Skyline Farms: A 1930's Experiment in Alabama

By the mid-1930's the Great Depression had settled deep in America, and the Federal government had various programs underway to alleviate the social and economic devastation. One effort tried to help citizens with farming cooperatives in rural areas. Forty-three of these projects were established by the Federal Emergency Relief Agency, and Skyline Farms in Jackson County was one of them. In fact, as David Campbell's Encyclopedia of Alabama article notes, Skyline was among the largest.   

Skyline was developed on property of some 13,000 acres bought by the Federal government for that purpose. The project in Jackson County was available to whites only; a project at Gee's Bend in Wilcox County opened for African-Americans.

A common area included a school, commissary, warehouse and manager's office. Some 180 individual farms ranged from 40 to 60 acres; families were chosen from local relief rolls. The cost of housing and farm equipment had to be repaid from crop income; mostly potatoes and cotton were grown. Health and veterinary insurance were covered by the federal government

Arts, crafts, dances and music were also important at Skyline. The Skyline Farms Band played at the White House for Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, and were the first traditional music group to play for a president in that setting. Famed musicologist Alan Lomax recorded seven songs by the band in Washington, D.C., in May 1938. Those recordings are now part of the Archive of American Folk Song. 

By the early 1940's Skyline Farms suffered from crop failures; a hosiery mill constructed by the government also failed. Soon the farms were being sold to private owners; just two original families were able to buy their farms. 

A 2013 blog post by Deborah L. Helms discusses efforts to preserve the heritage of Skyline Farms. The article includes recent photographs of the surviving rock school and store and a house as well.

Children and teacher around a blackboard in the early makeshift school at Skyline Farms in February 1937. Photo by Arthur Rothstein, one of many photographers who documented life across American during the Great Depression for the Farm Security Administration and other federal agencies. Rothstein took numerous photographs all over the state in the mid-1930's.  

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History Digital Collections 

Skyline Farms Junior High School, probably late 1930's

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History Digital Collections

Technical Sergeant William Davis of the 311th Infantry was a former resident of Skyline Farms. He was killed in action in Germany in February 1945.

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives & History Digital Collections

Below is a letter and its envelope written by Davis from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to his aunt Jodie Sharp at Skyline Farms in October 1942. Other letters to Jodie Sharp can be found at the ADAH Digital Collections.

The photographs below were all taken by Arthur Rothstein at Skyline Farms in September 1935.

Men working in a sand pit

Crops with shadows

Wife of a sharecropper to be resettled at Skyline

Clearing land 

Sawmill at Skyline


In 1937 Rothstein and another photographer, Ben Shahn, took many more pictures at Skyline. Below are two of them, the first by Rothstein and the second by Shahn.

Inside the project store

A square dance in progress

Birmingham Photo of the Day (23): New Idea Barber Shop in 1937

This photograph shows the front window of the New Idea Barber Shop in February 1937. Prominently displayed is a poster for the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Combined Circus featuring the Durbar of Delhi, "Most Magnificent Spectacle in History." That part of the show seems to be an adaptation of the Delhi Durbar, an Indian celebration of the coronation of British kings and queens held in 1877, 1903, and 1911. Certainly a good excuse to bring out more elephants. 

"Join John Lewis C-I-O Now" is a reference to the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a federation of labor groups. Proposed by John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, the CIO merged with the American Federation of Labor in 1955 to form the AFl-CIO. 

Also to be seen in the photo is the reflection of what may be a customer's automobile. 

I have been unable to locate any information about this business, either via a Google search or the Birmingham Yellow Pages for 1920 and 1945 available via the Internet Archive. Perhaps it only operated for a few years; after all, 1937 was deep in the Great Depression.

The photograph was taken by Arthur Rothstein, one of numerous men and women hired by the Resettlement Administration/Farm Security Administration to document rural America during the Depression. Rothstein took photographs in various places in Alabama, but his best known are the ones he took at Gee's Bend in Wilcox County in early 1937. Eleven of Rothstein's photos were used in a New York Times Magazine article about that place published on August 22, 1937. The article was written by John Temple Graves II, a columnist for the Birmingham Age-Herald who during World War II wrote the classic book The Fighting South.  

A web site devoted to Rothstein is here. Almost 8000 of his photographs can be found here. 

Birmingham Photos of the Day (26): Ramming the Earth in 1936

In 1936 seven houses were built in the Gardendale "district" as part of a demonstration program by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The houses remain in the unincorporated Mount Olive community next to the suburb of Gardendale north of Birmingham. Each house had enough land for gardening and small numbers of livestock. Each house was built using the "rammed earth" method.

This building technique is ancient  and involves mixing damp earth with such stabilizers as sand, gravel and clay into a frame using pressure to create walls or blocks. Many such buildings around the world have survived for thousands of years.

The seven houses in Mount Olive are still standing. In 2009 an article at AL.com described the houses, their history, and included a photo of one of the houses. The article notes that each one-story house had about four acres and 1500 square feet of interior space.

The article identifies the architect on the project as Thomas Hibben. I have been able to find very little about him; one site devoted to rammed earth construction also identifies him as an engineer. Another site notes the project was so successful it attracted visitors from around the world, including Nehru from India. 

Twenty-six photographs of the project taken by Hibben are available on the Yale University site devoted to photographers working for U.S. government agencies in the 1930's and 1940's. Ten of them can be seen below. One photograph of a rammed earth house on that site was taken by Arthur Rothstein during his April 1937 visit to Alabama. I have talked about other Rothstein photographs in three previous posts on this blog. The Hibben photographs are all labeled with just a year, 1937.

Birmingham Photos of the Day (25): "World's Highest Standard of Living"

The two photographs below were taken by Arthur Rothstein in February 1937 during his swing through Alabama for the Farm Security Administration. During the Great Depression the FSA sent a number of male and female photographers around the country to document conditions especially--but not exclusively--in rural areas. I've discussed his Birmingham photo of a barber shop in a previous blog post and his photos of area migrant workers in another. I'll be posting more of his work in a future item about FSA photographers in Alabama.

In trips in September 1935, February 1937 and June 1942, Rothstein took more than 600 hundred photographs in the state, ranging from Jackson County to Mobile. About half that number were taken in June 1942 to document the war effort for the Office of War Information. A number of his Birmingham photographs taken on the 1937 visit relate to coal mining.

I have yet to identify the buildings seen in these two photos, especially the second one. The sign company is identified as the General Outdoor Advertising [Advertisement?] Company and may be the one listed here. However, that company filed as a "foreign corporation" [meaning out of state] in Alabama in 1963; the filing has since been "withdrawn". Yet a token celebrating the silver anniversary of this same Chicago company in 1950 can be seen here. Since that company started in 1925, perhaps it is indeed the one identified in these photographs.

More than 170,000 photographs taken by FSA and OWI photographers have been made available by Yale University. They are an incredible resource.

That Time Mom Saw George Washington Carver in Camp Hill

George Washington Carver in March 1942
Photograph by Arthur Rothstein

When my mother was six and seven years old, she and the family were living in the small town of Camp Hill in Tallapoosa County.  Her father John Miller Shores was minister at the Methodist church. Mom was the youngest of four children; the older siblings were Heth, John and Marjorie. My grandmother Tempe completed the family.

Mom tells the story of the time they went to hear a talk by George Washington Carver while they lived in Camp Hill. Since she was born in 1929, that would have been in 1935 or 1936. The event took place in the town's largest auditorium at the Southern Industrial School, which is now Lyman Ward Military Academy. Mom remembers him as an older black man with snow-white hair. Carver was about 70 at the time. The trip from Tuskegee would have been a drive north of less than 40 miles.

The auditorium was crowded. Mom was lifted into one of the deep windowsills to watch beside other children. She remembers being afraid she might fall from her perch. She doesn't recall any of Carver's speech, just the size of the crowd. Both whites and blacks were in attendance. She suspects the blacks were segregated in some way, but doesn't remember specifics. Perhaps the auditorium had a balcony.

The Lyman Ward web site notes that one of the school's two gyms was constructed in the 1930's. You can see a panoramic video of the interior of Tallapoosa Hall here. I've shown this video to mom and the high windows are the way she remembers them in the auditorium. 

Mom does remember something very specific about the event. The family brought home a booklet which she read and kept for some years. The item described Carver's many achievements; she doesn't remember if the pamphlet was sold or given away at the event. 

Carver's appearance is interesting in light of events in Camp Hill just a few years earlier. In July 1931 a meeting of the Alabama Sharecroppers Union in a church was attacked by a band of white men. A shootout resulted in at least one death and 30 arrests. Four other individuals were later lynched, but the 30 were eventually released. The all-black Union, affiliated with the Communist Party USA, operated in the state from 1931 until 1936.

On a brighter note, Chicago White Sox outfielder Bill Higdon was born in Camp Hill in 1924. He died in 1986.

Rev. John Miller Shores 

My grandmother Tempe, Aunt Heth standing on the left, Uncle John on the right. The two squirts are Aunt Marjorie and mom--she's the one with the pensive look. 

Birmingham Photos of the Day (24): Migrant Workers in 1937

In February 1937 photographer Arthur Rothstein took a number of photographs in the Birmingham area. I've discussed one particular photograph here. He was among a number of photographers traveling around the country documenting conditions during the Great Depression for the Farm Security Administration. Almost 8000 of his photographs can be seen here.

Many of his Birmingham shots featured the mills, mines and miners of industrial Birmingham. But he also visited a migrant workers camp on U.S. Highway 31 near the city. The photographs below were taken there.

Migrants of the Great Depression are often associated with "dust bowl" residents leaving Oklahoma for California as immortalized in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath and subsequent film. Yet during that Depression tens of thousands of individuals were traveling all over the country in search of work. Sociologist Paul S. Taylor estimated in 1937 that more than 200,000 people were on the move.

My paternal grandmother [I have discussed an old Baptist hymnal she gave me here] told me stories about men who came to the back door of their house in Gadsden during the Depression looking for work. She would give them some food.

 

Migrants from Indiana

 

 

Child of migrant family

 

Children who live in the migrant camp on U.S. Highway No. 31

 

Making chairs to sell to tourists

 

Migrant workers in the camp

 

Another part of the camp

 

Tent occupied by former sharecropper family

 

Washing clothes in the migrant camp

When the Circus Came to Town

In an October 2018 issue of our local Pelham Reporter newspaper I found an ad for a one-day appearance November 3 in Columbiana by the Loomis Brothers Circus. You can see it near the end of this post. As fate would have it, I had watched a two-part "American Experience" documentary about the circus in the U.S. on Alabama Public Television not long before that. Somebody was trying to tell me something, so here we are.

In January 2017 the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus made its final appearance in Birmingham. That circus had come through the city for many years; we took our young children to see it at the BJCC in 1988 and 1991. Sample tickets are below. On May 21, 2017, the circus ceased operations after some 146 years of touring under various names and owners. Declining attendance and high operating costs brought an end to one of America's--and the world's--classic entertainments. Much smaller circuses continue to tour the U.S., but an era seems to be winding down. I remember taking our kids once or twice to see one of those smaller outfits at the Riverchase Galleria back in the day. 

The modern circus dates from 1768 when Philip Astley began trick horse shows near London. Two years later he hired acrobats, jugglers, a clown and tightrope walkers to fill the time between the shows. On April 3, 1793, a Scotsman named John Bill Ricketts opened the first circus performance in the U.S. in Philadelphia. George Washington attended a performance. 

The glory years of the circus in the U.S. were roughly the 1830's until well into the 1950's. In the 1830's the first American to operate a major circus was Victor Pepin. In 1825 Joshuah Purdy Brown began the use of a large canvas tent for a circus. P.T. Barnum began touring a freak show with William Cameron Coup, who developed the multiple ring circus and circus travel by train.. Dan Rice became the most famous circus clown during this period. 

Thus by the Civil War most elements of the traditional circus were in place. After the war numerous circus organizations large and small toured America and much of the world for decades with their combinations of human and animal entertainment. Since the 1970's many groups with a different circus aesthetic, such as Cirque du Soleil, have developed. China, Russia and other nations have contributed to circus development and variation as well. Human desire for spectacular entertainment being what it is, the circus will no doubt survive in some form.

Written and other resources on circus history are vast. The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress has put online oral histories from circus workers both inside and outside of the big top; you can find more information here and here. Steph Post's essay on great sideshow cons is here. A web site devoted to circus history is here. Susan Salaz has written about Peru, Indiana, the "Circus Capital of the World."

This blog post is by no means a history of the circus in Alabama; that remains to be researched and written. However, I do want to cover a few random things I've come across recently on that topic. Perhaps I'll return to it in the future.

You can find other photographs related to circuses in Alabama here. George Singleton's 1972 essay about a circus crossing the Alabama River at Claiborne in 1908 is here.

Source: The Daily Ardmoreite [Oklahoma] 26 January 1906, p. 3

The BhamWiki.com site has an entry on this circus/sale, but the story is different. According to that version, the circus ended its run in Sylacauga and wintered in Birmingham. Show receipts were stolen, and the management was forced to schedule an auction. James Bailey of Barnum & Bailey offered $150,000 for everything, and the auction was cancelled.

Montgomery Advertiser and State Gazette 26 Dec 1860

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History 

Circus by Zelda Fitzgerald

This oil on canvas painting, completed in 1938, is in the collections of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. By this time Zelda was deep in the depths of her clinical depression and round-robin stays in various sanitariums. Perhaps the image is based on a memory of Zelda's about seeing the circus as a child in Alabama.

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama

A circus parade on the square in Huntsville in 1913. In the left background is the First National Bank building supposedly robbed by Frank and Jesse James in 1876.

Source: Huntsville-Madison County Public Library

Legendary circus clown Emmett Kelly during a visit to Birmingham in 1955

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Ringling Brothers Circus at Garrett Coliseum in Montgomery January 1958

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History

Window of the New Idea Barbershop in Birmingham in 1937 as photographed by Arthur Rothstein. I've written a blog post about this photo here.

Gunther Gebel-Williams and his tigers with the Ringling Brothers Circus in Birmingham on February 10, 1979. He worked with the circus as an animal trainer from 1968 until 1990. 

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Red Skelton in Birmingham at the Barnum Circus 10 February 1979

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Elephants in the Dixie Circus performing at Garrett Coliseum in Montgomery 29 May 1970

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Here's that ad I mentioned above for the Loomis Brothers circus. According to their web site, the circus has been touring for more than 20 years. 

Source: Pelham Reporter 31 October 2018, p. 1B

Remember those visits with the kids to the Ringling Brothers circus at the BJCC I mentioned?  I've got the ticket stubs. Dianne was pregnant with Becca during that first one in 1988.