Issue 127, Winter 2018
On the cover: The AIDB class of 1927. [Photo courtesy Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind, Warren Museum Archives Collection]
Features
Zora Neale Hurston
Finding Her Own Way
By Wayne Flynt
Born into poverty near the end of the nineteenth century, Zora Neale Hurston attended Barnard College and Columbia University and became a noted writer, anthropologist, and cultural commentator. A force in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston collaborated with Langston Hughes and sparred with numerous figures whose ideas differed from her own. She wrote many plays, short stories, essays, and novels, but during her life she worked largely in obscurity. She became recognized for her writing after her death, upon her rediscovery by Pulitzer-winning writer Alice Walker.
A Brother’s Love
The Legacy of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind
By Lynne Hanner
Several decades prior to the Civil War, William Seaborn Johnson’s birth changed the course of his family’s life—and changed the opportunities available to deaf and blind individuals in Alabama. Johnson’s deafness illuminated the issues faced by Alabama’s deaf populace, particularly a lack of educational and professional opportunities. The Johnson family founded the Alabama School for the Deaf, which eventually became the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind. Today, the institute has established itself as the most comprehensive educational and service institution for deaf, blind, and deafblind individuals, and its growth continues, including an exciting new agricultural center.
Dreams of Flying Machines
By Billy J. Singleton
Although several different states claim the honor of being the first to experience American aviation, Alabama has its own legacy of flight, and even the fabled Wright brothers established a flight school in the state. Orville Wright took several flights in Alabama, and other influential innovators of flight in Alabama include physician Andrew Denny, Lewis Archer Boswell, and John Ellis Fowler.
America’s Forgotten Tragedy
The Loss of the Sultana
By Jerry O. Potter
As the Civil War neared its end, many POWs felt great relief, certain that they would soon be reunited with their families at home. However, for several thousand men, a fate worse than imprisonment awaited. When mercenary steamboat operators on the Sultana, eager to earn as much as possible on the last transports of POWs, overloaded their vessel beyond its capacity, disaster awaited. Jerry Potter explores the events leading to the Sultana disaster and the enormous casualties suffered.
Departments
Southern Architecture and Preservation
Lee County’s McCulloh House
By Nathan L. Smock
Editor’s Note: Following the Civil War, Alabama’s agricultural landscape was one of both change and continuity—socially, economically, technologically, and architecturally. Old ways lingered even as an expanding railway network connected formerly isolated communities. In the process, some antebellum farms and plantations morphed into thriving centers of rural enterprise. McCulloh House and its complex of related buildings, which even included its own depot, reminds us of this little-known aspect of bygone life in rural Alabama.
Nathan Smock recounts the McCulloh House’s history and its recent renovations by descendants of its early inhabitants.
Alabama 200
Places, Projects, Institutes: An Alabama 200 Update
By Jay Lamar
In this second year of Alabama’s Bicentennial Commemoration, themed around “honoring our people,” Jay Lamar shares the story of Julia Lide, an Alabamian whose nursing service in World War I earned her honor and distinction.
The Alabama Territory
Quarter by Quarter: Winter 1817
By Mike Bunn
As the Alabama Territory inched into its brief lifetime, it raced to establish the necessary components of a governmental entity. After creating a capital at St. Stephens, the Alabama Territory’s leaders built a government, charted a school and bank, and established territorial counties. At the same time that they moved forward in their work, however, Alabama’s Native Americans surely watched warily, as each step the territorial government took threatened to disenfranchise Alabama’s earliest inhabitants.
Alabama Governors
Reuben Chapman (1847-1849)
By Samuel L. Webb
As Alabama’s eighteenth governor, Reuben Chapman distinguished himself perhaps more negatively than positively. Although he took stands on issues such as state banks, private banks, and railroads, the event that perhaps most marked his term was his nomination of two southern Alabamians to the US Senate, violating an unspoken rule that nominees should originate from different regions of the state.
Alabama Makers
Preserving Alabama History Through Folk Art
By Almosa Pirela-Jones
Folk art has rich Alabama roots, and the work of Ruth Robinson adds even more depth to that tradition. Robinson, a Grand Bay native, creates evocative paintings on and incorporating found objects and highlighting the beauty and color of everyday life.
Behind the Image
Tale Spinning
By Frances Osborn Robb
Although photographers perhaps most appreciate the polished, perfect images, sometimes for those sleuths who hope to unpack a photo’s secrets, the best option is a less-pristine image. In this quarter’s installment, the editor explores the details of a particularly perplexing image, one in which the subject had dressed up in period clothing, further complicating the dating process.
From the Archives
Cultural Crossroads in the Capital
By Raven Christopher
Thanks to a recent gift from Delores Cork, who worked for decades in English Language education for non-native speakers, the Alabama Department of Archives and History has a new collection of artifacts. Cork’s collection consists of numerous tokens and gifts she received from her grateful students, and taken together, those gifts offer an insightful glimpse of the many cultural influences on Alabama life.
Portraits & Landscapes
Huntsville’s Lily Flagg
By Whitney A. Snow
At the end of the twentieth century, one of Hunstville’s most famous residents was none other than Lily Flagg, a Jersey cow with a prolific record of milk production. As she went to the World’s Fair to demonstrate her abilities, all of Huntsville stood behind her. And though Lily Flagg’s trip to Chicago did not go precisely as planned, her Alabama home continues to honor her memory.
The Nature Journal
Cosmic Connections, Partially Eclipsed
As last summer’s eclipse shaded the nation, millions of Americans watched. Among them was none other than Alabama Heritage’s resident biologist, Larry Davenport, whose unique perspective on the events include scientific expertise, literary references, and linguistic lessons.
Reading the Southern Past
Tale of Two Cities
This quarter’s installment of “Reading the Southern Past” explores two texts on the civil rights movement, Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn: The Saga of Two Families and the Making of Atlanta (Scribner, 1996) by Gary M. Pomerantz and Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (Simon & Schuster, 2001) by Diane McWhorter. Each text looks at a particular city, and reading both books offers insight on two different paths southern towns took through the Civil Rights era—and the lasting repercussions of each path.
