The Tuscaloosa Bards: Alabama’s First Literary Society

By Mike Bunn

 For a period around the 1830s, Tuscaloosa hosted a burgeoning literary scene, focused around members of the University of Alabama community and boasting the state’s first published playwright, the future president of Columbia College (now University) in New York City, a mayor, and other prominent cultural figures. This group, loosely known as “The Tuscaloosa Bards,” collaborated to publish six issues of an early literary journal, The Southron, which distributed writing by numerous noted figures, from celebrated novelists to the leader of the Texas Republic.  

Alabama’s Historical Covered Bridges

By Wil Elrick and Kelly Kazek

The United States once held more covered bridges than any other country; however, many of these structures have since been lost. Alabama, however, retains a significant number of the bridges, which grace the state’s landscape in greater numbers than many people realize. Drawing on their 2018 text Covered Bridges of Alabama, the authors highlight some of the state’s most special and vulnerable bridges, exploring historical properties from Point Clear to Cullman, Opelika to Livingston. 

“Very Nice but Not as Good as Our Way”: A Civil War Soldier’s Food Notes 

By Monica Tapper

While serving in the Confederate Army, accompanied by an enslaved man named John, Greensboro native Samuel Pickens wrote frequent letters home, describing the events of war but also containing significant focus on food: what he ate at war, how he procured it, and what he really wished he were eating instead. His letters detail things he ate—often procured by John—throughout his wartime service: nuanced regional differences in eggnog, the rare and hard-to-locate cup of coffee, the fruit and dairy items he procured while imprisoned in Washington D.C., and his first taste of apple butter. 

A Street Named for a Crook 

By J. Mills Thornton

One of the most familiar streets in Alabama’s capital city, Dexter Avenue commemorates a man who may not actually deserve such recognition. A native of New England who fled to Canada to avoid likely imprisonment for financial fraud, Dexter eventually returned to the United States and ventured south, looking to make his fortune by investing in the Alabama Territory. He established a community near present-day Montgomery, vying with rivals to establish a claim on the city. Though Dexter strove to leave his mark on his adopted land, he likely did not expect it would happen quite as it did, through a street receiving his last name well after his death.

Portraits & Landscapes

Public Archaeology at Pope’s Tavern

​By Brian Murphy, Clayton Davis, and Daniel Rhodes

Pope’s Tavern is dedicated to sharing its history, but in recent years, its staff has also devoted significant efforts to using archaeology to learn more about that history. Spurred by support and engagement from the Alabama Historical Commission, the University of Alabama’s Office for Archaeological Research, and the Alabama Archaeological Society, Pope’s Tavern has created an Archaeology Club dedicated to unearthing more about the site’s history. 

Alabama Governors

William D. Jelks (1901-1907)

By Colin Rafferty

Alabama’s thirty-second governor, William D. Jelks, grew up in Union Springs before moving to Eufaula, where he became a newspaperman. He first assumed the governorship while serving as the president of the state Senate, temporarily serving while Gov. William Samford was briefly incapacitated. Jelks entered the office again after Samford’s death, then won a full term of his own. 

From the Archives

The Beulah V. Wright Collection

By Lizzie Orlofsky

The Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) holds personal items and memorabilia from a young Alabama woman whose battle with leukemia began in the 1930s during her final years of high school. Beulah Victoria (Beulah V) Wright, a native of Gadsden, received an incorrect diagnosis, and throughout the remainder of her life corresponded faithfully with her classmates as they graduated and entered college. Her family later donated her journals, letters, and other personal effects to the ADAH, ensuring that her memory—as well as her words—live on in the state’s official records. 

The Nature Journal

​Cottonwood Karma

By L.J. Davenport

In this quarter’s installment of “Nature Journal,” Alabama Heritage’s resident naturalist explores the botanical and cultural history of the cottonwood tree, tracing its existence across countries and continents while also considering its impact in media ranging from television Westerns to the motion picture Avatar.