Summer 1989, Issue 13

Article Abstracts and Supplements

And Bring Your Fiddle: The Fiddler in Alabama Community Life
By Joyce Cauthen

In rural parts of Alabama, where there were no paved roads or electricity, local communities looked to themselves for entertainment. Part of this tradition was the fiddler, who performed to anxious audiences with his own style and finesse.Joyce Cauthen tells the stories of these colorful musicians as they performed at everything from fiddler conventions to political activities to birthday parties across the state. Fiddling was never the property of one social class, personality type, or geographical area, and Cauthen profiles fiddlers who were old, young, black, white, rich, poor, but who all had an impact on Alabama’s musical history.



Alabama Collections: Anatomical Manikins and Diagnostic Dolls
By Mary Claire Britt Owen

Within Reynolds Historical Library at the University of Alabama at Birmingham lies a collection of intricately carved ivory figurines known as anatomical manikins. These detailed dolls were used during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as instructional tools for students of anatomy. Although European craftsman in Italy, France, and Germany made some of the dolls, very little is known about the origin or the intended use of the manikin.Mary Owen introduces readers to these manikins and to another type of doll in the library’s collection: Chinese diagnostic dolls or “Doctor’s Ladies.” In Chinese culture, modesty prevented a woman from talking about her body. With the doll, a lady could mark on the body her place of discomfort. Although both anatomic manikins and diagnostic dolls are very rare today, the figurines offer insight into historic methods of teaching medicine and give current physicians a glimpse at the past.



Joseph Glover Baldwin: Antebellum Wit
By Eugene Current-Garcia

Joseph Glover Baldwin secured his place in Alabama literary history when his book, The Flush Times of Mississippi and Alabama: A Series of Sketches, was published in 1853. Through Baldwin’s literary humor, he satirized the old southwestern frontier with exaggerations of characters and actions. Although his true passion was writing, Baldwin trained in both journalism and law and made his living as a lawyer. Lawyers were a hot commodity in the booming southern frontier, dealing with bank robberies, land disputes, and other assorted felonies, and Baldwin soon reaped the benefits of his profession. Eugene Current-Garcia explores Baldwin’s literary triumphs and failures, as well as his friendships with Alabama’s two other great wits: Johnson James Hooper and John Gorman Barr. Baldwin longed to be remembered as a social historian and a political theorist, but his dreams were cut short when he died suddenly in 1864. Despite his abrupt end, Baldwin left Alabama with the legacy of humor and the ability to laugh at itself.