The Mobile Renaissance

By Cartledge Weeden Blackwell III

For several decades starting in the 1920s, the city of Mobile experienced an artistic and cultural flourishing that encompassed visual art, architecture, literature, and, of course, carnival. Important figures in this Renaissance included painter Roderick Dempster MacKenzie; muralists Edmond deCelle, John Augustus Walker, and Conrad Albrizio; sculptors Craig Turner Sheldon and Julian Lee Rayford; architecture advocates Marian Acker Macpherson, Chichi Glennon, Lasley, and Ethel Creighton; writers William March, Eugene Walter, and Marie Layet Sheip; and a number of individuals and organizations associated with Carnival. Though the Renaissance wound down around the 1960s, the influence of its artists and innovators continues to define the city still today. 

Alabama’s First Good Roads Movement

By Marty Olliff

Working to establish his mark, Gov. Emmett O’Neal sought a critical issue to which he could attach his name. After Prohibition and railroad concerns were resolved or dominated by others, he settled on advancing the “Good Roads Movement,” an effort to bring systematic construction and maintenance of roads and bridges to the state. O’Neal worked on roads throughout his career, proclaiming Good Roads Days, supporting the creation of the State Highway Commission and accepting a lifetime appointment to the National Highways Association Council of Governors. Though remembered today largely for his position on social issues, including his support for white supremacy, O’Neal made positive contributions to the state’s roadways. 

Zora Neale Hurston in Honduras

By Sharony Green 

Best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston also spent a significant part of her life pursuing different cultural, historical, and anthropological concerns, all of which coalesced in her attempts to locate a “mystery city” in Honduras. Hurston traveled to the country in 1947, drafting her final published novel there as well as writing freelance articles to help fund her search for the lost city. Though her search for the city was fruitless, Hurston planned to return to Honduras another time to continue her work. She did not return, but decades later, in 2015, scholars discovered the ruin Hurston had sought so many years before, validating her suspicions of its existence. 

2022 Places in Peril 

By Lee Anne Hewett Wofford

Since 1994 the Alabama Historical Commission, the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation, and Alabama Heritage have partnered to promote Places in Peril, a public awareness program highlighting significant endangered historic properties in Alabama. As awareness yields commitment, and commitment yields action, these threatened properties can be saved as treasured and preserved landmarks. Places in Peril has encouraged the preservation of important places in Alabama that may otherwise have been lost. The program focuses on bringing attention to nominated places to rally local and statewide support. Over the course of twenty-eight years, the program has highlighted more than 260 resources. This year’s landmarks include multiple structures with connections to the state’s African American history. Being listed as a significant historic endangered site carries no formal protection, but it is hoped the listing generates the local support necessary for the preservation of these resources. 

Alabama Treasures

Mt. Nebo Cemetery and Isaac Nettles’s “Death Masks”

​By Ashley Steenson

Though little known outside the Black Belt, the tombstone masks created by Isaac Nettles remain a significant, though fragile, part of the region’s artistic heritage and African American culture. Nettles created the masks primarily for family members in the mid-Twentieth Century. Though the masks have experienced some damage and are not easily accessible, they may still be visited by those eager to see them.

Alabama Governors

Joseph F. Johnston (1896-1900)

By Colin Rafferty

A two-term governor, Joseph F. Johnston struggled to placate his party’s conservative members while also striving to make the state somewhat more progressive. He failed to secure a third term as governor but represented the state in the U. S. Senate, to which he was elected twice. 

From the Archives

The Civil War Letters of Pvt. Thomas Jay

By Mary Clare Johnson

A recent donation to the Alabama Department of Archives and History includes letters that Pvt. Thomas Jay, a Confederate soldier from Pleasant Grove sent home from his wartime service. These letters provide an important first-hand account of the conflict, and at times Jay enclosed artifacts for his family. Because he did not survive the war, they also likely offered his family a source of treasured memories, some of the final words of the son they lost.

The Nature Journal

Bothering Barred Owls

By L. J. Davenport

In this quarter’s installment of “Nature Journal,” Alabama Heritage’s resident naturalist recounts his entrée into birdwatching and explores the local population of Barred Owls.