Pursuant to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the project was carried out under the Memorandum of Agreement between HUD and the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office.  The Agreement stipulated that a comprehensive history of public housing in the City of Marietta be prepared to mitigate the adverse effect of the demolition of Fort Hill Homes, which was determined to be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.  Laura Drummond of APPS researched and wrote From Holland Town to the Renaissance on Henderson, A Social and Developmental History of the Marietta Housing Authority.  The history was co-authored by retired MHA Executive Directors Ray Buday and George Green.  Facilitating the research were the extensive records of the Authority, which were donated by a Deed of Gift from MHA to the Archives at Kennesaw State University.  Fort Hill Homes was demolished in 2013.

Image, above:  Fort Hill Homes plans cover sheet, courtesy of the Marietta Housing Authority, photo by L. M. Drummond

The process involves the use of historical or contemporary maps combined with digital elevation models to produce detailed renderings of the battlefield including vertical relief.  Bill has developed GIS datasets for battlefields in Virginia (Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg), Tennessee (Missionary Ridge), South Carolina (Charleston), and Georgia (Chickamauga, Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain, Chattahoochee River Line, Peachtree Creek, Atlanta [Bald Hill], Ezra Church, Utoy Creek, and the Siege of Atlanta).

The exhibit incorporated GIS data which Bill gathered from a variety of sources including historical Civil War maps, maps from the Official Atlas of the Civil War, and the US Civil War Sites Advisory Commission.  It allowed visitors to pan and zoom interactively across the Atlanta region using contemporary aerial photography with Civil War fortifications, troop movements, and landmarks.  The exhibit ran from 2010-2012.

Image of the Ponder House taken by George N. Barnard shortly after the Battle of Atlanta, 1864; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC.

One of those projects was the Religion in Georgia exhibit at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.  The goal of the exhibit was to demonstrate the service and civic activities of religious groups and institutions in Georgia which benefited their communities.

Laura did historical research on numerous religious denominations and service organizations throughout the state; gathered historical photographs; interviewed religious and organization leaders; and photographed religious buildings for the exhibit.

Image, top right:  Detail from 1887 Bird’s Eye View of Macon, Georgia, Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, Washington, DC.

Image, lower right:  Detail from Atlanta City Directory (Atlanta:  Polk and Co., 1891), p. 60.

The various owners have added to the buildings and gardens, creating the estate that is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  A cultural landscape report was commissioned from Robert and Company, and Laura Drummond was part of the team that documented the sixteen-acre property.  She researched and wrote the history of the site and its owners, as well as the history and descriptions of the eleven historic character areas, encompassing eighteen buildings and structures.

Image, above: Italianate-style main house during the Arrowsmith ownership (1885-1910), probably similar to its original appearance.

Image, top right:  Main house, southwest corner; Historic American Buildings Survey; Bernard W. Close, Photographer; 18 August 1936.

Avient Museum Services, a museum and exhibit design firm in Atlanta, was hired to develop the museum exhibit.  Principal Kathryn Dixson hired Laura Drummond to research a variety of topics as a basis for planning  the History of Newton County installation at the historic county jail in Covington, Georgia.

For the project Laura researched the history of Newton County, interviewed local historians, and compiled an extensive, in-depth county timeline for use in the exhibit.  Because all geographic areas of the county were to be represented in the exhibit, Laura researched the individual historic communities and their locations, and stories from each to be told at the jail museum.

Image lower right:  Sanborn Map Company; detail from Sheet 2 of  Covington, Newton Co., Ga., Aug. 1895 / Sanborn-Perris Map Co., Limited; University of Georgia Libraries Map Collection, Athens, Ga., presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.

He hired Laura Drummond, his former G.R.A., to research and develop curricula on the following subjects:  Booker T. Washington and the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition; histories of the historical black colleges of Atlanta; W. E. B. Du Bois and The Georgia Negro Exhibit in Paris; and an introduction to the 1960-1961 student protests in Atlanta, led by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   For the first project, Laura researched Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” speech, its coverage in the local and national press, later criticisms of the speech, and its effects on race relations in the United States.  She also investigated the Exposition, which was held in what today is Atlanta’s Piedmont Park.  Laura created a GIS map showing the 1895 Sanborn map of the Exposition overlaid on a modern aerial photograph, with interactive links to the map that display both historic and modern images.

Image, above:  Overlay map is from the Sanborn Map Company; detail from the Index Sheet, Piedmont Park, Cotton States International Exposition Co., Atlanta, Ga., 1895; University of Georgia Libraries Map Collection, Athens, Ga., presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.

Image, top right:  Booker Taliaferro Washington, between 1880-90, from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC.

Image, lower right:  The Auditorium Building at the Cotton States and International Exhibit, from Walter Gerard Cooper, The Cotton States and International Exposition and South, Illustrated (Atlanta, GA:  The Illustrator Company, 1896).