I’ve recently had the privilege of fact-checking a fascinating article about the history of Florence, Alabama. The article makes one thing very clear: While the Tennessee River was an invaluable resource for industry, most people would have preferred that the Muscle Shoals just did not exist. The Shoals made transportation next to impossible, and people were clamoring for Congress to do something about it more than a decade before Florence was founded. I discovered, however, that the earlier inhabitants of North Alabama—the Native Americans—had a much different perspective of the Shoals.
I’ve recently had the privilege of fact-checking a fascinating article about the history of Florence, Alabama. The article makes one thing very clear: While the Tennessee River was an invaluable resource for industry, most people would have preferred that the Muscle Shoals just did not exist. The Shoals made transportation next to impossible, and people were clamoring for Congress to do something about it more than a decade before Florence was founded. I discovered, however, that the earlier inhabitants of North Alabama—the Native Americans—had a much different perspective of the Shoals. In June 1964 civil rights activists mobilized a ten-week crusade to register African American voters in Mississippi, garnering support from more than 800 university students, the majority of whom were white. While fact-checking the details of the Freedom Summer for Stephen Goldfarb’s upcoming book review, I encountered numerous references to songs and spirituals and their essential role in the events of this particular campaign as well as the entire arc of the civil rights movement. While proofreading an article for an upcoming issue of Alabama Heritage, I was shocked to discover that a woman was sentenced by a US court in Washington, DC, to be punished on a ducking stool in 1829. I first learned about ducking while reading The Taming of the Shrew in a Shakespeare class. It’s a punishment in which a woman accused of being a scold or a shrew was lowered into a body of water on a chair attached to a type of long lever—a ducking stool. The Encyclopaedia Britannica states that some of the ducking stool’s victims died during their punishments. It’s a cruel penalty for something we might consider annoying—but certainly not criminal—today. The Taming of the Shrew appeared in print in the early 1600s; was the practice of ducking really still used as late as 1829? I resolved to find out. |
Alabama Heritage BLOG
At Alabama Heritage, we owe many of our successes and smooth operations to our fabulous student interns. We hope that with this blog--written mostly by our interns as well as history students from UAB and a few from our own editors--our readers will have an opportunity to get to know the students who bring so much to the table with their enthusiasm, hard work, and expertise! If you're interested in our internship program, check out the details here. Archives
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