ALABAMA HERITAGE
  • Magazine
    • Current and Back Issues >
      • Back Issues 141-150 >
        • Issue 147, Winter 2023
        • Issue 146, Fall 2022
        • Issue 145, Summer 2022
        • Issue 144, Spring 2022
        • Issue 143, Winter 2022
        • Issue 142, Fall 2021
        • Issue 141, Summer 2021
      • Back Issues 131-140 >
        • Issue 140, Spring 2021
        • Issue 139, Winter 2021
        • Issue 138, Fall 2020
        • Issue 137, Summer 2020
        • Issue 136, Spring 2020
        • Issue 135, Winter 2020
        • Issue 134, Fall 2019
        • Issue 133, Summer 2019
        • Issue 132 Spring 2019
        • Issue 131, Winter 2019
      • Back Issues 121-130 >
        • Issue 130, Fall 2018
        • Issue 129, Summer 2018
        • Issue 128, Spring 2018
        • Issue 127, Winter 2018
        • Issue 126, Fall 2017
        • Issue 125 Summer 2017
        • Issue 124, Spring 2017
        • Issue 123, Winter 2017
        • Issue 122, Fall 2016
        • Issue 121, Summer 2016
      • Back Issues 111-120 >
        • Issue 120, Spring 2016
        • Issue 119, Winter 2016
        • Issue 118, Fall 2015
        • Issue 117, Summer 2015
        • Issue 116, Spring 2015
        • Issue 115, Winter 2015
        • Issue 114, Fall 2014
        • Issue 113, Summer 2014
        • Issue 112, Spring 2014
        • Issue 111, Winter 2014
      • Back Issues 101-110 >
        • Issue 110, Fall 2013
        • Issue 109, Summer 2013
        • Issue 108, Spring 2013
        • Issue 107, Winter 2013
        • Issue 106, Fall 2012
        • Issue 105, Summer 2012
        • Issue 104, Spring 2012
        • Issue 103, Winter 2012
        • Issue 102, Fall 2011
        • Issue 101, Summer 2011
      • Back Issues 91-100 >
        • Issue 100, Spring 2011
        • Issue 99, Winter 2011
        • Issue 98, Fall 2010
        • Issue 97, Summer 2010
        • Issue 96, Spring 2010
        • Issue 95, Winter 2010
        • Issue 94, Fall 2009
        • Issue 93, Summer 2009
        • Issue 92, Spring 2009
        • Issue 91, Winter 2009
      • Back Issues 81-90 >
        • Issue 90, Fall 2008
        • Issue 89, Summer 2008
        • Issue 88, Spring 2008
        • Issue 87, Winter 2008
        • Issue 86, Fall 2007
        • Issue 85, Summer 2007
        • Issue 84, Spring 2007
        • Issue 83, Winter 2007
        • Issue 82, Fall 2006
        • Issue 81, Summer 2006
      • Back Issues 71-80 >
        • Issue 80, Spring 2006
        • Issue 79, Winter 2006
        • Issue 78, Fall 2005
        • Issue 77, Summer 2005
        • Issue 76, Spring 2005
        • Issue 75, Winter 2005
        • Issue 74, Fall 2004
        • Issue 73, Summer 2004
        • Issue 72, Spring 2004
        • Issue 71, Winter 2004
      • Back Issues 61-70 >
        • Issue 70, Fall 2003
        • Issue 69, Summer 2003
        • Issue 68, Spring 2003
        • Issue 67, Winter 2003
        • Issue 66, Fall 2002
        • Issue 65, Summer 2002
        • Issue 64, Spring 2002
        • Issue 63, Winter 2002
        • Issue 62, Fall 2001
        • Issue 61, Summer 2001
      • Back Issues 51-60 >
        • Issue 60, Spring 2001
        • Issue 59, Winter 2001
        • Issue 58, Fall 2000
        • Issue 57, Summer 2000
        • Issue 56, Spring 2000
        • Issue 55, Winter 2000
        • Issue 54, Fall 1999
        • Issue 53, Summer 1999
        • Issue 52, Spring 1999
        • Issue 51, Winter 1999
      • Back Issues 41-50 >
        • Issue 50, Fall 1998
        • Issue 49, Summer 1998
        • Issue 48, Spring 1998
        • Issue 47, Winter 1998
        • Issue 46, Fall 1997
        • Issue 45, Summer 1997
        • Issue 44, Spring 1997
        • Issue 43, Winter 1997
        • Issue 42, Fall 1996
        • Issue 41, Summer 1996
      • Back Issues 31-40 >
        • Issue 40, Spring 1996
        • Issue 39, Winter 1996
        • Issue 38, Fall 1995
        • Issue 37, Summer 1995
        • Issue 36, Spring 1995
        • Issue 35, Winter 1995
        • Issue 34, Fall 1994
        • Issue 33, Summer 1994
        • Issue 32, Spring 1994
        • Issue 31, Winter 1994
      • Back Issues 21-30 >
        • Issue 30, Fall 1993
        • Issue 29, Summer 1993
        • Issue 28, Spring 1993
        • Issue 27, Winter 1993
        • Issue 26, Fall 1992
        • Issue 25, Summer 1992
        • Issue 24, Spring 1992
        • Issue 23, Winter 1992
        • Issue 22, Fall 1991
        • Issue 21, Summer 1991
      • Back Issues 11-20 >
        • Issue 20, Spring 1991
        • Issue 19, Winter 1991
        • Issue 18, Fall 1990
        • Issue 17, Summer 1990
        • Issue 16, Spring 1990
        • Issue 15, Winter 1990
        • Issue 14, Fall 1989
        • Issue 13, Summer 1989
        • Issue 12, Spring 1989
        • Issue 11, Winter 1989
      • Back Issues 1-10 >
        • Issue 10, Fall 1988
        • Issue 9, Summer 1988
        • Issue 8, Spring 1988
        • Issue 7, Winter 1988
        • Issue 6, Fall 1987
        • Issue 5, Summer 1987
        • Issue 4, Spring 1987
        • Issue 3, Winter 1987
        • Issue 2, Fall 1986
        • Issue 1, Summer 1986
    • Digital Features
    • Links of Interest
    • Bonus Materials >
      • Adventures in Genealogy
      • Alabama Heritage Blog
      • Alabama Territory
      • Becoming Alabama >
        • Creek War Era
        • Civil War Era
        • Civil Rights Movement
      • From the Vault
      • History in Ruins
      • Places in Peril
      • Recipes
  • Online Store
    • Customer Service
  • About Us
    • Awards
    • Meet Our Team
    • News
    • Writer's Guidelines and Submissions
  • Search
  • Donate
Published by The University of Alabama,
The University of Alabama at Birmingham,
and the Alabama Department of Archives and History
Alabama Heritage Issue 107, Winter 2013
Issue 107, Winter 2013
Buy This Issue
Start Your Subscription
Give a Gift Subscription
On the cover: Popular WVOK disc jockey Joe Rumore at the controls. (The Joe Rumore Family)

FEATURE  ABSTRACTS


Alabama Heritage John HallThis map was created
by Alabama's first State Geologist,
Michael Tuomey.
The W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library,
The University of Alabama)
The Land of Alabama: A Field Trip

By John C. Hall

Alabama’s natural beauty often evokes sighs of content and exclamations of amazement from beachgoers, hikers, and others. However, few of us are able to articulate the complex forces that combined to make this state’s terrain what it is today. John Hall tackles that challenge, tracing Alabama back through millions of years in order to explain how the land gained the characteristics we see—and some we can’t see—today.




Buy This Feature
Additional Information 
For more information on the diversity of Alabama’s geology, please visit the website Encyclopedia of Alabama). 

About the Author
John C. Hall is a frequent contributor to Alabama Heritage, where he has written on Hernando de Soto, William Bartram, Prince Madoc, and the Sylacauga Meteorite. He is a retired naturalist at the Alabama Museum of Natural History and is currently director of the Black Belt Museum at the University of West Alabama. He has practiced telling this story for many years at the museum, Shelton State Junior College, and most recently at the Alabama Department of Archives and History’s new exhibit, “The Land of Alabama.” With environmental photographer Beth Maynor Young, he is the coauthor of Headwaters, A Journey on Alabama Rivers (University of Alabama Press, 2009), and he is currently one of the authors (again with Young’s photographs) of the recent Longleaf: As Far as the Eye Can See (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). He appreciates the help of geologists Andrew Rindsberg and James Lamb, and the staff of the state archives.
Back to Top

Alabama Heritage slave fightingJosh Miles, one of the interviewees.
(Library of Congress)
Slave Fighting in the Old South

By Sergio Lussana

For many years, anecdotal evidence suggested that slaves on southern plantations engaged in wrestling or fighting matches. The publication of the slave interviews collected by the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration finally confirmed what had long been only suspected: the matches actually occurred. These first-hand accounts prove that in Alabama and throughout the South, slave fighting transpired often and for many reasons, offering the enslaved men a chance to prove their masculinity, settle disagreements, and sometimes even add to their owners’ profits. The events became a central part of a plantation’s social life, and they were both celebratory and recreational—even as they expressed another facet of the violence of slavery.

Additional Information 
For more about slave fighting, the author suggests the following books:
  • Blight, David W. (ed.), A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom: Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (Harcourt, 2007). 
  • Desch Obi, T. J., Fighting for Honor: The History of African Martial Art Traditions in the Atlantic World (University of South Carolina Press, 2008). 
  • Lussana, Sergio, “To See Who Was Best on the Plantation: Enslaved Fighting Contests and Masculinity in the Antebellum Plantation South,” Journal of Southern History, 76:4 (November, 2010), pp. 901–22. 
  • Rawick, George P. (ed.), The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, 41 vols. plus index (Greenwood, 1972–79). 
  • Seller, James Benson, Slavery in Alabama (University of Alabama Press, 1994). 

About the Author 
Sergio Lussana completed his PhD in history at the University of Warwick in 2011. He is currently visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway University of London. His dissertation explored the ways in which enslaved men of the antebellum South negotiated masculine identities, formed friendships, and resisted their enslavement. He has written an article for the Journal of Southern History, and his article on enslaved male friendship and resistance is scheduled for publication in the 2013 issue of the Journal of Social History. He is coeditor of Black and White Masculinity in the American South, 1800–2000 (2009). 


Back to Top

Alabama Heritage Joe RumoreJoe Rumore, 1948.
(The Joe Rumore Family)
Joe Rumore: More than Radio’s “Good Neighbor”

By Wendy Reed

In a career that began in 1941 and spanned four decades, Birmingham’s Joe Rumore became one of the most prominent radio personalities of his era, and he redefined radio in the process. Rumore’s savvy business sense helped, but the real impetus behind his success was his genuine concern for others and his willingness to open his life and home to help the people in his community. Rumore’s fame and approachability were so strong that he received letters from POWs during World War II, visits from celebrities such as Hank Williams and Andy Griffith, and, one year, over forty thousand Christmas cards. Author Wendy Reed takes us through the story of Rumore’s life and its significant effect on both his industry and his community. 

Buy This Feature
Additional Information 
For more materials on Rumore, including audio clips from his program, please visit the website.

Click below for a three-part interview with Joe Rumore's son, Phillip, on the "Rick and Bubba" radio show.
About the Author
Wendy Reed received her PhD from the University of Alabama, where she also was a producer/director for the Center for Public TV and Radio on the series Bookmark, Discovering Alabama, and The Alabama Experience. She is an Alabama State Council on the Arts fellowship recipient, winner of two Emmys and a Unity Award, and co-editor of Circling Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality and All Out of Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality (University of Alabama Press) with Jennifer Horne. Most recently her book An Accidental Memoir: How I Killed Someone and Other Stories was published by NewSouth Books. Currently she blogs for Freshfully.com and is a freelance writer/producer. Reed lives with her husband in Waverly, Alabama. ​
Back to Top

Alabama Heritage Shackelford Fayette CountyMitch Shackelford and an unidentified boy.
(Birmingham Public Library)
Both Sides of the Lens: Photographs by the Shackelford Family, Fayette County, 1900–1935

By Andrew Nelson

In the early twentieth century, when the lives of most African Americans were still ignored in many mainstream media, one Fayette County family worked to preserve details of everyday life in Alabama. Along with their children, Mitch and Geneva Shackelford took nearly one thousand photographs of African Americans, using this relatively new technology to capture and celebrate the quotidian—and leaving behind valuable records of rural life in Alabama. Thanks to the Birmingham Public Library, where many of the Shackelfords’ negatives are now housed, the readers of Alabama Heritage may see these revealing and moving portraits taken nearly a century ago. 



Buy This Feature
About the Author
Andrew Nelson is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Maryland. His research interests include visual culture, popular music, and the cultural history of the American South. He teaches courses in American culture, history, and material culture. Before turning his focus to research and teaching, Nelson worked in the nonprofit sector for the Fair Labor Association and the Arts Education Partnership. Recently, he curated the traveling exhibition Both Sides of the Lens: Photographs by the Shackelford Family, Fayette County, Alabama, 1900–1935 in collaboration with the Birmingham Public Library’s Department of Archives and Manuscripts. A Birmingham native and graduate of Birmingham-Southern College, Nelson is currently writing a dissertation that provides an in-depth exploration of the broader cultural and historical significance of the Shackelford family’s photographs in the early twentieth century.
Back to Top

DEPARTMENT  ABSTRACTS


Alabama Heritage Chriss and Harriet Doss libraryChris and Harriet Amos Doss
have one of the largest
personal libraries in Alabama.
(Robin McDonald)
Revealing Hidden Collections
An Eden in Hoover: A Visit to the Doss Library

By Scotty E. Kirkland

This quarter, our tour of special collections throughout Alabama takes us to the home of Chriss and Harriet Amos Doss, a Birmingham couple whose profound love of books has led to the creation of a home library unlike any other. Complete with rare and valuable books, historical objects, family memorabilia, and even a stained glass window commemorating Alabama history, the Doss’s library offers a powerful tribute to the couple’s love of learning, literature, and their home state.

About the Author
Scotty E. Kirkland is curator of history at the History Museum of Mobile. Louis A. Pitschmann, standing editor of the "Revealing Hidden Collections” department of Alabama Heritage, is dean of the University Libraries at the University of Alabama and director of the Alabama Center for the Book, which cosponsors this department.


Back to Top

Alabama Heritage Emancipation ProclamationAnnouncing the Emancipation Proclamation.
(Library of Congress)
Becoming Alabama
Quarter by Quarter

By Joseph W. Pearson, Megan L. Bever, and Matthew L. Downs


Editor’s Note: Alabama Heritage, the Summersell Center for Study of the South, the University of Alabama Department of History, and the Alabama Tourism Department offer this department as a part of the statewide "Becoming Alabama" initiative—a cooperative venture of state organizations to commemorate Alabama’s experiences related to the Creek War, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement. Quarter by quarter we will take you to the corresponding seasons 200, 150, and 50 years ago—sometimes describing pivotal events, sometimes describing daily life, but always illuminating a world in flux. We will wait for the ultimate outcomes as our forebears did—over time. For those joining the story in progress, you can find earlier quarters on our website. 

In this quarter’s installment of Becoming Alabama, Joseph Pearson explores the mounting divisions within the Creek Indian community, as Big Warrior and Little Warrior exhibit varying ideological approaches to their people’s place in the territory. Megan Bever looks at the origins of the Emancipation Proclamation and its immediate effect on the war and contemporary citizens. And Matthew Downs traces that document’s legacy, considering the way it was (or, in some cases, was not) celebrated one hundred years later. Throughout, each author approaches a crucial time in the state’s history and explains how it helped shape the Alabama we know today. 

Additional Information 
For more on the Emancipation Proclamation, visit the National Archives. 

About the Authors
Joseph W. Pearson is a PhD student in the department of history at the University of Alabama. His research interests include the nineteenth-century South, antebellum politics, and political culture. Megan L. Bever is currently a doctoral student in the department of history at the University of Alabama. Her research interests include the nineteenth-century South and the Civil War in American culture. Matthew L. Downs (PhD, Alabama) is an assistant professor of history at the University of Mobile. His dissertation focused on the federal government’s role in the economic development of the Tennessee Valley. 


Back to Top

Alabama Heritage MCA Queen Mobile Mardi GrasA gown and train made by Karen Thornton.
(Aaron Tesney)
Southern Folkways
The Queen of Glitter: Karen Thornton

By Jessica Johnson

Each year at Mobile’s Mardi Gras festivities, ladies display their finest gowns, complete with elaborate trains. For years, one woman has been responsible for many of these lavish ensembles. A transplant to the South, Karen Thornton has earned her way into the hearts—and closets—of many Alabama elite, who display her legacy through each sequin and stitch. 

About the Author
Jessica Johnson is a graduate of the University of Alabama and proud former Alabama Heritage editorial intern. She lives, works, and writes in Montgomery, surrounded by Alabama culture and history. Her research interests include the history of the University of Alabama, Mobile Mardi Gras, and southern writers. She is currently pursuing a masters of liberal arts at Auburn University in Montgomery.


Back to Top

Alabama Heritage Dr Josiah Clarke Nott Mobile Medical CollegeDr. Josiah Clarke Nott,
founder of Mobile's
Alabama Medical College
(Alabama Department of Archives and History)
Southern Religion
Race, Science, and Biblical Creation in Antebellum Alabama

By Christopher Willoughby

In the mid–nineteenth century, a handful of medical professionals sought to synthesize their scientific beliefs with their spiritual and social beliefs. One target of their focus was slavery, and heated debates arose around what people considered the proper place of African Americans within their scientific and religious worldview. Although these discussions often seem antiquated to contemporary readers, they reveal significant information about the attitudes and assumptions of our forbears, and they reflect individuals using every available tool—from medicine to religion—to make sense of their world and others in it.

About the Author
Christopher Willoughby grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. He received a master’s degree in history in the spring of 2012 from Tulane University, where he is currently working on his doctorate. He resides in New Orleans’s Lower Garden District. Joshua D. Rothman, standing editor of the “Southern Religion” department of Alabama Heritage, is associate professor of history at the University of Alabama and director of the university’s Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South, which sponsors this department.

Back to Top

Alabama Heritage Joseph Carson 1847Illustration from Carson's 1847 book
"Illustrations of Medical Botany."
(Reynolds Historical Library,
the University of Alabama)
Nature Journal
Samuel Thomson’s Wonder Herb

By L. J. Davenport

Although known by several names, from the scientific--Lobelia inflata—to the common—Indian tobacco—the topic of this quarter’s Nature Journal has one distinctive colloquial appellation that readers are likely not to forget: puke weed. That name sounds like enough to keep wary people away from the innocuous-looking plant, but throughout history, puke weed has actually been used by a number of savvy marketers to promote health systems of varying degrees of medical soundness. Larry Davenport explores puke weed and the men who have profited from it—while reminding readers to steer clear of it themselves. 

About the Author
Larry Davenport is a professor of biology at Samford University. This column, running since 1993, inspired his book Nature Journal(University of Alabama Press, 2010).


Back to Top

Alabama Heritage Booker T Washington W Fitzhugh Brundage
Alabama Heritage Booker T Washington Robert Norrell
Reading the Southern Past
Rethinking the Life and Legacy of Booker T. Washington

By Stephen J. Goldfarb

In this quarter’s book review column, Stephen Goldfarb revisits the life and legacy of Booker T. Washington, tracing the varied responses to him at different points in American history, and looking at books that evaluate him afresh for the twenty-first century. Goldfarb considers two biographies—Robert J. Norrell’s Up From History: The Life of Booker T. Washington (Harvard University Press, 2009) and Booker T. Washington: Black Leadership in the Age of Jim Crow (Ivan R. Dee, 2009) by Raymond W. Smock—and the Norton Critical Edition of Washington’s Up From Slavery, composing a new appraisal of the Alabamian whose appearance at the 1903 Atlanta Exposition changed history. 

About the Author
Stephen Goldfarb holds a PhD in the history of science and technology. He retired from a public library in 2003. 

Back to Top
Online Store
​Customer Service
Meet Our Team
Board of Directors
Corporate Sponsors
News
Join Our Email List

Employment
UA Disclaimer
UA Privacy Policy ​
​Website comments or questions?  

Email ah.online@ua.edu
Published by The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History
​Alabama Heritage
Box 870342
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
Local: (205) 348-7467
Toll-Free: (877) 925-2323
Fax: (205) 348-7473

alabama.heritage@ua.edu