses and securing commissions while delegating actual design work to their employees.
It’s well documented that numerous projects credited to Atlanta architects of the time, like W.T. Downing, Morgan & Dillon, W.A. Edwards, and Hentz, Reid & Adler — to name a few — were designed by assistants, many of whom went on to establish their own firms.
Brown at least had the decency to share credit with the actual designers of his projects — often listing them as associate architects or supervising architects — a practice he began in 1922, when he was appointed the supervising architect for more than twenty public school buildings in Atlanta,1011 nearly all of which were designed by other architects.1213
Contrast his approach with, say, G. Lloyd Preacher, who claimed credit for every work produced by his firm, although it’s abundantly obvious which projects weren’t his own. The most striking example is Atlanta’s fine neo-Gothic city hall, credited to Preacher but designed by one of his employees, George H. Bond,14 who was an infinitely more talented designer.
Questions of credit aside, the former United States Post Office (later renamed the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Building) is one of the few structures in the city with any actual design caliber, and its quality of craftsmanship and attention to detail are unknown to modern architecture, in Atlanta or elsewhere.
References
Hamilton, Tom J., Jr. “Leaders Laud Administration Policies at Dedication of Atlanta’s New $3,000,000 Post Office Building”. The Atlanta Journal, December 3, 1933, p. 1. ↩︎
“Barili & Humphries Architectural Firm Is Announced Here”. The Atlanta Journal, February 21, 1937, p. 6-D. ↩︎
“New Post Office Is Dedicated And Accepted By City”. The Atlanta Journal, February 19, 1933, p. 1-B. ↩︎
Hamilton, Tom J., Jr. “Leaders Laud Administration Policies at Dedication of Atlanta’s New $3,000,000 Post Office Building”. The Atlanta Journal, December 3, 1933, p. 1. ↩︎
Bruce & Morgan. Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home (1889, unbuilt). Atlanta.
The Background
The following article was published in The Atlanta Constitutionin December 1889 and discusses the proposed design for the Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home, prepared by Bruce & Morgan of Atlanta.
Carrie SteeleLogan (pictured here1)was “well known and highly respected”2 in both the White and Black communities of Atlanta in the late 19th century. Born into slavery in 1829,3 she worked for many years as an attendant in Atlanta’s passenger depot,45 where she reportedly became distressed by the “little army of street vagrants who ran around the depot entrance.”
Steele ultimately quit her job, “impressed with the responsibility of rescuing the little tots that struggled for existence,” and according to the Constitution, “as she left the depot she led several homeless waifs to her home on Wheat street.”
In 1887, Steele began raising money to build an orphanage for Black children, which the Constitution described as a “praiseworthy work,” opining that: “The home will do a vast amount of good in recovering from lives of vice and crime the little negroes who run around our streets ragged, friendless and homeless…”
Note that in this article, Albert Howell, one of the orphanage’s early supporters, claimed that the home would “take the little negro waifs and make good servants of them.”
Steele was a tenacious advocate for the project, pursuing every possible fundraising method. In 1888, she even published a book of anecdotes about her time working in Atlanta’s depot, titled Life and Adventures of Mrs. Carrie Steele, Stewardess Atlanta Depot, with proceeds funding the orphanage.6
Lacking land for the project, in 1889, Steele petitioned the City of Atlanta,78which granted her a 99-year lease9 on a 4 to 5-acre parcel1011 near the intersection of Fair Street and Flat Shoals Road (now the southeast corner of Memorial Drive SE and Holtzclaw Street SE).
Location of Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home
Steele reportedly “made many friends among the white people”,12 and it’s a testament to her reputation that the orphanage’s construction was funded by several of Atlanta’s wealthiest citizens, including Jonathan Norcross,13 who was, by all accounts, a miserly old asshole.
In March 1890, The Atlanta Journal said of Steele’s fundraising efforts:
“Almost all the prominent white people in the city have contributed something to the good cause, and to those who have not we desire to say that you could not contribute to a more laudable undertaking.”14
Construction on the orphanage began in July 1890,15 but because it had to be built in stages as funding permitted, the project was completed in May 1892.16 However, the final structure wasn’t the onedesigned by Bruce & Morgan.
The original design had apparently been dropped by May 1890, when Steele bought 30,000 bricks for the project1718 — note that the plan described and illustrated here was for a wood-frame building.
Architect unknown. Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home (1892). Atlanta.19
The plain brick structure that was ultimately built for the orphanage appears to have had no designer — or at least, not a good one. Containing 13 rooms,20 the orphanage housed 36 children at its dedication,21 and by 1896, it sheltered 75 children between the ages of one and fifteen years old.22
In 1894, Steele told a reporter from the Constitution:
“If these were my own children I could not love them more than I do. They all look up to me as if I were their mother, and come to me with all their little troubles as if I always had a remedy for them. I have had a great many discouragements and trials, but when I look back over these years and see how the Lord has taken care of me and my children, I feel that I ought to be thankful.”23
Steele died in November 1900 at the age of 61, two months after a debilitating stroke.24 Her funeral was reportedly attended by 3,000 people,25 with the Constitution reporting that “the church was filled to overflowing and about half of the audience was composed of whites.” She was buried in Oakland Cemetery, the final resting place of Atlanta’s most distinguished citizens.
Steele’s husband managed the orphanage until he died in 1904,26 which continued operating under a succession of directors, notably Clara M. Pitts, who managed the home from 1919 to 1950.27
In 1928, the orphanage left its original property on Fair Street and moved to the Pittsburgh neighborhood in southwest Atlanta.28 Later renamed the Carrie Steele-Pitts Home, the orphanage moved to Faiburn Road in west Atlanta in 1964,29 where it remains in operation as the oldest black orphanage in the United States.30
For Negro Orphans.
The Good Work Which Carrie Steele Has Done.
The Home As It Will Appear When Finished — What a City Officer Has To Say About It — Other Notes of Interest.
“That’s the best investment Atlanta has ever made.”
Colonel Albert Howell was the speaker. As he made the remark he pointed to an architect’s drawing of the Carrie Steele Orphan home.
“Yes,” said Colonel Howell, “that is one of the most sensible charities ever inaugurated, and to one woman belongs the credit for its inception and the good work that has already been done. Carrie Steele is a good woman, and I know she deserves every success in this life work of hers. For it is a life-work. It is two years now since the project was conceived by Carrie, or rather since she gave up her position at the carshed that she might devote her whole time to this home. She has labored honestly and earnestly for its success, and she expects to devote the rest of her life to it.”
Colonel Howell has shown his faith by his works. It was through his influence as alderman that the lease on the four acres of city land, upon which the home will stand was extended from ten to ninety-nine years. And in all her efforts to secure city aid, Colonel Howell has been one of Carrie Steele’s most staunch supporters.
“It is a good thing for Atlanta as well as the state at large–this orphans’ home,” he said yesterday. “For it is the intention of the people interested in the home to take the little negro waifs and make good servants of them. The education they receive will all be in the direction of practical usefulness.”
The home will be located on the Flat Shoals road where Fair street will intersect it. This is about two and a half miles from the center of the city and is delightfully located.
The building, which, when completed, will look like the accompanying cut, will be a frame structure built in the most substantial manner. The building when finished which will contain, on the first floor an office and room for matron, with two school rooms, chapel and large dining room, with kitchen and laundry rooms, for teaching kitchen work. The second floor will contain dormitories, bath rooms, and all modern conveniences, and in every way adapted to the purposes for which it is intended. The plans were prepared by Messrs. Bruce & Morgan, and preparations are being made for commencing the work at once.
It is the intention of the projector to start with one wing, and use that for the purposes of the home. Then as the years go by and the home gets well started, the building will be completed.31
References
Illustration credit: “Training The Colored Children”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1896, p. 3. ↩︎
“The Colored Orphans’ Home.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 9, 1889, p. 3. ↩︎
The following article was published in The Looking Glass on January 22, 1898, and provides what it describes as “an appalling list of openly avowed Atlanta bachelors” at the time, includingG.L. Norrman (1848-1909).
The Looking Glass was a short-lived but notorious tabloid newspaper published weekly in Atlanta from 1895 to 1898, and it’s safe to say that pretty much everyone in the city read it, even if they’d never admit to it.
Chock-full of photographs, oversized illustrations, and comic sketches, The Looking Glass was a visual feast compared to the drab pages of The Atlanta Constution and The Atlanta Journal, but what made made the publication so sensational was that it regularly dished on the lurid exploitsof what it referred to as “Atlanta’s 400” — a sarcastic swipe at the city’s wealthiest citizens, inspired by the Four Hundred of New York.
The members of Atlanta society who were regularly fawned over in the pages of the Constitution and the Journal were mercilessly mocked in The Looking Glass, with irresistible blind items that laid bare their infidelity, divorces, drug and alcohol addictions, and bankruptcies — among other social embarrassments.
Absolutely no one who was anyone in Atlanta was spared byThe Looking Glass, which scandalously pushed against every conceivable social taboo of the time — it even had an illustration of a nude woman on its banner.
A few random excerpts will give you an idea of why the newspaper was so popular:
“The interesting rumor that a naked man was in the habit of parading the neighborhood of Grant Park has caused great excitement in the vicinity…”1
“There is a certain high building in Atlanta, the roof of which furnishes an excellent coigne of vantage from which to survey the surrounding country. It is reached–the roof, I mean–by a ladder like flight of stairs leading up from a loft, and it is quite a common thing for lady visitors to repair thither to enjoy the superb view. The offices on the several floors of the building contain a good many young men who are no better than young men usually are, and some of them lately made the discovery that the fair visitors, ascending and descending, like the angels in Jacob’s dream, formed a series of living pictures quite eclipsing anything ever seen on the stage. One of the discoverers owns a hand camera, and with the aid of this instrument he has perpetuated the delectable vision in a number of different views”2
“One of the numerous divorce cases which will be heard at the ensuing term of the Superior Court will in all probability develop a little story which contains about as many elements of the dramatic as are usually to be found in a single passage of every-day life… Some time ago the husband began to suspect (or so he claims) that his wife was taking more interest than she should in a certain friend of the family who was a frequent visitor at the domestic hearth… he proceeded to lay a trap for his friend and his spouse…”3
“That there is a prejudice against bloomers is not to be denied, but The Looking Glass begs to doubt whether it is a puritanical prejudice. The objection is not ethical it is aesthetic. Bloomers are unpopular and generally reviled, not because they are immoral, but because they are ugly. They are a clumsy and ineffectual compromise between the graceful, comfortable and artistic knickerbockers and the flapping skirt, and alike all compromises, reproduce the bad points of both extremes, without their redeeming qualities.
“A woman may be as shapely as Venus and as graceful as a fawn, but nothing will prevent her from looking like a guy the moment she thrusts her legs into a pair of meal sacks. A very loose nether garment, gathered in at the ankles, and superabundantly wide at the hips, is inherently grotesque, and neither youth nor beauty can save it from provoking a smile.”4
That’s right, your ancestors were whores and perverts, too.
Needless to say, the tone of the following article is quite tongue-in-cheek, and the pseudonymous writer, a.k.a. “The Spinster”, writes about the Atlanta “men who have long been given up as hopeless by even the most persistent of the managing mammas.”
Many of the “confirmed bachelors” listed here are also named in a somewhat similar article published in the Constitution two years earlier (see “Atlanta’s Attractive Prizes for Leap Year Girls“), and I suspect the writer of each was the same.
But of course, The Looking Glass was much more provocative, and this article may have been at least a partial outing of some of the city’s closeted gay men at the time — God knows Atlanta is still full of them.
Certainly, some of the phrasing here appears to be euphemistic: Jim Nutting is described as the most “impregnable man in bachelordom”, Hugh Boyd Adams is compared to an “old maid”, and Oscar Brown is said to be “one of the most incorrigible of the entire lot”.
As always, history provokes more questions than it provides answers.
Atlanta’s Brigade of Confirmed Bachelors, Young and Old.
Men Who Are Useful in Society, but Who Have Long Since Ceased to Be an Object of Solicitude on the Part of Designing Mammas–An Interesting Roster.
I have noticed that the LOOKING GLASS has from time to time commented on the scarcity of marriages in Atlanta society and has suggested several reasons why this state of affairs exists. Chief among then, if I remember correctly, was the assertion that a majority of our young men look askance at matrimony because they are too poor to properly maintain a wife.
So far as this theory goes it is correct, but it does not entirely cover the ground. I have studied the situation carefully and have come to the conclusion that the idea of matrimony, aside from the necessary additional expense which it entails, is becoming more and more distasteful to society men. Each year the free-to-come-and-go life of the clubs absorbs more and more of our really eligible bachelors, and they are irreclaimably lost so far as the girls and their mammas are concerned.
One has only to look at the appalling list of openly avowed Atlanta bachelors–men who have long been given up as hopeless by even the most persistent of the managing mammas–to realize that I am right. Many of these men are entirely eligible, so far as money, good looks and intellect are concerned, but they are regarded as absolutely incorrigible. They dance attendance on the debutantes of each succeeding season, go to all the different functions and eat the dinners of anxious mammas–but they don’t marry. Neither does anyone expect them to marry; they have been in the swim for years and occupy a distinct place which they have made for themselves. However, such men are extremely useful members of society; they can always be depended upon to accept an invitation or keep an engagement, and they invariably put themselves out to make the debutantes have a good time.
Sam Hall was a typical specimen of the class of which I am speaking. He was seen everywhere, knew every one worth knowing, was an undoubted authority on matters of social import, and led a cotillion gracefully. But who ever seriously thought Sam would marry?
Another confirmed bachelor who has departed from our midst, and who has seen the alternate hope and despair of scores of girls, is Tom Paine. For a number of years he was regarded more or less seriously, and if half I hear is true, he had some very narrow escapes. But he was eventually given up as an irreclaimable, and all hopes of leading him to the altar were abandoned.
At present Jim Nutting enjoys the distinction of being the most impregnable man in bachelordom. Jim has been in society since the time when man’s memory runneth not to the contrary. He has seen scores of his old flames led to the alter, and even assisted in the capacity of best man; on many of these occasions he has stood godfather to countless infants, but if he ever allowed the idea of matrimony to cross his mind, he dismissed it immediately.
Bob Shedden has caused many a heart to beat high in anticipation of the momentous question, but the question was like the letter in the popular ballad–it never came.
Hugh Boyd Adams is another man who has taken the veil, and who would not exchange his home at the club for any consideration. He is as punctilious about his social obligations as an old maid, but if you suggested matrimony to him he would stamped like an untamed broncho at the approach of an express-train.
Godfrey L. Norrman is thoroughly wedded to his books and his artistic pursuits, and never gives marriage a second thought–at least, so he says.
Daniel Rountree has all but dropped out of society, and is applying himself to his profession to the exclusion of all other matters. He is young, rich and good-looking, but he is apt to die in single blessedness.
George Stearns is still young, but he is fast falling in line with the other confirmed bachelors and it is pretty safe to say that he will never marry.
Gordon Kiser is one of the few ideal society men we have left. He has made society a study, and devotes a good deal of time to it, but he is generally regarded as not at all likely to exchange his present contented existence for one beset with doubts and fears. The girls have counted him out of the running.
There was a time when John Ryan was the subject of a good deal of solicitation among enterprising mothers, but they have long since given up trying to hook him and have turned their attention to other directions.
Lieutenant Oscar Brown is an enthusiastic clubman and popular diner-out, but he is also one of the most incorrigible of the entire lot.
Our other confirmed bachelors might be catalogued thus: Harry English, Frank Orme, Charley Ryan, Robert Ryan, John J. Eagan, Fred J. Paxon, Lucius McClesky, Will Black, Peter Grant, Jack Slaton, Isham Daniel, Jim McKeldin, Reuben Hayden, Walter Kirkpatrick and Henderson Hallman.
