Portrait of Zitella Cocke by Nicola Marschall, 1869. This
outstanding portrait shows Cocke in her twenties. (Courtesy Alabama
Department of Archives and History.) |
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Summer
2005, Issue 77
Article Abstracts and Supplements
The remains of Alabama's second capitol stand as a reminder
of the past in Tuscaloosa's historic district. (Photo by
Robin McDonald.) |
Variations
on a Capitol Plan
By Robert O. Mellown
William
Nichols, an English-born architect who practiced in the South in
the first half of the nineteenth century, did much to shape our ideas
about what a state capitol should look like. In February 1827 the Alabama Legislature
selected him as the building superintendent and architect for the new capitol.
When he arrived in Tuscaloosa in the spring of 1827, he was forty-seven years
old and at the height of his creative powers. But Tuscaloosa’s days as
the seat of government were numbered, for social and political forces were shifting
the center of population and the balance of political power to the central part
of the state. Nichols used architecture to express the ideals of the young republic
and, though his statehouses in North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi have
long ago been replaced, he made an indelible contribution to the development
of this uniquely American building type.
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| Portait
of Zitella Cocke by Nicola Marschall (detail), 1869. (Courtesy
Alabama Department of Archives and History.) |
Zitella
Cocke: Alabama's Forgotten Poet
By Jennifer
L. Beck
Born in Marion, Alabama, in 1840, Julia Zitella Cocke was the oldest of eight
children. At the age of seven, Zitella had completed her first poem. She attended
and later taught at the Judson Female Institute. By age fifty, Cocke had made
a name for herself as a writer and moved to Boston, Massachusetts. The city’s
numerous magazines and newspapers offered Zitella rich publishing opportunities.
Southerners, however, did not buy many of her books, despite favorable criticism
in Alabama newspapers. When a publisher asked her about this, she replied, “You
have taken the living of the South, how can you expect her to buy books!” Though
largely forgotten today, she published three books of poetry, and her poems and
essays appeared frequently in magazines. When she returned to Alabama a frail
and elderly woman, she was honored by the state legislature and the literary
community as a prominent poet and a worthy Alabamian.
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Indian Springs School dining hall. (photo by Robin McDonald.) |
Where
There's a Will: The Story of Indian Springs School
By Pam Jones
In
1930 Harvey G. Woodward, a childless Birmingham millionaire,
left the bulk of his fortune—nearly seven and a half
million dollars—to endow an educational foundation
he hoped would improve life in Alabama by creating quality
private schools for average boys. Woodward’s vision
stalled for nearly two decades while his widow, and later
two members of the foundation’s board of governors,
contested the will, which was encumbered with numerous eccentric
provisos. Finally, in 1947 the Alabama Supreme Court ruled
the remaining funds from the trust were to be used to set
up a single school. This would become the Indian Springs
School. Louis Edgar Armstrong, the man hired to make Woodward's
dream a reality, had no intention of quietly going along
with restrictions he believed were wrong. Within a few years
of its opening, this small experimental school would attract
national attention for its faculty’s maverick approach
to secondary education.
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Eugene Allen Smith and possibly Robert
Shattuck Hodges. Noccalula Falls, Black Creek, near
Gadsden, Etowah County. March or June, 1905.
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Alabama
Lifestyles and Landscapes: Photography of the
Geological
Survey
By Frances Osborn Robb
For
twenty-five years state geologists tramped the woods and
riverbanks of post-Reconstruction Alabama, capturing landscapes
and lifestyles that have now faded. Frances Osborn Robb presents
a selection of photographs from a new exhibit, Science
into History: The Photographs of Eugene Allen Smith and the
Geological Survey of Alabama. Taken between 1885 and
1910 by Dr. Eugene Allen Smith and his GSA associates, the
photographs recall a moment in time when the state’s
abundant natural resources were being used in early industrial
endeavors.
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Departments
|
 Recollections
The
Fairhope Quaker Exodus
By Jeff Gunderson
When the Quaker's jeep encountered difficulty making
it up the steep trail to their new home, local oxen offered a little
help. (Photo courtesy Cecil Rockwell.) |
| |
 Nature
Journal
Ergot (on Rye)
By L. J. Davenport
This tin box once contained Ergoapiol, a medicine derived
from the ergot fungus.
(Digital image by W. Mike Howell.)
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Alabama
Album
Hard Truth on the Half-Shell |
| Errata |
• On
page 29, the reference to P. K. Benrimo should have
been P. J. Benrimo.
• In our
article “Variations
on a Capitol Plan,” a caption on page 8
reads “The remains of Alabama’s second capitol stand as a reminder of the
past in Tuscaloosa’s
historic district.” While the caption is
correct, it has caused some confusion. Tuscaloosa was Alabama’s third “capital” (seat
of government), but the second capital to have
a “capitol” (building housing a legislature).
As capital, Tuscaloosa was
preceded by St. Stephens and Cahawba. No permanent
legislative building was constructed at St. Stephens. |
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This page created 6/29/05 |