The Georgia Archives is the official repository of archival records for the U.S. state of Georgia. Together with the Georgia Capitol Museum it forms the Georgia Division of Archives and History, part of the office of the Secretary of State of Georgia. It is located in Morrow, Georgia, United States. The primary purpose of the Georgia Archives is to identify which state agency records are worth preserving for hundreds of years, transfer those records to the archives, protect them, and make them available to people who need them. In addition, the archives helps state agencies and local governments manage active records and stores the inactive records of state government in the State Records Center. [1]
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The Georgia Archives was established on August 20, 1918, after a prolonged effort on the part of the Archive's first director, Lucian Lamar Knight.[2] The Archives occupied a balcony in the State Capitol Building for twelve years until 1930, when furniture magnate Amos Giles Rhodes left his home, “Rhodes Hall,” to the Archives.
On October 11, 1965 the Archives dedicated its first home built specifically to house archival collections. The 14-story marble building—known to many as “the White Ice Cube”—was hailed as the most modern archival facility in the country.[3][4] The new home led to the expansion of services, including the addition of records management and microfilming services for state agencies and local governments.
In 1998 engineers determined that the White Ice Cube was sinking due to ground water and nearby interstate construction. Even as the building sank, the archives faced massive expenses to repair the aging HVAC systems. The cost to repair and refurbish the state archives (estimated by some to be as much as $40,000,000) made new construction an attractive alternative.[5] In April 2001, the Georgia General Assembly endorsed a public-private partnership to construct a new archival facility near Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, and adjacent to the Southeast Regional Branch of the National Archives (completed in 2004). Groundbreaking took place on October 30 of that year and the Archives opened its new building on May 6, 2003. Since that time the facility has been awarded design awards by the American Institute of Architects at the state, regional, and national levels.[6]
The Georgia Archives’ collections include the founding documents of the state, such as the Royal Charter that created the colony of Georgia in 1733 and the Ratification of the United States Constitution, the 1788 document that made Georgia a state. Important collections include the official records of Governors, from the Journal of Georgia’s first Royal Governor in 1754 to the records of the current Governor. Acts of the General Assembly also span from the acts of the first Assembly in 1755 to the present. Other collections include records of interest to genealogists, land surveyors, state and local government officials, teachers, and students. [7]