The Wren's Nest - Atlanta

The Wren's Nest, home of writer Joel Chandler Harris, is located on Ralph David Abernathy Bouevard in Atlanta, Georgia.  The author of the Uncle remus stories lived here from 1881 to 1908.  Recently hired by the Atlanta Constitution, Harris began publishing his Uncle Remus tales in 1876.  By 1880 he had written 34 tales which were compiled in Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.  The success of this book allowed Harris to rent a farmhouse in the West End neighborhood of Atlanta.  By 1884 he was able to purchase the home and immediately added a Queen Anne facade plus six extra rooms.  Although originally called Snapbeam Farm, Harris changed the name to the Wren's Nest in 1895 when he noticed that the birds had built a nest in his mailbox.  Never one to venture far from home, Harris spent the majority of his time here, working for the Atlanta Constitution until 1900, while continuing his folklore tales and writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post and Scribners.  Nights With Uncle Remus (1883), Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892), The Tar Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus (1904) and Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit (1907) are only a few of the books he published during his time here.  On July 3, 1908 Harris died here at the Wren's Nest of nephritis and Cirrhosis of the liver.  Must of his later day fame rests on the Walt Disney film The Song of the South (1946), which transferred his stories to the screen in what many feel is a less than accurate portrayel of slave life.  Harris, during his life, always maintained that his stories were thoroughly researched and based on African-American oral tradition.  Criticism of his work still persists.  His home was turned into a museum in 1913, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.        

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