The Atlanta History Center in Buckhead is turning 100, and it is marking the occasion with the most ambitious exhibit it has ever attempted.
"More Perfect Union: The American Civil War Era" opens July 10, spreading hundreds of artifacts across roughly 9,000 square feet. The center traces its own roots to October 1926, when the founding officers of the Atlanta Historical Society gathered downtown with no office space and stored donated artifacts wherever they could. A hundred years later, the institution is taking on one of the hardest subjects in American history and Atlanta's specific role in it.
The framing is the interesting part. Rather than a tidy monument, the exhibit leans into the Civil War era as a contested record, which is a notably different posture than a lot of Southern institutions have historically taken. Expect a version of this story that argues with itself, which is probably the point.
