Issue 143, Winter 2022
On the cover: Alabama native and world heavyweight champion, Joe Louis. [Library of Congress]
Features
Joe Louis: Alabama Native and World Champion
By Dot Moore
Joe Louis, one of the world’s most acclaimed boxers, was born to a humble Alabama family. Though he did not begin boxing until after his family relocated to Michigan, Louis returned to Alabama during his World War II service, and he fondly remembered special friends from his childhood in the state. More than one hundred years after his birth, Chambers County commemorated its storied son by commissioning, installing, and dedicating a statue of him on the courthouse lawn.
Cheers and Jeers for Ireland: Éamon De Valera’s Alabama Experience
By Mark Holan
New York City native Éamon De Valera was of European descent, as his father was Spanish and his mother Irish. Though he was an American citizen, he spent most of his life in Ireland, where he became a fierce advocate for Irish independence. During one tumultuous, tornado-filled week in Alabama, De Valera took his fight to the states, hoping to garner support for his cause. Though he eventually became president of Ireland, De Valera never forgot his time in Alabama or the people he met in the state.
Alabama in the American Revolution
By Robert D. Temple
Before Alabama became a state, the area served as a lesser-known but critical seat of activity during the Revolutionary War. Along with Natchez and Pensacola, Mobile formed a strategic triangle, as together, the three towns offered important resources: a seaport, agriculture, and trade along the Mississippi River. Robert Temple elucidates how the Americans, British, Spanish, French, and Native Americans all worked to pursue their own interests in this area during the war—and how their efforts helped shape its outcome.
Bossie O’Brien Hundley, Suffragist and Fighter
By Monica Tapper
For nearly two years, Birmingham suffragist Bossie O’Brien Hundley advocated for women’s right to vote, even traversing the state and holding public exchanges with congressmen. Though she successfully brought some skeptics to her cause, her efforts were ultimately unsuccessful due to entrenched ideas about the role of women and how extending the vote to white women might further enfranchise the state’s Black citizens.
Department Abstracts
Letter to Our Readers
The Staff of Alabama Heritage shares updates about the magazine, its mission, and its vision.
Portraits and Landscapes
Monju Spirits in a Bottle
By David Kyle Rakes
To many people, an old blue bottle might not spark any interest. But for author David Rakes, it posed a mystery: where and when did it originate, and for what purpose? With a lot of careful sleuthing and a little bit of luck, he uncovered the rich history of this humble object, learning about nineteenth-century Mobile and the alcoholic beverage industry in the process.
Alabama Governors
Rufus W. Cobb
Alabama’s twenty-fifth governor, Democrat Rufus Cobb, oversaw a number of important developments in the state, including the creation of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School and ushering the state through the early years of Reconstruction. However, after his term ended, it was tainted by scandal relating to his treasurer, leaving a somewhat checkered legacy for Cobb.
Behind the Image
What’s in a Name?
By Frances Osborn Robb
A photograph taken in a watermelon patch around the turn of the century leads to some interesting discoveries about its subjects, Jane Smithson Jones Graham, and Flavius Josephus Graham, and about Alabama life during that time.
From the Archives
Justice, Not Favor: Alabama Women and the Vote
By Alex Colvin
Between now and May 31, 2022, visitors to the Alabama Department of Archives and History can experience the exhibit Justice, Not Favor: Alabama Women & the Vote, which explores the history of suffrage in the state. The exhibit explores numerous aspects of the movement, from prominent suffragists and their work to anti-suffragists and their arguments. It also delves into the different circumstances and experiences faced by Black suffragists, who worked to combat prejudice based on both race and gender.
Reading the Southern Past
The Book that Never Was
In this quarter’s installment of “Reading the Southern Past,” author Stephen Goldfarb’s subject is Alabamian Harper Lee, whose early success with To Kill a Mockingbird was followed by a lengthy absence of additional publications. Goldfarb reviews Casey Cep’s Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee (Alfred A. Knopf, 2019), which explores an unpublished true-crime text Lee worked on for numerous years and Wayne Flynt’s Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee (Harpers, 2017), in which the noted historian reminisces about his friendship with the author.
