Mary Gregory Jewett | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mary Gregory 1908 (1908) |
| Died | January 16, 1976(1976-01-16) (aged 67–68) |
| Resting place | Decatur Cemetery[1] |
| Alma mater | University of Georgia, 1930 (BA, journalism;cum laude) Agnes Scott College |
| Spouse | Sidney B. Jewett[1] |
Mary Gregory Jewett (1908 – January 16, 1976)[1] was an American preservationist, journalist, public official, and historian[2] who ran theGeorgia Historical Commission from 1960 through its dissolution in 1973, and served as the first president of theGeorgia Trust for Historic Preservation. In 2013, she was posthumously named aGeorgia Woman of Achievement.[3]
Jewett was born in 1908 to Cleburne E. Gregory, a political editor at theAtlanta Journal, and Sarah Adelaide Collis. She was one of three children, with brother Cleburne Earl Gregory Jr. and sister Adelaide Gregory Norton.[3] She attended theUniversity of Georgia where she was a member ofPhi Kappa Phi,Chi Omega, andTheta Sigma Phi, and graduatedcum laude in 1930 with a BA in journalism.
In 1955, Jewett started working as staff historian at the newly establishedGeorgia Historical Commission (GHC), where her father C. E. Gregory, who had helped to establish the agency, was in change. She succeeded him in 1960 as executive secretary (later executive director).[1]
Under Jewett's 13-year leadership, the GHC expanded to employ fifty people and was nationally recognized for its pioneering preservation work. It acquired and restored twenty sites across the state (staffing a total of 15 locations and developing seven museums), and installed 1,800 historical markers.[4] The GHC's first museum conversion was the Crawford W. Long Medical Museum. A coworker recalled her as the "only one who knows how to get along with legislators, politicians, and preservationists."[2]
TheChief Vann House Historic Site was the first site the agency purchased, in 1952. Its full renovations unfolded over years, and the GHC ordered a study of the site by UGA archaeologist Clemens de Baillou ("The Chief Vann House at Spring Place, Georgia", published in 1957 inEarly Georgia) and a translation ofMoravian missionary diaries in an effort to, in Jewett's words, "[explore] every known source of knowledge and [make] the house and grounds as clear a picture as possible of the life of the owners". However, the painstaking restoration of the house's ornate Federal–Georgian architecture also served to embody an attempt by the Cherokee to "copy the whites" — an assertion disputed by Earl Boyd Pierce, who argued that the Cherokee were forced to "center their attention on orthodox building construction calculated to excite both pleasure and respect".[5]
When theNational Historic Preservation Act of 1966 became law, Jewett was the state liaison officer responsible for nominating properties in Georgia for national recognition under the program. The firstNational Register of Historic Places, published in 1969, included thirteen properties from Georgia. She became a leader among her peer officers in other states, helping to formulate their objectives.[6]
Jewett also was a member of various boards and organizations throughout her career. She was the first Georgian to serve on the Council of the American Association of State and Local History, one of two representatives from Georgia at the Bicentennial Council of the Thirteen Original States, and was part of the Council of State Preservation Officers, the Board of Governors of the Georgia Agricultural Development Board, theGeorgia Conservancy, the Richard B. Russell Foundation, theGeorgia Agrirama,[2] and the Georgia Civil War Centennial Commission.[3]
After her retirement from the government, Jewett helped established theGeorgia Trust for Historic Preservation in 1973, a nonprofit organization modeled after theNational Trust. She was its first president and hand-picked the trust's initial 30-member board of trustees.[2] In an interview shortly before her death, she said the organization "[has] great goals".
Jewett retired in 1974.[6] A long-time chain smoker,[2] Jewett died of cancer on January 16, 1976. She had one son, George Cleburne Jewett.
Today, the Georgia Trust annually bestows the Mary Gregory Jewett Award for "distinguished service in the field of preservation" in the state.[7]