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Mission

The mission of the Digital Archives is to provide easy access to historic documents that illuminate the activities of earlier Unitarians and Universalists in particualr Atlanta, Georgia in generally in the South.

The tagline for the project is Preserving Our History, Extending Our Memory.

The end goal of the project is to provide a rich repository of information to allow scholars, researchers and interested parties to base their work on original source materials.

Quick Start

Terms of Use

First, read our Terms of Use policy.  Our terms of use policy basically states that the material presented on this site is for informational use only. The material may not under any circumstance be monetized, sold or packaged in any form for commercial purposes or for monetary gain. Prohibited actions include charging a fee-for-service, collection of royalty fees, licensing to a third party or any financial mechanism not explicitly stated here.

Reproduction of material must cite source reference notations included in all documents. Applicable copyright laws apply regarding reference to or use in derived written or electronic publications or oral communications.

Summaries and Master Index

For an overview the collection of documents uploaded to the Digital Archives, see Archives Contents.

Other Search Options

  • Search Archives: Search engine enables the following options/features:
    • Search results sorted in the order of relevance, not by date.
    • Fuzzy matching: match partial words, if complete words don’t match.
    • Find documents matching either just one search term (OR query) or require all words to appear (AND query).
    • Search for phrases with quotes, for example “search phrase”.
    • Create custom excerpts that show where the hit was made, with the search terms highlighted.
    • Highlight search terms in the documents when user clicks through search results.
  • Archived by Month/Year: Use the dropdown list to see archival information categories by month and year.
  • Archives by Category: Use this option to view documents categorized by their source. Meeting minutes and other documents related to a church are listed accordingly. Please note that the name of the Unitarian church in Atlanta changed several times since its founding in 1884.

Archives Contents

Initial efforts of the Digital Archives is to mine the rich source of handwritten and other source documents housed in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Collection, housed at the Pitts Theology Library at Emory University in Atlanta.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta (UUCA) is directly descended from the organizational efforts of Atlanta Unitarians in the 1880’s and the merger of the Atlanta Unitarians and Universalists in 1918. A large number of records from those original churches were preserved and are now permanently stored at Emory University.

The Digital Archives also reviewed contemporary religious publications and Atlanta newspaper articles to provide a context and wider understanding of events noted in church documents. When such context is deemed appropriate, these additional source documents are uploaded or referenced.

Additional documents in the Digital Archives include a very small set of records from the Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Northwest was an intentional effort by UUCA to extend the UU presence in the Atlanta area.

Download / Email Documents 

At the bottom of each document is an option to Download the article as a PDF. Selecting this option will allow you to:

  • Download a Portable Document Format (PDF) version of the selected document to your electronic device or
  • Email a PDF to a single email address. You will receive an email from PDF24 Document to PDF <doc2pdf@pdf24.org> an activation of your email may be required to receive the attached PDF document.
  • The FAX option is not implemented.

Citation

The original source of the digital archives document is found at the bottom of each document. The citation will appear on downloaded/email documents.