Louis Borris Magid Papers
Collection
Identifier: MS054
Louis B. Magid promoted the silk industry in Tallulah Falls, Georgia, purchasing land and making plans for farms and factories. His other business ventures in the area proved more lucrative than the silkworm industry and he abandoned silk by 1908. The papers include ledgers, scrapbooks, photographs, pamphlets, reprints and other materials relating to the silkworm industry.
(eight document cases and one oversized box)
No restrictions.
Permission to publish materials from this collection must be obtained from the Head of Archives and Special Collections.
5.2 Linear Feet
These papers include records from Magid's company and his personal library. Several drafts of the prospectus for his Sericulture and Manufacturing Company of America, Inc. are contained in the first box. Other company records include correspondence between Magid and his colleagues in the silk industry. There are also two ledgers detailing financial transactions. Magid also collected educational information on the history of the silk industry.
Boxes 2-7 contain materials from his personal library. Magid kept an alphabetical card index to all the articles, newsclippings, and journals that he owned. This filing card system is housed in Boxes 3-4. The remainder of the collection contains the publications which include government reports, supply catalogs, advertisements, and journals in Chinese, English, French, German, and Italian. Most are marked by a "Louis B. Magid Library" stamp with its identifying file number.
Sample pattern books are housed in Boxes 7-8. Some are black and white; others are in color. Most have Chinese writing describing the patterns.
Louis Borris Magid, a native of Germany, came to the United States with his parents after graduating from the University of Padua. While operating the Magid-Hope Silk Company in the northeast, Magid traveled to Tallulah Falls in the spring of 1901.
He began purchasing land in Habersham County in north Georgia, propagating mulberry trees and developing plans for the silkworm industry. He promoted Georgia's climate as ideal for the culture of silk, and cited that silk had been produced in Georgia prior the Revolutionary War. By founding the Sericulture and Manufacturing Company of America, Inc., he planned to divide his large landholdings into smaller farms that Italian immigrants would till. He also became involved in various business concerns in the area. Magid published the short-lived magazine, Silk, as well as serving as the President of the Silk Culture League of America.
This collection is divided into records from Magid's silk company and materials from his personal library. All materials are arranged chronologically.
A print copy of this finding aid is available in the Georgia Tech Archives reading room.
Three empty film packs and a bee light meter (0.2 linear feet) were separated and placed in the artifacts. One linear feet of lantern slide and glass plate negatives were separated into Visual Materials (VAM054).
The library received these papers in 1944; however, the Georgia Historical Society had physical custody of them for several years. (Accession #1988.0505; old number: 88-05-05).
(eight document cases and one oversized box)
Yen M. Tang processed these papers in 2002.
Part of the Archives and Special Collections, Library, Georgia Institute of Technology Repository