Duluth Tutors Come To You

Even if she hadn’t been Georgia’s first female mayor, Alice Harrell Strickland was by all rights a unique woman. Strickland’s campaign slogan when she ran for mayor in 1921 at the age of sixty-two stated, “I will clean up Duluth and rid it of demon rum.” Despite the political turmoil at the time—Georgia’s state legislature had blocked women’s right to vote but had to concede when the 19th amendment passed in 1920—the feisty and assertive Strickland won her election and made history as the first woman mayor in Georgia.

Strickland was born in 1859 in Georgia about two years before the start of the Civil War. She married her cousin, Henry Strickland, Jr., a Duluth businessman and attorney, and they had seven children, all of whom went on to attend college. Though Strickland herself had no higher education, she did not let it stop her from speaking out on important issues. Immersing herself in civic affairs as a member of the Duluth Civic Club gave her the platform she needed.

One of those issues was the lack of medical care and hospitals. To remedy this, Strickland opened the upstairs floor of her home and turned it into a clinic, the town’s first hospital. There, children could be treated for diphtheria or whooping cough and even have their tonsils removed.

Another issue dear to her heart was conservation. She once used a shotgun to block a power company from erecting power lines across her land. As a catalyst for conservation efforts in the area, she donated an acre of her land to create a “community forest.”

While mayor, Strickland took a strict stance against Duluth’s reputation for drunken brawls and fights and made good on her campaign promise to rid the town of bootleggers. According to Forsyth County: History Stories, the fearless Strickland “could not be hoodwinked in the execution of her duties.” After serving her term, she continued to live in her home until her death in 1947.

The historic Strickland home, built in 1898, was added to the Georgia Register of Historical Places in 1999. Within the home, now a museum, artifacts and pictures chronicle the history of Duluth, beginning with its first inhabitants, the Cherokee Indians. Visitors may take guided tours, use the facility for private events, or even lease a community garden plot on the three-acre site.

The progressive, spirited Alice H. Strickland was designated a Georgia Woman of Achievement in 2002, a well-deserved honor for both the woman and the town that supported her.