“The Sacred Circle”: The Circuit Rider’s Family in Antebellum Alabama 

By Charity R. Carney

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Methodist clergy typically led itinerant lives, traveling throughout the state or region ministering to a number of different communities. Absent from home for long periods, these men entrusted their wives with a level of authority and responsibility that was uncommon for the era. In some cases, children also held exceptional authority. Throughout, the itinerant ministers of the 1840-50s often resorted to more inclusive structures of family governance than the more hierarchical forms adopted by laypeople. Charity R. Carney explores the consequences of such family structures, detailing their effects on both the family and broader society. 

When Only the Heavens Wept: Death at Banner 

By Staci Simon Glover

In the early twentieth century, the state of Alabama participated in a prominent yet controversial convict lease system, under which state convicts were contracted out as laborers for state businesses. One employer was Pratt Consolidated, which ran mines near Birmingham’s Industrial District. When disaster struck the Banner Mine, it focused attention on the convict workers, who labored to rescue survivors and attend to the dead—even as one of their fellow convicts was wrongfully blamed for the explosion. The worst mining disaster in Alabama’s history, the Banner Mine explosion eventually helped lead to changes in the convict lease system and increased awareness of the need for mine safety protocols. 

Places in Peril 2012: Alabama’s Endangered Historic Landmarks

By Melanie Betz Gregory

Each fall, Alabama Heritage joins with the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation and the Alabama Historical Commission to identify sites in desperate need of preservation throughout the state. Our hope is that by alerting the public to the need, we will both increase awareness and inspire citizens to collaborate in addressing these endangered sites. This year’s list includes a number of significant structures, ranging from cotton gins statewide to the Primitive Baptist schools built for African American children to attend prior to desegregation. A number of former residences are listed, along with lodges, churches, and other community gathering places. Previous iterations of “Places in Peril” have brought attention to structures such as these, and we hope that this year’s edition will create similar dialogue and preservation, so that these important parts of the state’s history may be maintained for future generations. 

Southern Architecture and Preservation

Preserving Alabama’s Cemeteries

By Lee Anne Hewett Wofford

Although many people associate the idea of preservation with human-inhabited buildings such as commercial and residential structures, it actually encompasses a much larger scope and can cover everything from natural sites—such as battlefields—to manmade sites—such as monuments and even cemeteries. The Alabama Historical Commission’s (AHC) emphasis on maintaining such sites offers particular emphasis on cemeteries and graveyards statewide, providing tools for Alabamians who want to work toward the beautification and preservation of burial grounds in their area. In conjunction with classes and workshops, the AHC guides residents in documenting and registering sites, obtaining historical markers for them, and maintaining them as scared spaces—a common thread uniting urban and rural settings statewide.

Revealing Hidden Collections

Alabama in Music and Lyrics: The Wade Hall Sheet Music Collection

By Jessica Lacher-Feldman

Thanks to generous gifts from a former alumnus, the University of Alabama’s Wade Hall sheet music collection offers researchers an unprecedented glimpse of the state’s musical history. Along with celebrating the state’s many musicians, from W.C. Handy to Hank Williams and Lionel Richie, the collection’s 5,500 titles reveal a rich tradition of music produced in Alabama, performed by Alabamians, and taking the state as its topic. 

Southern Religion

Modern Zionism and Alabama Jewry

By Dan J. Puckett

In this quarter’s column, Dan Puckett traces Alabama’s relationship to Zionism, offering historical perspective and explaining how cultural differences between immigrant populations from Central and Eastern Europe shaped the state’s awareness of and response to issues of Jewish settlement. During World War II, the state’s legislature united in support of creating a Jewish state—and became the first American state to endorse such a proposal. 

Recollections

Miss Fancy, Queen of the Avondale Zoo

By James L. Baggett

In the early-twentieth-century Birmingham, residents grew somewhat accustomed to what must have been a startling sight: an adult elephant roaming neighborhoods, sometimes in the company of an inebriated human. It sounds like something out of a novel (and indeed, she would later make a cameo in Fannie Flag’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe), but Miss Fancy, as she was called, was very real. Brought to Birmingham as the flagship animal in its zoological collection, Miss Fancy charmed the city, leaving lots of fans (and a few downed trees) in her wake.

The Nature Journal

St. Andrew’s Cross

By L. J. Davenport

In this quarter’s installment of “Nature Journal,” L. J. Davenport explores St. Andrew’s cross, a small plant with a complex social and cultural history. To understand its place in botany—and even society—Davenport takes us through a number of fascinating references, from golf courses and religious history to mathematics and Alabama’s state flag. Much more than a column about nature, this piece synthesizes information from a number of surprising sources and reminds us that ultimately, even the most disparate of items is connected to a broader part of the world.