In recent years, you may have noticed a new local magazine available for free around town. Originally called BoomAthens, more recently simply Boom Magazine, this publication may be marketed toward elderly and retired persons, specifically of the Baby Boom generation, but features material of interest to all readers. Recently, publisher Betsy Bean kindly donated all of the back issues of her periodical to the Heritage Room, to be included to the Periodicals archival collection (MSS 010).
While a significant share of Boom‘s content covers topical and practical issues of significance to its targeted demographic, nearly every issue has at least one article that would pique the interest of those who study and enjoy reading about local history. There are even articles about genealogical research.
A few examples of Boom articles are provided here, especially from the first issue of the magazine, from July, 2016, the contents of which are not entirely available at the Boom website. As suggested by these first two pieces, Boom regularly discusses and provides information about classes and programs organized by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (“OLLI”). First, we learn about the experiences of those who taught at local schools in the years immediately after formal racial segregation finally came to an end.
The piece on the next page similarly looks back to that era of protest and revolutionary social change, namely the campus group, Women’s Oppression Must End Now, which tackled several issues, challenging local institutions on the issue of sex discrimination.
The Summer 2017 issue featured an article about the restoration of the Brooklyn Cemetery. If you compare this article as it appeared in print to the online version, you would see that the online version of Boom articles often feature additional content; in this case, extra photographs, and in other cases, additional text as well, an example being the article in the latest issue about Jack Miller, owner of the first home built in Beechwood Hills—it is longer and features more visuals than its print version.
If you have back issues of Athens-based periodicals, past and present, such as Athens Magazine, Crop Stories, Tasty World, Zebra, student publications like the Red and Gold, or the newsletters of organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, churches, and genealogical societies, please consider donating them to the Heritage Room so they can be preserved for future use by researchers. You can quickly see what we currently have in the archives by reviewing the Periodicals collection finding aid. Numerous other publications, especially genealogy-related, are found in the Heritage Room.
–Justin J. Kau
Athens: In Time 