In May of 2024, the Augusta University Libraries received a grant from the Porter Fleming Foundation to process the Don “Ramblin’” Rhodes archival collection. A year later, the collection has been processed and is ready for researchers who may be interested in utilizing it for their research. Consisting of research, correspondence, scrapbooks, and more, this collection documents Rhodes’ nearly 60-year career as an entertainment journalist and local historian.
Rhodes meticulously documented his own career creating scrapbooks with nearly every article he ever wrote. Rhodes himself claims within the materials “These scrapbooks contain the world’s largest collection (try and prove me wrong) of writings about the music industry by any single author.” His article Ramblin’ Rhodes ran for over 50 years and fills 25 of these scrapbooks.
Beyond his own works, the Don “Ramblin’” Rhodes papers include his vast research on a variety of topics. Not only does it include his research, correspondence, and writing on musicians and entertainers in a variety of genres, but also on the history of Augusta. Included in this collection is his research and unpublished manuscript on Emanual Wambersie, a Belgian immigrant, whose house of entertainment offered concerts in the 18th century.
It is thanks to the Porter Fleming Foundation grant that the Augusta University Libraries Special Collection and Archives was able to hire a student employee to process this important collection. The department was also able to acquire a flatbed scanner, allowing materials to be scanned for preservation purposes.
Isabel Brown, an AU communications major, spent her fall and spring semesters going through the materials, working to preserve and arrange them, so researchers would be able to access them. Her work culminated in the writing of the finding aid for the collection. She also began work scanning the many scrapbooks Rhodes had created. All said and done, the collection contains 23 boxes of materials that may be of interest to those interested in music or local history, or may simply have an interest in the life and work of the prominent local journalist, Don Rhodes.
