AN ECCENTRIC PLACE OF VERY HIGH QUALITY:
OSSABAW ISLAND, GEORGIA AS A CONTEXT FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF
HISTORICAL, CULTURAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE ON THE
ATLANTIC COAST
by
LINDA ORR KING
Under the Direction of Glenn T. Eskew, PhD
ABSTRACT
This sweeping narrative demonstrates how Ossabaw Island’s landowners, some with a
dedicated will and others unwittingly, managed to galvanize social, cultural, scientific, and
political forces to preserve its natural environment despite a culture motivated by profit.
Although geographically isolated, Ossabaw Island’s owners and inhabitants were active
participants within the Atlantic World. Ossabaw’s owners and inhabitants adapted environmental
strategies and social ideologies in accommodation not only with Ossabaw’s fragile barrier island
ecosystems, but also with Southeastern coastal Georgia’s social and political movements. In
particular, this work examines how the advantages of wealth and privilege provided the catalyst
that ultimately benefited rather than exploited social and economic conditions on the island,
leading Ossabaw Island to become the first barrier island Heritage Preserve on the southern
Atlantic Coast.
In addition to an analysis of unpublished manuscripts, maps, correspondence, and oral
histories, this endeavor expands on the current knowledge about barrier island planters, slaves,
freedmen, tenant farmers, lumbermen, boatmen, industrialists, and privileged families. It builds
on previous works by including the guests, artists, scientists, writers, and environmentalists who
visited the island. Furthermore, it investigates their interaction within political, economic,
cultural, religious, and ideological spheres. Ossabaw Island’s indigenous societies, landed
gentry, and wealthy owners shaped its cultural and economic identity from the 1560s to the
modern day. It analyzes additional materials, including colonial and plantation records, official
and personal correspondence, travel narratives, newspaper and magazine articles, and oral
histories. This study seeks to expand the discourse on the exchange of sea island economies and
societies well beyond the Savannah coastal region of the Atlantic World. The Ossabaw
community evolved through conflict and compromise, and eventually encompassed not only
sons and daughters of privilege and descendants of former slaves, but also artists, writers,
scientists, and scholars from around the world.
The central theme of this narrative history is the study of the motivating forces, both
natural and synthetic, that shaped Ossabaw Island’s current distinctive cultural, environmental,
and educational mission, with the major emphasis placed on the events of the 20th and 21st
centuries.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GEORGIA/oai:scholarworks.gsu.edu:history_diss-1046 |
| Date | 11 May 2015 |
| Creators | King, Linda O |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University |
| Source Sets | Georgia State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | History Dissertations |
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