Issue 105, Summer 2012
On the cover: Moundville mural. [Alabama Archives and History Foundation; Illustration by Karen Carr]
Features
Voices from the Past: The New Museum of Alabama Takes Shape
By Steve Murray
For decades the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) has educated citizens of all ages on the diverse history of the land that makes up our state. By late 2013, the ADAH will have another significant resource to help in this mission. Called the Museum of Alabama, this series of exhibits will delineate a range of significant periods in Alabama’s history, giving visitors a new understanding of such topics as “The Land of Alabama,” “The First Alabamians,” “Alabama Voices,” and “Alabama Treasures.”
The ADAH has also worked carefully to tie these exhibits to the state’s educational curriculum, offering schoolchildren from across Alabama the chance to encounter artifacts from the periods they are studying. Although several phases of the museum have already been completed, the remaining phases are still underway. Readers of Alabama Heritagecan help make the Museum of Alabama a reality by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Alabama Archives and History Foundation, P.O. Box 300100, Montgomery, AL 36130.
Letters from Exile
By Éric Saugera
Editor’s Note: Readers may remember Rafe Blaufarb’s article “Alabama’s Vine and Olive Colony: Myth and Fact” in our Summer 2006 issue. In that article, Blaufarb introduced readers to the history of Alabama’s Vine and Olive Colony,a nineteenth-century settlement by French exiles in Marengo County. The exiles fled France in 1817, after Napoleon was deposed, and Congress granted them lands in Alabama to begin planting grape vines and olive trees. With Blaufarb’s article, former Alabama Heritage editor Suzanne Wolfe informed readers about an intriguing discovery of letters that were written from Demopolis by one of the colonists. In our new article, Éric Saugera, the historian who found the letters in France and author of Reborn in America, a new history of the Vine and Olive Colony, brings to life the story of their author, Jacques Lajonie, and reveals new details about daily life in the colony.
When a toothache led French historian Éric Saugera to the dentist, he little expected to discover a fascinating history of an Alabama colony. But that’s exactly what happened. Saugera’s dentist shared a trove of letters his ancestors, who lived for a time as exiles in Alabama’s Vine and Olive Colony, sent from the states back to France. Written by Jacques Lajonie, whose loyalty to Napoleon proved dangerous after the emperor’s fall from power, the letters offer a rare glimpse of life on the Alabama frontier and the struggles of pursuing an agrarian life in a land far from home. They also reveal new connections between Alabama and France, showing common threads between these distinct nations.
Awaiting Justice: “Scottsboro Boy” Clarence Norris
By Thomas Reidy
Known as the “Scottsboro Boys,” the group of young African American men arrested in Paint Rock, Alabama, in 1931 received a criminal conviction many Americans questioned. Upon his parole fifteen years later, “Scottsboro Boy” Clarence Norris went into hiding, certain that he would never be treated fairly by the Alabama legal system. And for many decades, his certainty appeared well-founded. In the 1970s, though, the state’s social and political landscape had shifted substantially, and Norris received a long-hoped-for but never-expected pardon. Author Thomas Reidy details the events that led to this legal decision and updates readers on current efforts to commemorate the “Scottsboro Boys.”
The Rise and Decline of Alabama’s Redneck Riviera
By Harvey H. Jackson III
Although we now consider spring break at the beach as common a paring as peanut butter and jelly, this tradition of coastal vacations was not always so ingrained in cultural norms. Like everything else, it originated somewhere, and Harvey Jackson’s article details that origin story, weaving together a colorful cast of characters that includes former University of Alabama quarterback Ken Stabler, writer Howell Raines, and a fish (or is it a bird?) called mullet. If you’ve ever sipped a beverage under the lingerie-draped eaves of the Flora-Bama, this article is for you.
Departments
Southern Architecture and Preservation
A Landmark Revived
By Mary Riser
When author Mary Riser started looking for a country house, she little suspected that she would find it in an abandoned building. However, with the help of two ardent preservationists—Riser’s mother, former state senator Ann Bedsole, and architect Nicholas Holmes Jr.—Riser discovered that sometimes even the roughest structure can be rehabilitated and restored. In this quarter’s installment of the Southern Architecture and Preservation department, Riser details how she bestowed new life on an abandoned Clarke County hunting camp and preserved a piece of Alabama’s architectural landscape.
Becoming Alabama
Quarter by Quarter
By Joseph W. Pearson, Megan L. Bever, and Matthew Downs
This quarter’s “Becoming Alabama” articles trace events that had effects on Alabama and the world beyond. Joseph Pearson discusses the start of the War of 1812, showing how many Creeks and white settlers in the Mississippi Territory concurred in their enthusiasm for what they believed to be a “second war of independence.” Covering the Civil War era, Megan Bever charts the crucial role of ammunition and materiel, showing how Josiah Gorgas, as the Confederate States of America’s Chief of Ordnance, helped aid the southern war effort. Finally, Matthew Downs revisits the summer of 1962, when two candidates vied to become Alabama’s next governor.
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 the most pivotal events, sometimes describing daily life, but always illuminating a world in flux. We will wait for the ultimate outcomes as our forbears did—over time.
Revealing Hidden Collections
“What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Cooking”: Samplings of Alabama’s Contributions to America’s Foodways
By Louis A. Pitschmann
In this new department, Alabama Heritage explores from the state’s libraries, museums, and private collections, bringing to light little-known treasures. In this initial installment, the department’s standing editor, Louis Pitschmann, discusses the Lupton Collection, a rare assortment of African American cookbooks held at the W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library at the University of Alabama. Reading through the cookbooks, one gathers a sense of how African American cooks, particularly those from Alabama, have influenced what we now consider traditional American fare.
Southern Religion
Anti-Catholicism in Alabama and Florida in the Early Twentieth Century
By Arthur Remillard
When one thinks of intolerance, generally issues of racial prejudice come to mind. However, many people fail to realize that for a number of years, many southerners held a bias against Catholicism. As the twentieth century dawned, anti-Catholicism gained prominence as a political stance, and it eventually filtered into personal belief systems as well. However, following a Methodist minister’s 1916 murder of a Catholic priest, many Alabamians decided things had to change. Arthur Remillard revisits the death of Father James E. Coyle and considers its continued influence on Alabama.
Recollections
The Tennessee Valley: Gator Country?
By Thomas V. Ress
Although the American Alligator commonly appears in warm climates such as Florida, its historical range is much broader—a fact that many visitors to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in the Tennessee Valley learn firsthand. The reptiles have a complicated history at the site, though their presence dates back at least forty years. Through their decades at the refuge, the alligators have sparked a number of reactions among nearby residents, causing both excitement and fear. Thomas Ress evaluates the alligators’ presence, positing possible sources for it and discussing how we might come to coexist comfortably with these creatures.
Alabama Treasures
Paul Revere and the Alabama Capitol’s Striking Tower Clock
By Thomas Kaufmann
In 1852 Montgomery’s capitol building gained a lovely addition: a striking tower clock. Today, the piece stands as a rare example of the art of American clock making. As author Thomas Kaufmann explains, the structure also links Alabama’s capitol to one of the preeminent figures in American history—Paul Revere.
Reading the Southern Past
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
In this quarter’s installment, Stephen Goldfarb surveys several books on the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which scientists charted the effects of the disease on infected African American men. Goldfarb reviews Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment by James Jones (Simon & Schuster, 1993); Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy by Susan M. Reverby (University of North Carolina Press, 2009); and The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The Real Story and Beyond by Fred D. Gray (NewSouth Books, 2002). Taken together, these texts offer a comprehensive appraisal of the study’s purpose and conclusions, along with its moral implications and efforts made to atone for it.