Summer at the Atlanta History Center

Are you looking for somewhere neat to take the kids this summer, or maybe you want to learn more about the history of Atlanta yourself? The has many great things for people of all ages, including summer day camps, available to help people connect with this city's past.

In addition to their permanent collections, the Atlanta History Center has three temporary exhibits:

• Greetings from Atlanta: A Postcard Retrospective, a fairly new exhibit, displays more than 200 postcards focusing on all aspects of life in Atlanta--architecture, businesses, the skyline, homes, neighborhoods, attractions and so on. There are even some rare postcards, too.
• Native Lands: Indians and Georgia focuses on the cultures of the Native Americans who called Georgia home long before European settlers did, the Creek and Cherokee tribes. While most exhibits stop around the time that the tribes were exiled on the Trail of Tears, this exhibit keeps going all the way to contemporary Native history.
• War in Our Backyards: Discovering Atlanta, 1861-1865 juxtaposes the Atlanta that existed during the Civil War with the one that exists today. You can even compare and contrast modern landmarks with what they looked like in the 1860s, both before and after Gen. Sherman came through town.

General admission to the Atlanta History Center is $16.50 for adults, $13 for seniors (age 65 and older) and students (ages 13-18) and $11 for kids (ages 4-12). You can save $2 by purchasing tickets online.

For young budding historians, the history center offers many different kinds of weeklong summer camps for kids from preschool age up to age 11. Kids can learn about the colonial era and birth of America, the history of foods, how the states got their shapes, weird history, art history, historical empires and the history of the Olympics. Each week ends with a Friday afternoon event to show what campers learned and did over the week. Full fees for these camps are $225 for members and $275 for nonmembers. Extended childcare hours are available. Click here for more about each camp and links to purchase spaces in each one.

On June 27, the Atlanta History Center will host Alexandra Fuller, author of various award-winning nonfiction books including her newest, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, for a lecture. The lecture begins at 7 p.m. at the Margaret Mitchell House. Admission is $5 for members and $10 for nonmembers. Please RSVP to 404-814-4150.

The Atlanta History Center is very active on social media, too. Check out their daily facts about Atlanta history on their Facebook page or Twitter, or catch up with them on their Tumblr page, which was recently used to do of a 1917 fire.

If you'd like to make an Atlanta History Center visit part of a 'staycation' and see other big Atlanta attractions too, check out the CityPass. It's a ticket to five different attractions (Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola, CNN Studio Tour and High Museum of Art or Fernbank Museum of Natural History) priced at $69 for adults and $49 for kids ages 3 to 12.