Summer 1999, Issue 53

Article Abstracts and Supplements

Ann Lowe: Couturier to the Rich and Famous
By Ann S. Smith

Ann Lowe, born in Clayton, Alabama, in 1898, granddaughter of a former slave, rose to great heights in the rough and tumble world of fashion design. Despite the considerable obstacles she faced as a young black woman, Lowe was, at the height of her career, the designer-of-choice for many of this country’s elite families. Indeed, she designed Jacqueline Bouvier’s wedding gown for her 1953 marriage to John F. Kennedy. "I love my clothes," she once told an interviewer, "and I’m particular about who wears them." Ann S. Smith recounts in fascinating detail the life of Ms. Lowe—her meteoric rise in New York’s fashion industry and the sometimes tragic circumstances that left her to spend her old age poor, unheralded and nearly blind.



Fightin’ Joe Wheeler
By Mildred Witt Caudle

Gen. Joseph Wheeler—West Point graduate, veteran of both the Civil War and the Spanish American War, and sixteen years a U.S. congressman representing Alabama—is the only Confederate veteran buried in Arlington National Cemetery. It was a fitting tribute to a man whose greatest legacy was his promotion of the reconciliation between North and South. Mildred Witt Caudle, professor emeritus of history at Athens State College, documents the broad range of adventures Wheeler experienced in his remarkable life. Whether being attacked by a small band of Indian marauders on the road to Santa Fe, New Mexico, or fending off superior federal forces in Shelbyville, Tennessee, Wheeler always seemed to be at his best when the situation was most harrowing. Though he was a slight man—never more than 125 pounds on a five foot, five inch frame—early in his Army career he earned the nickname "Fightin’ Joe" for his ability to fight with a fury greater than his physical stature.

Additional Information:
Wheeler Plantation



The Intrepid Annie Wheeler
By Nanda Hopenwasser and Signe Wegener

Authors Nanda Hopenwasser and Signe Wegener recount the exploits of the indomitable Annie Wheeler. The daughter of Gen. Joseph Wheeler, Annie cut her own legacy by tirelessly attending to the well-being of others. She followed her father and brother to Cuba during the Spanish American War, serving as a nurse-volunteer, and worked in the same capacity in Europe during World War I. Her uncommon charity and inexhaustible energy made her a symbol of recovery to the soldiers in Cuba and Europe. Her compassion for other people, particularly children, made her an institution throughout the Tennessee Valley. At Annie’s funeral in 1955, when asked by a reporter what she remembered most about Annie Wheeler, a young woman said, "Annie never really approved of the phrase ‘pursuit of happiness.’ She always said that you were never made happy by seeking your own happiness, but you incidentally found your own happiness by seeking it for others."



Alabama License Plates
By Stephen Goldfarb

From early in the century, license plates have offered a fertile field for collectors, many of whom nailed old plates to the walls of garages or barns. More recently, collecting license plates has become an organized hobby. Author Stephen Goldfarb explores the intertwining history of the automobile and the license plate, and their particular evolution in Alabama, from the enameled placards of the early 1900s to the more durable plates used today. Other sources of information on the license plate can be found at the website of the American License Plate Collectors Association.