Tag Archives: Georgia Women’s History

Harper Fowlkes House, 1844, Savannah

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The Harper Fowlkes House museum in Savannah, Georgia.

The Harper Fowlkes House was built by prominent architect Charles B. Cluskey as a Greek Revival townhouse for Savannah shipping magnate Stephen Gardner on Orleans Square in 1844. Financial difficulties soon compelled Gardner to sell the house to his brother, who then sold it to Aaron Champion (1792-1880). Champion’s daughter, Maria Sophia McAlpin (1832-1890), used the house for in-town entertaining while living at the Hermitage Plantation. Her husband James McAlpin was a trustee of that property. By 1895, Maria’s son, Henry McAlpin (1860-1931) and his second wife, Isabel, were living in the house, and Isabel was responsible for the addition of a third floor and mansard roof, to accommodate servants. Alida Harper Fowlkes (1908-1985) purchased the home, which today bears her name, for $9000 in 1939. Mrs. Fowlkes, who owned the Georgian Tea Room in the Olde Pink House in the 1930s and 1940s, later became an antiques dealer and preservationist, restoring ten houses in Savannah. In her will, she left the house to the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Georgia and stipulated it never be sold. It is operated as a house museum today by the Coastal Heritage Society.

Savannah National Historic Landmark District, National Register of Historic Places

Telfair Academy, 1818, Savannah

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Statues of historical figures positioned outside a yellow building, featuring columns and a balcony, with landscaped greenery in the foreground.

The Telfair family’s Regency townhouse, which after a bequest to the city became the first art museum in the American South, was designed by architect William Jay, and stands as one of his few surviving designs.

A contemporary portrait of Alexander Telfair of Savannah, Georgia.
Alexander Telfair, portrait, public domain image via Find a Grave

Originally designed for Alexander Telfair (1789-1832), a bachelor son of early Georgia governor Edward Telfair (1735-1807), the house eventually passed to his sister Mary Telfair (1791-1875), who was known for her outstanding art collection.

Contemporary photograph of Mary Telfair of Savannah, Georgia.
Mary Telfair, contemporary photograph, public domain image via Find a Grave

Mary, who never married and was the last of the Telfairs, left the home to the Georgia Historical Society to be operated as an art museum. It was remodeled for use as a museum in 1886 by architect Detllef Lienau. It is one of three properties that now make up the Telfair Museums. Her bequests also included the Mary Telfair Women’s Hospital, now a part of St. Joseph’s Candler Hospital.

Front view of the Telfair Academy of Arts & Sciences building, featuring classical architecture, four statues on pedestals, and a wrought-iron fence.

In front of the building are sculptures of Phidias, Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Perhaps the most famous work inside the museum is Sylvia Shaw Judson’s Bird Girl sculpture, known for its appearance on the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.


National Historic Landmark

Lavinia Low House, 1844, Savannah

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The Lavinia Low House in Savannah, Georgia.

This townhouse was built in 1844. A date plate on the house states it was built in 1854 for Lavinia Low, but I believe this may indicate the time she took possession of the property. An earlier date plate identified as the John Low House, built in 1844, and historical sources consulted confirm this.

Lavinia Amelia Myers Low (c. 1786-1865) was married to Captain John Low (c.1784-1876), presumably circa 1814-1817. They had at least four children. Low, a native of Northern Ireland, was a successful entrepreneur who served as Savannah harbormaster and a member of the board of health. He was an investor in several steamboats, including the St. Matthews and the schooner Georgia Ann, and a marine railway on Hutchinson Island. He was also involved in real estate and owned numerous houses in Savannah. Further pursuits included shares in the Savannah Insurance and Trust Company and the Central Rail Road and Banking Company of Georgia. Genealogists infer that he was not related to the better-known Andrew Low.

The marriage ended in public scandal in the 1840s due to John’s adultery. Lavinia successfully sued him for adultery and assault and battery, and also brought a lawsuit against his paramour. A judgement ordered Captain Low out of their home and Lavinia and her daughters received a sizable fortune, including four houses in Savannah. Ownership of Low’s enslaved people, including Charlotte, Dick, Bella, Sally, Jane, Kent, and Julianna, was also transferred to Lavinia. A divorce was not obtained, though John left Savannah and eventually settled in Griffin, where he remained very successful, with a net worth at his death of over $325,000 (approximately $11 million in 2026). Notably, he was buried beside Lavinia in Laurel Grove Cemetery, despite their marital discord and separation.

Front view of the Lavinia Low House, in Savannah, Georgia.

Savannah National Historic Landmark District, National Register of Historic Places

Nettie C. Hall: Fitzgerald’s ‘Mother Enterprise’

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A sepia-toned portrait of suffragist and early woman entrepreneur Nettie C. Hall with glasses, wearing a white blouse with a dark collar, looking directly at the camera.
Anzonetta “Nettie” Crabb Hall (1841-14 June 1908). Courtesy Blue & Gray Museum.

Nettie Crabb was born in Brownstown, Indiana, in 1841, but further details of her early life are elusive. She married Dr. Robert L. Weems, a physician who served as a surgeon during the Civil War. Widowed in 1880, she moved to Bird Island, Minnesota, where she worked as a milliner. In 1882 she homesteaded in Wessington Springs, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota), and worked in a pharmacy, which she would eventually own, the only known woman in the territory to do so. In The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (2009), Ann D. Gordon noted that Nettie was “well skilled in her profession (pharmacy).”

Nettie married another Civil War veteran, Cleveland T. Hall, in 1884, but was widowed again in 1886. Ever busy, Nettie was elected as a trustee of the Wessington Springs school in 1887 and 1888, and was also served as an election judge. In 1889, she argued for women’s suffrage at a state constitutional convention. Later that year she served as vice-president of the Jerauld County Equal Suffrage Association. In 1890 she was prominent in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

In 1895, she was one of the first settlers of Fitzgerald. where she established the Fitzgerald Enterprise, the first major newspaper in the community. She also remained active in the WCTU and was known for her support of railroad workers. Her first son, Victor, had died of exposure when his train was caught in a snowstorm in Minnesota. When Nettie C. Hall died at the age of 68 on 14 June 1908, she was a legend of the community and her lifetime of work and advocacy was celebrated. In 1910, railroad workers and the WCTU erected the “Mother Enterprise” drinking fountain in her honor.

A stone fountain featuring a spherical top and an engraved base that reads 'Mother Enterprise,' set in a park-like area with buildings and parked cars in the background.

Fitzgerald Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Alma Thomas House, Circa 1889, Columbus

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A Queen Anne house with a light yellow exterior, decorative trim, and a front porch surrounded by a white picket fence, located on a grassy lot.

This outstanding Queen Anne cottage in the Rose Hill neighborhood of Columbus was the childhood home of Alma Woodsey Thomas (1891-1978), a nationally prominent African-American artist and cultural icon. Interestingly, the home was located in an otherwise exclusively white neighborhood. A 2001 fire damaged the house but it was restored soon thereafter.

Family tradition states that the manuscript for The Souls of Black Folk, by W.E.B. Dubois, was typed on the front porch of the Thomas home by Alma Thomas’s cousin, Inez, who was Dubois’s secretary. Alma’s parents, Amelia Cantey (?-1938) and John Harris Thomas (1860-1942), were members of Columbus’s small but prosperous upper middle class Black community. Nonetheless, the family moved to Washington, D. C., in 1907, to escape the racial tensions of the Jim Crow South.

Alma Thomas enrolled at Howard University and in 1924 was that school’s first fine arts graduate. She later earned her masters degree from Columbia University. Thomas had a successful career as a teacher at Washington’s Shaw Junior High School for 35 years. Among her accomplishments were the organization of an Arts League and the development of a program to create art galleries within local schools. In 1943, she helped establish the Barnett Aden Gallery, one of the first Black-owned galleries in the United States. Ms. Thomas retired from teaching in 1960 to focus on her own art, focusing on abstraction as a member of the Washington Colorist School. A significant figure in Washington’s art world, she was associated with the Little Paris Group and Howard University’s Gallery of Art.

Thomas was the first Black woman to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum and the first to have a work in the White House permanent collection. Her work is collected by the National Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum, Corcoran Gallery, and the Smithsonian Institution, among many other venerable institutions. NASA owns several of Thomas’ paintings from her “Space” series.

National Register of Historic Places

Smith-McCullers House (Carson McCullers Center), 1932, Columbus

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Exterior view of the Craftsman bungalow that was the home of novelist Carson McCullers in Columbus, Georgia, featuring green walls, a front porch, and landscaped yard.

This Craftsman bungalow was the Columbus home of renowned novelist and playwright Carson McCullers (1917-1967), famous for her novels The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Member of the Wedding, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, and Clock Without Hands. It is typical of the Craftsman architecture that characterizes the neighborhood. To further the legacy of its celebrated resident, the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians is today a house museum and artist residency space owned and operated by Columbus State University.

Lula Carson Smith was born in Columbus, Georgia, on 19 February 1917 to Lamar (1889-1944) and Vera Marguerite Waters Smith (1890-1955). Lamar was a jeweler and watchmaker. Upon graduation from Columbus High School in 1934, Carson moved to New York City, where she began to write, publishing her first work in Story magazine in 1936. Even as she began to have success as a writer, McCullers’s life was rife with difficulty. A misdiagnosed and untreated case of rheumatic fever in childhood caused a series of cerebral strokes as she aged. By her mid-20s, Carson was partially paralyzed on her left side. She made regular visits back to Columbus at this time. In 1937 she wed Reeves McCullers (1913-1953), in what has been described as a lavender marriage.

Front view of a Craftsman bungalow with a green exterior, white trim, and a brick pathway, known as the Carson McCullers House, located in Columbus, Georgia.

When Lamar died at his jewelry shop in 1944, Marguerite sold the Columbus house and moved to Nyack, New York, and purchased a Victorian now known as the Carson McCullers House, also owned by Columbus State University. Carson lived in the Nyack house with her mother and sister, and after World War II, with her husband, who committed suicide in 1953. Later, Carson bought the house from her mother and lived there until her death. A final massive stroke in 1967 ended her life at age 50.

Hillcrest-Wildwood Circle Historic District, National Register of Historic Places


John R. Dawson House, Circa 1837, Columbus

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Front view of the Old Dawson Place, or Gordonido, a historic house with white columns and pink exterior, featuring a blue door and surrounded by greenery. Fire damage is visible.

This historic Greek Revival home, built by John R. Dawson (1810-1852) when the Wynnton area was first being settled and long known as the Old Dawson Place, is most commonly known as Gordonido today. A fire on 7 October 2023 did serious damage to the structure, especially to the roof and upper floor, as is visible in this photograph.

Dawson was a pioneer settler of Columbus, whose family relocated to the area from Maryland. He was a partner in the firm of Hill and Dawson, a successful planters supply company. Wynnton in 1837 was not part of the city of Columbus and the Dawson home was one of just a few country estates in the area. Originally situated on six acres, the property has been reduced to two acres over its nearly 200 year history.

After Dawson’s death in 1852, his heirs remained on the property until it was sold to Sallie L. Gilbert circa 1878-1880. A warranty deed identifies J. T. Willis as the next owner, in 1885. Frederick Barrett Gordon, president of the Columbus Manufacturing Company, purchased the Old Dawson Place in 1913 and his wife, Rosa Crook Martin Gordon, a founding member of the Woman’s Club of Columbus, oversaw significant improvements to the property. It was rechristened Gordonido, and was modernized while retaining its historical appearance. When the Gordons’ daughter, Margaret Gordon Richards inherited the home in 1949, further renovations, meant to return the house to its original appearance, were entrusted to local architect James J. W. Biggers.

A brochure published by the Historic Columbus Foundation in the 1970s noted: “Gordonido is exquisitely kept and one of the city’s most beautiful homes. It is recognized as one of Columbus’ most valued antebellum structures.“

I’m unsure as to any plans for stabilization or restoration at this time, but it would be a shame to lose this landmark.

National Register of Historic Places

Lenora Myers Starling Fountain, 1929, Columbus

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A close-up of the Lenora Myers Starling Fountain, featuring a graceful statue of a woman poised atop a decorative basin, surrounded by lush greenery.

In a place that has long proclaimed itself the Fountain City, the Lenora Myers Starling Fountain stands out as perhaps its most beloved. The Classically-inspired figure of a maiden rising from the waves peers to the skies from a bowl elevated by dolphins. It anchors a small, beautifully maintained triangular park at the intersection of Buena Vista Road and Wynnton Road. Dedicated in December 1929, it was commissioned by Mrs. Starling’s niece, Eleanor Moore King Hatcher. I believe Mrs. Hatcher was the mother of Claud A. Hatcher, the inventor of Chero-RC Cola.

Close-up of the Lenora M. Sarling Fountain showing the inscription 'In Memory Of Leonora M. Sarling' on the bowl of the fountain.

Information on the Carrara marble fountain’s namesake is a bit scarce. According to all local references (with the exception of a National Register of Historic Places nomination) I’ve encountered, her name was Lenora Starling, not Leonora Sarling as carved into the bowl of the fountain.* According to a contemporary account in the Columbus Ledger, Mrs. Starling “moved to Columbus with her husband and became a “leader in civic, social and religious circles here. She was a pioneer in the Christian Science faith in Columbus and was active in numerous charitable endeavors.” She was also known as a leader in the local women’s suffrage movement in the early 1900s and was a founding member of the Columbus Confederated Women’s Club. Her loss in an automobile accident was described as a “tragic death while engaged in an errand of mercy.”

Close-up of the Lenora Myers Starling Fountain featuring intricate carvings of fish and water elements.

Ornamental fountains of Classical influence were a staple in the Victorian era, and the aesthetic remained popular for decades. Locals have dubbed the unnamed figure adorning the Starling fountain “Mrs. Columbus”. The ageless icon has kept watch over the Wynnton neighborhood for nearly a century and her visage is so connected to the city that she now commands a four-story presence on a mural at Heritage Tower.

A close-up of the Lenora Myers Starling Fountain statue, depicting a woman in flowing robes with one hand raised to shield her eyes, surrounded by greenery.

A contemporary account described her as “the majestic figure of a woman poised in the attitude of soaring through space. One hand shields her eyes, as she gazes into the future.” This was particularly poignant in 1929, the year the nation entered the Great Depression, but remains timeless in its optimism.

A decorative fountain at a small triangular park, surrounded by green trees and colorful flowers, dedicated to Leonora Myers Starling.

*- If I can confirm that Mrs. Starling was indeed Mrs. Sarling, I will gladly update.

Wynn’s Hill-Overlook-Oak Circle Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Blackmar-Ellis House, 1884 + 1909, Columbus

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A front view of a grand house illuminated at night, featuring classical columns and a decorative pediment. The structure showcases a blend of Neoclassical Revival and Colonial Revival architectural styles, with elaborate details and a welcoming entrance.

This house was built for John Blackmar (1853-1931) in the Queen Anne style in 1884. It was redesigned in 1909 to its present appearance, a hybrid of two of the most popular styles of the era: Neoclassical Revival and Colonial Revival. The architect for the update was Henrietta Dozier, the first professional female architect in Georgia, and the first formally trained female architect in the South. She added the portico, porte cochere, solarium, and dormers on the roof.

A illuminated historic house showcasing Queen Anne, Neoclassical Revival, and Colonial Revival architectural styles, captured at night.

Susie Blackmar (1895-1981), one of Jack and Susie Wellborn Blackmar’s (1860-1941) five children, was married here to John Tyler “Jack” Ellis (1890-1958) in 1918 and resided here until her death in 1981. In the 1940s, while their son John D. Eisenhower was stationed at Fort Benning, General Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, the future president and first lady, were guests of Mrs. Ellis. Since Mrs. Ellis’s death, the house has served as a residential care home, funeral home, antiques store, and presently, a pediatrician’s office.

High Uptown Historic District, National Register of Historic Places

Ford Clinic, 1930 + 1935, Bryan County

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A small white historic building with a metal roof, featuring a black door and windows. An American flag hangs in front, and there is a sign nearby identifying the building as the Ford Clinic.

This structure served the medical needs of Ways Station-Richmond Hill from 1930 until 1951. According to the Coastal Bryan Heritage Trail, it was established by Mrs. Allethaire Ludlow Rotan as the Ways Health Association on 1 May 1930 and offered primary care to the community. It was first located near the present-day Community House, but was moved and expanded when the Fords assumed control in 1935. It played a central role in the eradication of malaria in the area. Dr. C. F. Holton, with nurses Constance Clark and Ella Reed Sams, served the clinic in the Ford era. And thanks to the generosity of the Fords, medical and dental services were free to all. The clinic ceased operation after the death of Clara Ford and was moved to its present location in the Bryan Neck-Keller area in 1951. Today, its home to a boutique known fittingly as “The Clinic”.