Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers Convention: A Centennial Celebration follow up post.
I had the pleasure of working with the GSU Special Collections and Archives in promoting the Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers Convention: A Centennial Celebration. Read all about my involvement with promoting the event here. Since then I’ve found two great reasons for a follow up: footage from the convention is now online, and … wouldn’t you know it I’ve stumbled across Fiddlin’ John Carson Ln. and the final resting place of the great Georgia fiddler!
My favorite presentation was Mr. Steve Goodson’s with University of West Georgia. In his speech, ‘South of the North, North of the South’: Entertainment in Early Twentieth-Century Atlanta, he describes a turbulent Atlanta in evolution from small town to big city. A struggle described in its day as Cosmopolitanism, progress or a breakdown of traditional Southern values?
Goodson takes us back to a time when ministers cried out, “We don’t want Atlanta to be a cosmopolitan city! We don’t want Atlanta to be like New York!” … A time when movie houses were closed on Sundays and Burlesque shows were called into court* for violating city code- the AJC describing dances as “too indecent to print.”
*He mentions the Imperial Theatre, could this be the original name of the event space inside of the Imperial Hotel? Completed in 1911, this seems at least plausible.
All GOTFC videos and program available here
Several fascinating stories are captured in these presentations. It’s fantastic to see them well preserved within the GSU archives, eerily close to where they took place. For more information on this historic East Atlanta cemetery, visit www.sylvestercemetery.org
