Detail of a painting by Zelda Fitzgerald,
Marriage at Cana. (Courtesy Fitzgerald
Estate.) |
|
Spring
2005, Issue 76
Article Abstracts and Supplements
Marriage at Cana, date unknown. (Courtesy
Fitzgerald Estate.)
Brooklyn Bridge, 1944. (Courtesy Fitzgerald Estate.) |
The
Art of Zelda Fitzgerald
By Everl Adair
The Debutante Flapper
By Jennifer Pemberton
The F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum
By Wesley Phillips Newton
Perhaps best-known as the Alabama-born
wife of the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald has a
new opportunity to be remembered for her own art. An exhibit of her
paintings is currently traveling the country. Overshadowed by her
husband’s
career, Zelda’s own artistic life was stunted. She also publicly suffered
from mental illness. Even when she was producing original
and intriguing works of art, the critics tended to overlook her.
Throughout her travels in Europe with her husband she hobnobbed
with many great artists of the modernist era, and their influence
is evident in her paintings. The new exhibit of her visual work,
Everl Adair writes, sheds new light on the Montgomery-born belle
turned jazz-age flapper who was not just a novelist herself,
but a talented modernist painter in her own right.
Back
to Top
|
|
 |
| Inspired
by his father's love of the land, William Benson sought
to transform the area around Kowaliga Creek into a self-sufficient
community centered on agriculture and industry. (Courtesy
Ben Russell historic files.) |
William
Benson and the Kowaliga School
By Michael Sznajderman
and Leah Rawls Atkins
The son of a former slave turned prosperous farmer, a young Howard University
graduate named William E. Benson came back home to Tallapoosa County to build
a school for the community’s children. Incorporated in 1898, the Kowaliga
Academic and Industrial Institute recruited distinguished individuals, including
Booker T. Washington and Oscar Garrison Villard, to its board of trustees. For
over thirty years, hundreds of rural black children received their schooling
at Kowaliga. The Dixie Industrial Company, founded by Benson in 1900, grew to
control ten thousand acres, farming and processing cotton and lumber, and built
the Dixie Line, the first black-owned railroad in the country. Benson’s
impressive achievements would outlast the personal tragedies that marked the
end of his life.
Back
to Top
|
|
|
|
In
November 1923, the Mobile Customs House and Federal Building
was the site of a dramatic sting, as federal agents hauled
in ten thousand quarts of illegal whiskey and arrested dozens.
The bust uncovered a massive local conspiracy to circumvent
prohibition. (University of South Alabama Archives.)
|
The
Great Mobile
Whiskey War
By Samuel L. Webb
On November 13, 1923, federal prohibition agents conducted a dramatic sting in
Mobile, seizing over ten thousand quarts of illegal whiskey and arresting dozens
of suspected bootleggers. The arrests sparked off a series of scandalous trials
that would uncover a massive local conspiracy to circumvent the Eighteenth Amendment’s
ban on alcohol. Among those accused of running the so-called “Whiskey Ring,” several
held prominent positions in the community, including the sheriff, the chief of
police, a well-known local lawyer, and a state representative. In the high-profile
legal struggle that lasted the next three years, Hugo Black (future U.S. Senator
and U.S. Supreme Court Justice), Frank Boykin (future congressman), and Oscar
Underwood (U.S. Senator) would play major roles. But the lead role was played
by Aubrey Boyles, the U.S. District attorney who led the investigations and put
the members of the “Whiskey Ring” on trial. Boyles challenged Mobile’s
elite, and for his audacity paid a severe price.
Back
to Top
|
|
|
How
are we doing?
Alabama Heritage seeks to present articles
that inspire, entertain, and, above all, educate
our readers. Please use our Feedback form
to let us know whether we are serving your interests.
You may also use this form to report any errors
you find in the magazine. While we work hard to
ensure the accuracy of the information we present,
an error occasionally slips through. We will publish
corrections
to any confirmed errors on the website for the
benefit of all readers. |
|
Recollections
Southern
Architecture and Preservation
influenced
antebellum mansions like Gaineswood. (Courtesy Gaineswood, Alabama
Historical Commission.)
Nature
Journal