 Cover: Georgia Bibb, granddaughter of William Wyatt Bibb, Alabama's only territorial governor and first governor of the state, was painted c. 1853. Portrait attributed to artist Philip Romer. (Courtesy Jack and Emily Burwell; photograph by Chip Cooper.)
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Winter
1994, Issue 31
When Sara Haardt left her Montgomery home in 1917, she vowed never to return to the South. Heading north to Baltimore for college, she quickly found unarguable literary success, while also meeting and marrying editor, essayist, and perhaps the harshest critic of the American South of the time, H. L. Mencken. While it is as Mencken's wife she is best remembered, in her time Haardt's writing was best known for being shaped and influenced by the region she fled, the place she called "the sweet, flowering South, the clinging tyranical South." In
her article, Henley describes the intricate courtship of Mencken and
Haardt, the physical frailties and sickness which brought about Haardt's
tragic premature death, and the literary achievements she created during
her short life. With details from her early years in Alabama through
her final trip abroad to Egypt with Mencken, Haardt is shown to be an
unfairly overlooked literary figure from the South, with a legacy rarely
accorded the recognition it deserves. Since
1985 the Birmingham Museum of Art has been conducting a survey of decorative
arts made in Alabama between 1819 and 1930, canvassing each region of
the state, locating and documenting Alabama-made objects. Unlike silver
or paintings, which are nearly always signed by their creator, furniture
rarely contains information about its craftsman. However, the objects
in this exhibit all have documented provenances or traceable markings
linking them to Alabama. In a series of detailed photographs, Estes
describes the intricacies of the furniture pieces, revealing that, although
the pieces may look primitive, Alabama cabinetmakers were in fact experienced
master craftsmen. December 28, 1862, Murfreesboro, Tennessee…We are on the eve of a big battle…Orders have already come-I go into battle with a full hope and trust and confidence in God-both as regards my own welfare-and that of my country. I feel more for Reuben than for myself-God go with us. So writes Confederate artilleryman James Searcy to his father in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. James, twenty-two, enlisted in the Confederate army two years after graduating from the University of Alabama, and his younger brother Reuben, then an eighteen-year-old sophomore in the Cadet Corps at the University, soon followed, against the wishes of his family and teachers, as well as his older brother James. Through
their correspondences to each other as well as to family back in Tuscaloosa,
the two describe the hardships of army camp, bouts with sickness, and
the excitement and horror of combat. The brothers, both literate and
astute observers of their surroundings, detail their experiences in
these letters, revealing their first impressions of army life through
the 1863 battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Reuben was mortally
wounded. Using the surviving one hundred fifty letters from James and
thirty three from Reuben, Elebash, the great-great grand nephew of the
Searcy brothers, relates a moving tale which serves as a vivid reminder
of the triumphs and tragedies of two Civil War soldiers. AT
THE ARCHIVES - "Guy Cobb: Escape Artist" by
Mark A. Palmer
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