This book, “The Girl Graduate: Her Own Book” fell into my lap a few months ago.
My excitement grew as I turned each page because the book is a treasure trove regarding what I am almost certain is a senior year recap for 1919 belonging to a young lady named Caroline Ashley Adams at Atlanta’s Girls’ High.
Here she is sitting on her front steps.
The book is basically a scrap book with keepsakes from Caroline’s high school years including photographs of teachers, artwork created by friends, written messages from classmates, details regarding events that took place during the year, and information regarding the owner of the book.
Here is a picture of one of the teachers, Miss Reeves.
This is an example of the artwork scattered throughout the book. It appears to be created by different friends.
This is just one example of Caroline’s keepsakes from various events including the Senior-Junior Luncheon that was held on Friday, June 13, 1919.
Caroline writes the Juniors were not superstitious about entertaining the Seniors on Friday the 13th.
The banquet was given by the Juniors to wish the Seniors Godspeed, and took place at the school.
The page I present above shows Caroline kept her white paper napkin (left). Inside the napkin is the once bright yellow daffodil that decorated the table. The folded paper on the right was folded in such a way it could be opened to form a little box that held nuts on the table.
Here we are ninety-six years later looking at Caroline’s wonderful attempt at holding onto a group of memories.
Still, there are enough holes in the information that it resembles Swiss cheese. I’m in the process of trying to find out more information for each person mentioned in the book, and want to eventually present the project in book form as the story of the class of 1919.
Girls’ High formed in 1872 as one of the original seven schools in the Atlanta Public School System. The school began in the John Neal/William Lyon mansion at Mitchell and Washington Streets. The home is also remembered as one of the few places that can claim status as Sherman’s headquarters during the Atlanta occupation. Today, the site of the original building for Girl’s High is the Atlanta City Hall building.
In 1888, a new three-story brick building was added to the mansion to accommodate a growing student body. Caroline would have attended classes in the old mansion and new addition. Some of the building can be seen in a few of the images.
I have no idea how long this project will take me. I will be devoting time to it on a part-time, here-and-there basis because I have so many other projects on the burner right now, but I’m looking forward to telling the story of the class of 1919.
At this point, I feel like I owe it to them.
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