Issue 124, Spring 2017
On the cover: Best-selling Mobile novelist Mary Fenollosa. [History Museum of Mobile]
Features
The Protestant Orphan Asylum
An Enduring Mobile Treasure
By Cartledge Weeden Blackwell III
After yellow fever swept through Mobile in 1839, a group of women from the city’s Protestant churches created the Protestant Orphan Asylum Society. After six years, they broke ground on a building that served as its orphanage for more than one hundred years, into the 1960s. Thanks to a revived interest in historic properties and photographic documentation by the Historic American Buildings Survey, the building—known today as Cotton Hall—was restored beginning in 2014, and it now reminds the city of the way its residents have embraced its most vulnerable citizens during difficult times.
Mary Fenollosa: An Alabama Life in Novels
By Monica Tapper
Near the end of the nineteenth century, an article in the Mobile Daily Register described something most readers likely found extremely exotic: life in Japan. Although the author’s name wasn’t listed, Mary Fenollosa was embarking on the writing career that would constitute her life’s work. Mary didn’t stay in Japan long, returning to Mobile, then relocating to Boston. Her life included a fair amount of drama, some of which she fictionalized in her nine novels. The most famous of them, Truth Dexter, sold over one hundred thousand copies and marked her a great literary success.
Alabama Theatre Reborn
Text by Bob Wendorf, photography by Randall Connaughton
For nine decades, the Alabama Theatre has stood as a Birmingham landmark, although it was shuttered in the 1980s. Created as a showcase for Paramount Studios films, the theater boasts a gorgeous interior that synthesizes features from a range of architectural designs. A focal point of the theater is the Mighty Wurlitzer, one of only three remaining organs from the seventeen originally produced. Thanks to a careful restoration, the theatre has now returned as a central part of the Birmingham scene, hosting movies, concerts, and other events.
Dissent on a Deep South Campus
By Earl Tilford
As turmoil swept across the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, the University of Alabama experienced its own share of tensions and conflict. Students and some faculty expressed concern over American involvement in Vietnam, restrictions on academic freedom and student freedom, and issues surrounding African American students, such as hiring additional black faculty, recruiting black athletes, and encouraging local landlords to rent to black students. University presidents Frank Rose and Davie Matthews responded differently to student uprisings and protest, and the campus community remained a hotbed of political conversation throughout the era.
Departments
Southern Architecture and Preservation
Reinvesting in Alabama’s Built Environment: The Impact of Alabama’s Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit
By Lee Anne Wofford
Safeguarding individual landmarks—no matter how significant—is still very much a hit-or-miss proposition and requires a multipronged approach. One tool is the state rehabilitation tax credit now widely used across the nation. Four years ago, thanks to a coalition of determined citizens, Alabama finally enacted a state rehabilitation tax credit of its own. Though the legislature did not renew it last year as hoped, Lee Anne Wofford of the Alabama Historical Commission explains how it works and how it has benefited the state, and she gives us an on-the-ground status report.
Alabama 200
Alabama 200 Launches This Spring
By Jay Lamar
A number of events are planned to celebrate Alabama’s bicentennial, called ALABAMA 200. The events launch with an opening ceremony on May 5 in Mobile, but readers may consult the entire list of events at www.ALABAMA200.org.
Alabama Governors
Benjamin Fitzpatrick
By Samuel L. Webb
Alabama’s eleventh governor, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, served two terms, from 1841–1845. Following his tenure as governor, Fitzpatrick represented Alabama as a US senator and was nominated for vice president in 1860. Although he initially opposed secession, he supported the Confederacy upon Alabama’s decision to secede from the Union. Though he continued involvement in state politics for several years, Fitzpatrick’s career ultimately succumbed to sectional tensions.
Alabama Makers
The Magic City Metal Sculptor
By Danielle Castille
For more than three decades, Birmingham’s Royal Miree has created innovative sculptures and copper “paintings” using a range of different materials. His work takes him throughout the country to display his art, and he enjoys building connections with customers, some of whom commission specific items from him. However, he always returns to Alabama, where his art—and his artistic sensibilities—originate.
From the Archives
Unfolding History: Alabama in Maps
By Scotty E. Kirkland
In conjunction with the state’s bicentennial, the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) will curate a special exhibit showcasing maps from its extensive collection, one of the largest in the region. In addition to showing geographical divisions, maps provide valuable insight into the era of their creation—and the biases or values of that era. A visit to the ADAH map exhibit will surely reveal many compelling things about the state and its social, economic, and geologic history.
Adventures in Genealogy
Accessing Other People’s Work
By Donna Cox Baker
One of the biggest challenges genealogists face is accessing information and records. Thanks to the efforts of Deane Dayton, Huntsville-area researchers have a great new advantage: the Huntsville History Collection, a compendium of many different resources related to the area and its residents. Dayton’s work emerged from his own interest in the place he lived, and anyone researching Huntsville residents is better because it did.
Portraits and Landscapes
James Monroe Mason III, Alabama Physician: “A Constant Aid and Inspiration”
By Michael A. Flannery, Wayne H. Finley, and Dennis G. Pappas Sr.
During World War II, Alabama physician James Monroe Mason III distinguished himself with his dedicated and exemplary work in field hospitals near various fronts. Mason received numerous honors for his service, but he also established a significant career as a surgeon upon his return to Birmingham.
Reading the Southern Past
On the Beach
Several recent books detail Alabama’s stretch of the Gulf Coast and the changes that have shaped its landscape. Anthony J. Stanonis’s Faith in Bikinis: Politics and Leisure in the Coastal South Since the Civil War (University of Georgia Press, 2014) looks at how beaches from Texas to Virginia were shaped by the tourist boom, while Harvey H. Jackson III’s The Rise and Fall of the Redneck Riviera: An Insider’s History of the Florida-Alabama Coast (University of Georgia Press, 2012) explores the transformation of the Gulf Coast over approximately six decades.
