Clerks and customers at the Isaac Thomas store.

If you like history and have a little time to donate, the Limestone County Archives could use your help with the upcoming Smithsonian Institution exhibit coming to Athens.

Rebekah Davis, Limestone County Archives archivist and co-chair of the traveling exhibit titled “The Way We Worked,” said Thursday, volunteer tour guides are needed to staff the exhibit, which will be in Athens Sept. 20 through Nov. 8 at the Limestone County Event Center. Tour guide training workshop will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 4, at the Event Center.

Anyone interested in being a tour guide may contact Dean Morgan at the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, or RSVP, at 256-232-7207; send email to dmorgan@al-rsvp.com; or come to the workshop.

The Smithsonian exhibit will tour six communities in Alabama from July 2014 through June 2015 including Pell City, Athens, Valley, Cullman, Demopolis, and Dothan.

Davis told a group of community representatives Athens hopes to make the Smithsonian exhibit its own by including all sorts of Athens and Limestone County history.

Needed

To that end, Davis and Todd are seeking volunteers to help with the exhibit, donations to develop and expand it, and old photographs or artifacts from individuals, businesses or industries who want to show the history of the way we worked in Athens and Limestone County.

The Smithsonian side

“The Way We Worked” exhibit explores how work has become a central element in American culture. It traces the many changes that have affected the workforce and work environments over the past 150 years, including the growth of manufacturing and increasing use of technology. The Event Center exhibit will include five kiosks that feature photos, videos, artifacts and stories from the holdings of the Smithsonian and the National Archives.

The Limestone side

The Event Center exhibit will also include a set of kiosks and display cases that feature local photos, stories, tools and more from the holdings of the Limestone County Archives, the Limestone County Historical Society Museum, and various community members and groups, Davis said. There will also be related historical exhibits at other downtown locations. 

The Event Center exhibit will be organized in six facets of “The Way We Worked” in Limestone County, including:

• Small and local businesses;

• Farming and homemaking;

• Transportation and industry;

• Health care;

• Faith and education; and

• Government.

Windfall may await

This is the second group of six Alabama cities to receive the Smithsonian’s traveling exhibit, and Davis said those previous six  “increased their downtown revenue by about 25 percent” as well as their city’s sales tax collections during the period. 

Photo booth tales 

The exhibit will include a vintage photo booth — the kind you stepped in, sat down, smiled and received a strip of four photos of yourself, Davis said. This booth will be equipped to record oral histories from Limestone Countians. These recordings will become part of the Limestone County Archives as well as the National Archives.

Punch clock guestbook

Visitors will record their trip to the museum by punching in via a vintage time clock. Upon exiting, they will write their name and city on their time card. Davis said she thought this would be a fun and historical way to record visitors. Tracking visitor information, she said, may also help the city and county when applying for tourism-related grants.

Donations

Davis said she and project co-chair Teresa Todd, who is the Athens-Limestone County Tourism Association president, hope to raise about $25,000 for the project. By the time the meeting ended Thursday, they had $17,000 pledged. They have set a Sept. 1 deadline to raise as much money as they can.

They were expecting some grants, including $2,000 from the Alabama Humanities Association, $2,500 from the Alabama Department of Tourism, and a $2,500 match from the Athens-Limestone Tourism Association.

State Rep. Dan Williams, R-Athens, who attended the meeting, agreed to contribute $5,000 to the cause from the TVA-in-lieu-of tax money the local legislators use for various public needs. State Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison, who could not attend the meeting, also authorized an additional $5,000 from the TVA in-lieu-of-tax fund.

Mayor Ronnie Marks suggested asking the TVA to create an exhibit and, possibly, make a donation to the project since the TVA “built the Tennessee Valley” in the 1930s.

Dottie Donahue, a volunteer at the archives at Athens State University, suggested having the exhibit open Tuesdays through Saturdays, rather than Monday through Fridays, so people can attend when they are not working.

For more information, send email to Davis at thewayathensworks@gmail.com. To schedule group tours, call Misti Fillingame at 205-222-5408 or send email to tourthewayathensworks@gmail.com.