Introduction

This exhibit includes a rich variety of interpretive materials on Bibb City, a former company-owned mill village in west central Georgia. These materials are the product of a unique multi-disciplinary project. Project authors include over 40 students in four concurrent classes during Maymester, 2009. The project was directed by Dr. Becky Becker (Department of Theater) and Dr. Amanda Rees (Department of History) at Columbus State University.

To support a growing interest in Bibb City our interpretive project includes: an oral history play, text and images from the history exhibit, "in character" walking tour scripts, a printable self-guided community tour, and a downloadable audio tour.

Bibb City is historically significant because it reminds us of the central role of the cotton mill industry in the South, in Georgia and in the city of Columbus during the 20th century. Two elements make Bibb City unique. First, unlike most other mill companies in the South who turned away from paternalistic management, Bibb Mill kept its fatherly eye on this segregated company town. Second, Bibb City captures two very distinct methods of company town design. The early residential section offers a very dense, unvarying urban, industrial feel, while the new homes (built in the early 1920s) provide more varying architecture situated in a rural landscape that produced the more isolated feel of the countryside.

Welcome to our project.