Issue 137, Summer 2020
On the cover: Margaret Murray Washington, the wife of Booker T. Washington, led the Black women of Alabama in the movement to win the right to vote. [Library of Congress]
Features
The New Negro Suffragist
Tuskegee Clubwomen and the Fight for Suffrage
By La-Kisha Emmanuel
Though many fought for suffrage up through the early twentieth century, they were typically focused on voting rights for white women. While activists such as Susan B. Anthony garnered attention for their cause, numerous Black women throughout the country worked to advance their own cause. Women’s clubs—including one at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, formed in 1895 by Margaret Washington (wife of Booker T. Washington)—offered educational, social, and cultural programming as they worked to advance the status of African Americans in the United States.
Industrial Revolution
The Locomotive Comes to Alabama
By Ken Boyd
Nearly two hundred years ago, the first steam locomotive passed through Alabama, indelibly changing transportation in the young state—and the nation. Though it was just one product of the Industrial Revolution, the locomotive remains a significant part of the state’s history. Photographer Ken Boyd offers this richly photographed history of trains in Alabama, chronicling generations of locomotives that have chugged across the state.
Donald Comer’s Great Adventure in the Philippines, 1899-1902
By David E. Alsobrook
Donald Comer is best known for his role as the driving force behind Avondale Mills, the Alabama textile conglomerate. However, immediately prior to assuming the role of mill manager, Comer was pursuing an Army career. His service in the Philippines provided him with ample experience in combat, but it also instilled in him a sense of leadership, and service—qualities that served him well in his future role as a businessman and executive.
Alabama League of Municipalities
Promoting and Protecting Local Government Since 1935
By Carrie Banks
For more than eight decades, the Alabama League of Municipalities has helped the state’s cities and towns, providing resources, advocacy, and support. Carrie Banks explores the organization’s founding during the Great Depression and its history up into the Twenty-First Century, detailing the many ways it supports Alabama’s communities.
Department Abstracts
Portraits and Landscapes
Final Words of an Alabama Legend
By Chuck Lyons
During World War II in the waters near the Solomon Islands, an Alabama submarine commander lost his life—and saved his vessel and its crew, cementing his place as one of the state’s heroes in the process. Commander Howard Gilmore’s twenty-plus years of military service culminated in the fateful moment when he commanded his crew to take the submarine down, knowing that doing so would prevent his reentry but protect the USS Growler from the enemy fire pummeling it. His heroism earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor, which was accepted by his widow and their children.
Alabama Governors
William Hugh Smith (1868-1870)
By Samuel L. Webb
Alabama’s twenty-first governor, William Hugh Smith, was the state’s first Republican elected to the governorship. In the tumultuous years after the Civil War, governing in the South posed numerous challenges, and Smith failed to overcome them. His decisions angered opponents and even members of his own party, leading to his defeat after a single term.
Adventures in Genealogy
Creel v. Creel: Divorce and its Many Layers
By Carlie Anne Burkett
Sometimes genealogists find fascinating resources in unexpected places. Descendants of one Mississippi family, the Rev. Albert E. Creel family, have much to learn from divorce records housed at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Thanks to the family’s mobility and the contentious nature of the divorce, many personal details appear in the records, including accusations regarding paternity of some of the couple’s offspring.
Behind the Image
A Visit with Abraham Lincoln
By Frances Osborn Robb
Though sculptor August Saint-Gaudens is commonly associated with New England, the effects of his work resonated with people throughout the United States. Indeed, his sculptures of Abraham Lincoln gained such renown that people traveled to see them, preserving memories of their visits in unique and compelling ways. Frances Osborn Robb reports on one such memory, likely associated with Limestone County’s Trinity School, which preserves the image of two young African Americans at the steps of Saint-Gaudens’s statue.
From the Archives
Glimpses of Gwen Patton
By Justin Rudder
Editor’s Note: The “From the Archives” columns during 2020, the centennial of women’s suffrage, will focus on the important roles of women in Alabama history.
This quarter’s installment of “From the Archives” explores items from the Alabama Department of Archives and History’s (ADAH) collection connected to Gwen Patton, an activist and scholar whose mentorship influenced many of the state’s young people—including current members of the ADAH staff. Patton’s role in the civil rights movement and her work at the state’s educational institutions, including Tuskegee University, reflect her life of activism and service.
Reading the Southern Past
The Federal Road
This quarter’s installment of “Reading the Southern Past” considers the Federal Road, whose passage through Alabama shaped the young state’s character. Under consideration are The Federal Road Through Georgia, the Creek Nation, and Alabama, 1806–1836 by Henry deLeon Southerland Jr. and Jerry Elijah Brown (University of Alabama Press, 1989); The Very Worst Road: Travelers’ Accounts of Crossing Alabama’s Old Creek Indian Territory, 1820–1847 (University of Alabama Press, 1998) an anthology compiled by Jeffrey C. Benton; and The Old Federal Road in Alabama by Kathryn H. Braund, Gregory A. Waselkov, and Raven M. Christopher (University of Alabama Press, 2019).
