Issue 109, Summer 2013
On the cover: Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. [Paul W. Bryant Museum]
Features
Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant: The Legacy Off the Field
By Winston Groom
When people hear reference to Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s accomplishments, they assume those occurred on the gridiron. And certainly, his coaching prowess remains legendary. However, many of his players consider Coach Bryant’s lessons on life, rather than those on football, to be his finest legacy.
This feature article by Winston Groom, himself an Alabama legend acclaimed for Forrest Gump and his many other books, explores an aspect of Coach Bryant that is often overlooked, detailing his deep concern for the character, values, and citizenship of his players. Groom draws on extensive first-hand interviews with Gaylon McCollough, John Croyle, Marlin “Scooter” Dyess, Don McNeal, and many of Bryant’s other players, showing how decades later, their lives and communities remain shaped by Bryant’s influence.
In many cases, these men credit Coach Bryant with instilling in them valuable lessons about class, loyalty, and work ethic. This special Alabama Heritage article, illustrated with images from the Paul W. Bryant Museum, offers a lovely keepsake for fans who remember Coach Bryant and an important primer for new generations whose own lives will be enriched by the many lessons he taught.
[Paul W. Bryant Museum, University of Alabama]
Fear and Finance in the Flush Times: A Southwestern Bandit, an Insurrection Scare, and the Overheated Economy of the Cotton Frontier
By Joshua D. Rothman
In the 1830s, as economic turmoil spiraled the Alabama frontier into a state of uncertainty and suspicion, a man named John Murrell occupied the attention of white slave owners. While on trial for slave stealing, Murrell encountered Virgil Stewart, a local man with a penchant for storytelling. Stewart wove a sensational and complex account of Murrell’s intentions—to lead the greatest slave insurrection the South had ever seen. The story was an exaggerated fabrication, but its effects rippled through communities, evoking fear and anxiety throughout Alabama’s homes.
Tragedy on the Tracks: The 1896 Cahaba Bridge Train Wreck
By Terri L. Hicks
Several days after Christmas, 1896, tragedy struck near Birmingham, when a bridge collapsed over the Cahaba River, leading to two separate train wrecks on the same day. Few survived the first wreck, leaving little firsthand evidence of the accident’s causes. Over time, investigators discerned the problem—but due to a number of factors, they did not acknowledge it for decades. Now, author Terri Hicks helps set the record straight, explaining the construction errors that led to the accidents, detailing the cover up that obscured the wreck’s origin, and clarifying the real events that led to the 1896 tragedy over the Cahaba.
Pattie Ruffner Jacobs and the Transformation of Women’s Rights
By Marlene Hunt Rikard and Wayne Flynt
Many people fail to realize the instrumental role Alabama women such as Pattie Ruffner Jacobs played in securing national suffrage rights for women. Born in the 1870s, Ruffner moved to Alabama as a young lady, met and married Solon Jacobs, and embarked on a lifetime of leadership and service dedicated to promoting the rights of women. Jacobs worked on both state and national suffrage campaigns, took on prominent congressmen whose derision only fueled her ambitions, and helped secure the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Never one to rest complacently, Jacobs continued her lifetime of service, devoting her later years to various political causes and to groups such as the League of Women Voters. Throughout her life, she labored tirelessly to secure the equal status of women in both her state and the nation.
Departments
[Robin McDonald]
Southern Architecture and Preservation
Making Preservation Profitable
By Chloe Mercer
Many prospective preservationists are surprised to learn that they may qualify for historic preservation tax incentives, thanks to a federal program dating from the bicentennial. Under this program, called the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program, participants who restore structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places may receive up to a 20 percent tax credit. This significant program encourages restoration rather than destruction, promoting continued awareness and celebration of historic structures.
Becoming Alabama
Quarter by Quarter
By Joseph W. Pearson, Megan L. Bever, and Matthew Downs
This quarter, we explore the contest for Mobile and its valuable bay and Col. John Bowyer’s construction of a fort in that area, Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s ingenious defeat of Gen. Abel D. Streight, and the tumultuous events occurring in Birmingham in the spring of 1963. The latter, which comprised a significant section of the civil rights movement, receive in-depth treatment from author Matthew L. Downs, who describes the Children’s March, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and the violence that was directed at protestors in Kelly Ingram Park. Throughout these installments, the authors remind us of the important events and trends that shaped our state’s identity.
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
Reason Not the Need: The Wallpaper Books of Mobile Publisher S.H. Goetzel
By Jessica Lacher-Feldman
During the Civil War, publishers in the Confederate states faced the same difficulty procuring materials as their counterparts in other professions. Undaunted, these professionals resorted to the materials at hand, and today the University of Alabama Libraries’ Division of Special Collections possesses several beautiful examples of their ingenuity: books bound in wallpaper. Archivist Jessica Lacher-Feldman takes us through the work of Mobile’s S.H. Goetzel, showing how he continued to produce works of literary art and beauty even when supplies were scarce or non-existent.
Alabama Treasures
A Keepsake of William Lowndes Yancey
By Ralph Draughon Jr.
A new addition to the Alabama Department of Archives and History collection offers a sentimental portrait of a man most remembered for his incendiary politics. Thanks to descendents of Confederate rhetorician William Lowndes Yancey, the archives now owns a valuable commemorative locket worn by Yancey’s wife Sarah. In addition to including a small portrait of Yancey, the locket offers an example of Victorian-era hair jewelry. Such relics remain the centerpiece of the state archives, and this piece reminds visitors that although best remembered as a fiery southerner, Yancey was also a beloved husband and father.
Southern Religion
The Catholic Evangelical Movement in Alabama
By Natalie J. Ring
In this quarter’s installment of “Southern Religion,” Natalie Ring considers the history of Alabama Catholicism through the life and service of one of its practitioners, Sister Peter Claver. Born Hannah Elizabeth Fahy, Claver dedicated her adult life to service and advocacy, taking the name of the saint who ministered to slaves. Throughout her work, Claver influenced many individuals and promoted social justice, leaving her state better than she found it.
The Nature Journal
Vagabonding for van der Schalie
As mass extinctions ravage the planet, L. J. Davenport looks back at Henry van der Schalie, one of the pioneer conservationists whose early explorations into the waters of the Cahaba and other southern realms helped identify areas of rapid species loss. Davenport also appraises concerned readers about the current state of conversation issues and gleefully reports the important success story of one Alabama species.
Reading the Southern Past
The Rosenwald Schools: A Philantrhopic Success Story
This quarter’s book review explores the significance of the Rosenwald Schools, a collaborative project entrepreneur Julius Rosenwald and educator Booker T. Washington designed to create schools for southern African Americans. Goldfarb reviews two texts on this topic—Stephanie Deutsch’s You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South (Northwestern University Press, 2011) and Mary S. Hoffschwelle’s The Rosenwald Schools of the American South (University Press of Florida, 2006)—and also considers a biography of Rosenwald, Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South (Indiana University Press, 2006), by Peter M. Ascoli. The result is a useful introduction to the schools and the man who made them possible.
