Friday, February 26, 2021

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest: A Coda

In July 2016 I wrote a series of five blog posts about a cedar chest full of personal items belonging to my aunt Beulah Vee Wright. She died in 1939 at the age of eighteen, so the items date from the 1920's and 1930's. She and her family lived in Gadsden, Alabama. Below I have quoted the introduction to that first post to give you more details. 

Our family on both sides is blessed--or cursed--with a vast amount of memorabilia--everything from photographs, furniture, lamps, and china, to Native American artifacts found in cotton fields across North Alabama, some of it on my side and some from my wife Dianne's. We have a large amount of material related to her father's long military career, for instance. 

Anyway, Dianne, my brother Richard and I have been puzzling over what to do with all this stuff. None of our kids will have the room or inclination to take much of it, so we have explored other options. Before he died in 2003, Dad made a large donation of the artifacts to the University of Alabama's Office of Archaeological Research in Moundville. A few years ago Mom made a second donation of those materials to OAR. Dad's large collection of books related to southeast Native Americans history and archaeology, as well as manuscripts and research materials for his two published books, were donated after his death to the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Which brings us to Beulah Vee's cedar chest. Last year I contacted Steve Murray, Director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History to see if they would be interested in the items in the cedar chest. I felt it was a time capsule of a white girl and young woman who lived in Gadsden in the 1920's and 1930's. Steve agreed, and I began the usual process of donation. The committee that oversees donations also felt the items would be an appropriate addition to the Archives. On August 26 last year Dianne and I packed up the materials and headed to Montgomery. You can find some photos and more commentary below.


Here's the introduction to that first blog post:

My dad's older sister and thus my aunt Beulah Vee Wright has always been something of a mystery in the family. Born in Gadsden on November 2, 1921, she died soon after her eighteenth birthday on December 10, 1939. She had attended Etowah High School, graduating that spring despite a serious illness that had begun in March. She is buried in Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden with my grandfather Amos J. Wright, Sr., and grandmother, Rosa Mae Wright. 

This event was a cataclysmic one in the family, especially for my grandmother. She never really got over it despite living until 1997. My grandparents' social life apparently changed drastically. My grandfather and father pretty much had to warn everyone not to bring up Beulah Vee's name; the memory must have been too painful. Unfortunately, I never brought the subject up with my father before he died; his memories of his sister would have been interesting to know, since he was 13 when she died.

Despite its effect on her and her desire not to talk about her daughter, my grandmother maintained something of a shrine to her. The furniture purchased for Beulah Vee's bedroom became the guest room furniture in a house where she never lived that my grandparents moved into in the late 1940's. My aunt's portrait shown below hung on the wall of that guest room. And then there was the cedar chest.

My grandmother saved clothes, documents, and various objects of her daughter's life and kept them in the cedar hope chest she and my grandfather had bought for her at some point. Some of those items will be explored in several posts to follow. The chest is stuffed with material--it is a time capsule that captures the life of a young and then a teenage girl in Gadsden, Alabama, in the 1920's and 1930's. 

*******

Below are photographs of several dolls belonging to Beulah Vee and my grandmother that were not discussed in the cedar chest posts. The state archives also decided not to accept the dolls since their collection already contains many examples. I've also included a few photos about the trip to the state archives in Montgomery to transport the donation. 

Further comments are included below some of the photos. 




Here are Beulah Vee and her mother Rosa Mae Wright's dolls patiently waiting 
for the trip to Montgomery. Do you find dolls creepy like so many people?



















This doll is tiny compared to the others. 







Behind these two dolls is a display case that holds Dianne's collection of dolls. 











Here the dolls are packed and ready to go. 



This cradle was made by Beulah Vee's father, my grandfather Amos Jasper Wright, Sr. The portrait of Beulah Vee is one of the few photos of her we've kept. 




The car is loaded up and ready for the trip. The story behind Beulah Vee's painted portrait is told in the first of the five original blog posts. 







We arrived at this entrance of the Archives to do the unloading. Below is a closer look at the signs of the times. 










After all these years of hearing about Beulah Vee and exploring the contents of the cedar chest a few times, I was rather sad to see it leave the family. But we can't keep everything and perhaps the donation will be useful to future researchers and displays at the Archives.









Monday, February 22, 2021

Alabama History and Culture News: February 22 edition

 



Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Enjoy!


Books-A-Million's Virtual Event with Author John Archibald Invites a Deep Dive into “Shaking the ...
Moderated by Alabama icon Wayne Flynt and Reckon Interview team members John Hammontree and Ryan Nave and hosted by Books-A-Million and ...

Book Review: 'The Wife Upstairs' sets 'Jane Eyre' in modern-day Alabama
Taking plot and character inspiration from Charlotte Bronte's “Jane Eyre,” author Alabama author Rachel Hawkins cleverly reimagines the gothic ...

The Burleson Family: A history older than the state
... Heaven," a historical book written by David Burleson, Morgan County archivist John Allison spoke to the importance of the family to north Alabama.


Former UA professor Allen Wier to receive Truman Capote Prize at virtual Monroeville Literary ...
... of Alabama from 1980 to 1994, was recently announced as sixth recipient of the Truman Capote Prize for Distinguished Work in Literary Non-Fiction ...


Alabama man recalls his march on Bloody Sunday
It's a day students in America learn about in their history class. It happened back in 1965. It's also a day Reverend Charles A. Dale will never forget ...

Montgomery museum documents history of racial injustice in America
Montgomery, Alabama, is a beautiful city. Behind the elegant buildings, flowering trees and wide avenues, however, lies a history not so beautiful: The ...

Elba Masonic Lodge gifts historical marker to City of Elba
The Elba Masonic Lodge #170 gifted an Alabama Historical Marker to the City of Elba during a ceremony held Saturday, Feb. 13, in Elba.


Construction of Alabama's new Africatown museum begins
Second, we are committed to an exhibition that is not only historically accurate but also is executed to the highest standards of public history and ...

Black Heritage Council helps Alabama's African Americans discover their past
The BHC is an arm of the Alabama Historical Commission and serves as an advocate for the preservation and restoration of African American historic ...

Tour highlights University of Alabama's history with slavery
Tour highlights University of Alabama's history with slavery. UA associate professor Hilary Green's tours shed light on the university's slave history and ...

Researchers with the University of South Alabama are currently examining land across from the Old Plateau Cemetery to assess whether any graves ...

Historical Museum seeks funds to restore its home
We have secured a $15,000 grant from the Alabama Historical Commission to allow us to begin the studies on what it will take to restore the building.


The historical Latham Post Office will get a new home in Stockton
STOCKTON, Ala. --According to the Baldwin County Commission, for 82 years, the Latham Post Office has played an important part in Baldwin ...

'Three Days at Foster' director, sports author Keith Dunnavant discusses Alabama's forgotten civil ...
'Three Days at Foster' director, sports author Keith Dunnavant discusses Alabama's forgotten civil rights pioneers. Black History Month. by: CBS 42 ...


DON NOBLE: Biography shows how John Lewis embodied the social gospel
Meacham's first book was about the civil rights movement. ... Reading what life was like for black families in Troy, Alabama in the 1940s, you can see ...


2021 Harper Lee Award winner Angela Johnson writes about the African-American family experience
Alabama roots wend throughout her novels, poetry and short stories, but Johnson has also written a connected series of novels about growing up in ...

But some normalcy was kept alive inside the historic cemetery. Visitors milled around the Graveyard to pay respects to Cain and Julian “Judy” Rayford, ...

Friday, February 19, 2021

Birmingham Photo of the Day (78): Motorcycle Police

I came across this photograph as I wandered through the Alabama Mosaic site and thought I would explore it a bit. The item is from the digital collections at the Birmingham Public Library, as linked below. That entry tells us nothing beyond noting it shows Birmingham police officers on motorcycles and was taken by O.V. Hunt [1881-1962]. Oscar Virgil Hunt was a commercial photographer in the city for many years and his work documents decades of Birmingham history. The Library maintains a Hunt collection; more about it and him can be found here

I'm sure someone familiar with the history of Birmingham police uniforms and/or the motorcycle type could date this photo more precisely than I can. However, there is another feature that tells us something. That statue in the background is one of William Elias B. Davis, a prominent city physician who died in February 1903 at the age of forty. 

The statue was dedicated in Capitol Park [now Linn Park] on December 14, 1904. In 1957 it was moved to the front of the New Hillman Building and has stood there, more or less, ever since. I've written a blog post on Davis and his physician brother John and their accomplishments. You can also read about them here.  

Thus this photo was taken sometime between 1904 and 1957, no doubt closer to the former than the latter. If you have any more ideas, please leave them in the comments!



Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections


Monday, February 15, 2021

Alabama History & Culture News: February 15 edition

 



Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Enjoy!


Birmingham Jail Logs With MLK Signatures up for Sale
King and his Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference joined with the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, led by the Rev.


Stream free concert “Dedication” from Eric Essix Group, Tracy Hamlin on Feb. 25
Celebrate Black History Month with “Dedication,” a free, live-streamed ... “Dedication” is made possible by the Alabama State Council on the Arts, ...


Eric Essix Group, Tracy Hamlin, To Perform At Live-Streamed Feb. 25 Black History Month Concert
"Dedication" is made possible by the Alabama State Council on the Arts, Hugh Kaul Foundation, Ebsco Industries and Jefferson County Community ...


Black History Month: These powerful photos show social movements throughout the years
African-American protesters, arrested during segregation demonstrations, are held in a fenced yard in Birmingham, Alabama, May 9, 1963.


Irondale lynching marker unveiled
Of more than 360 documented lynchings that took place in Alabama, at least ... Three lynching victims are memorialized in a historical marker at Sloss ...


These Black authors fill Alabama with poetry and community
The poet Amanda Gorman was thrown into the spotlight this past month after reading her work at President Joe Biden's inauguration. Gorman's powerful ...

WAAY 31 Black History Month Spotlight: Jesse Owens, Alabama's Olympic hero
The “Buckeye Bullet” James Cleveland Owens, otherwise known as Jesse Owens was born in Oakville Alabama in 1913. Posted: Feb 8, 2021 2:29 ...


Tuskegee Airmen Quarters for Alabama Released in Rolls and Bags
2020: National Park of American Samoa; Weir Farm National Historic Site of Connecticut; Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological ...


Sun Ra, Odetta, Alabama artists honored at National Museum of African American Music
Additional Alabama musicians include Odetta, SunRa, Lionel Richie, ... The “Crossroads” gallery chronicles the history and influence of blues from the ...

Funeral for Scottsboro Boys Museum founder Sheila Washington
Clarence Norris, the last known surviving defendant, was pardoned in 1976 by Alabama's then-Gov. George C. Wallace. Washington led efforts to ...


DON NOBLE: Dark novel explores the ethics of damage control PR
In the 1980s, Lynn Kostoff was an instructor at the University of Alabama, then held the post of ... Kostoff has published four novels, all highly praised.


African American legend honored during Black History Month
The neighborhood, near Alabama A&M University, was one of the few places African Americans were allowed to buy property in the city during ...

7 Fascinating Historic Hikes In Alabama
Alabama has many such trails, too many to mention here, that will take you back in time to the good -- and bad -- times in American history. Here are ...


Blakeley to Host Annual Alabama Author's Day Program and Cruise
This year's lineup includes noted environmental journalist Ben Raines to discuss his acclaimed new book on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta; Alabama ...


Three generations have worked this 100-year-old farm
The Birmingham farm turned 100 years old recently, which the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industries recognized by conferring “century farm” ...


Remembering Sheila Washington, Who Brought Honor To The Scottsboro Boys
Credit: Alabama Department of Archives & History ... also received help from the Black Heritage Council of the Alabama Historical Commission.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Lois Wilson's "Deluge"

I've written a couple of blog posts about Lois Wilson, an actress born in Pittsburgh who grew up in Alabama. She won the first contest of what became the Miss Alabama pageant before heading to Hollywood. Wilson had a long career in both silent and sound films between 1915 and 1949. She also had roles on several television soap operas in the 1950's. Wilson never married and died in 1988. 

In the first post I covered her life and career in some detail. In the second one I wrote about Birmingham sculptor George Bridges and the work he created inspired by her 1934 film No Greater Glory. 

In one of her 1926 roles she played Daisy Buchanan in the first film version of The Great Gatsby. That film is currently lost; in this post I'm discussing one of her sound films believed lost for many years, the 1933 work Deluge. A copy was discovered in a film archive in Italy in 1981. This Italian-dubbed copy was issued with English subtitles. In 2016 a 35mm negative with an English soundtrack was located and restored by Lobster Films. 

Deluge is perhaps the first in a genre familiar to us today--the natural disaster film that focuses on small groups of survivors. We get the buildup as scientists follow the signs of coming events, the disaster itself, and two romances in the ruins. Special effects footage from this film were used in at least three other movies in the 1930's and 1940's. 

The film's source is a 1928 novel of the same name by English author S. Fowler Wright. He wrote a number of science fiction novels, as well as historical fiction  and mysteries. Deluge: A Romance became a best-seller in both the United States and the United Kingdom. A sequel, Dawn, was published the following year but was not as successful.  

Deluge the film was made in what is known as "pre-code Hollywood". This period lasted from the beginning of widespread use of sound in 1929 until mid-1934, when the "Hays Code" of censorship accepted by the studios went into effect. Many films addressed topics later to be banned: infidelity, abortion, illegal drug use, sexual relationships between blacks and whites, promiscuity, prostitution and more. Oh, and what passed at the time for an abundant exposure of female flesh. Most of these films seem tame compared with today's movies and television, but were bold and groundbreaking for sound films in the early 1930's. Deluge manages to include some infidelity and a few glimpses of ladies in their underwear and such. 

A lot of the same subjects had been explored in silent films, however. An over the top example is The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, a Sherlock Holmes parody in which Douglas Fairbanks plays Coke Ennyday, who injects you-know-what. The short comedy film is a riotous depiction of cocaine use that seems shocking even now. 

All topic drifting aside, I enjoyed watching Deluge. The film holds up remarkably well; the flooding of New York City is especially impressive. Contemporary audiences, not jaded by CGI effects in so many films, could watch in awe as a model Big Apple was swept away. The scene in which the city if totally flooded and most inhabitants drown would be recreated in the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow. Deluge, which cost $171,000 to make and filmed entirely in Los Angeles, is only 70 minutes long and moves quickly. You can watch Deluge on YouTube

Wilson made a number of other films after Deluge; her final one was The Girl from Jones Beach in 1949. In the early 1950's she appeared in three different television soap operas. She never married and died at age 93 in 1988.

Actress Peggy Shannon, who plays Claire, died in 1941 at the age of 34. In May of that year her husband Albert Roberts returned to their apartment to find Peggy dead in a chair at the kitchen table. She had died of a heart attacked resulting from alcoholism. Three weeks later Albert committed suicide sitting in the same chair. 



The cover of Wright's 1928 novel 



Source: Wikipedia



Cover of a 1998 VHS release

Source: Amazon













Early in the film we meet Claire [Peggy Shannon] getting a rubdown and displaying some skin. 






Scientists all over the world are watching the signs of impending apocalypse. 


Just before the apocalyptic events reach them, there is a touching family scene with Helen [Lois Wilson], Martin and their two children. They soon have to evacuate their home for higher ground.


Some four minutes of the film are devoted to the destruction of New York City. 









After the deluge, Martin awakens in a devastated landscape. Helen and the children are nowhere to be found.



Helen is rescued by two lowlifes who do no have the best intentions toward her. We get another bit of Pre-Code female flesh in this scene. At this point we have no idea what's happened to the children. 



The two men soon fight over Helen, and the big one, Jephson, survives. In order to escape, Helen heads to the water and swims off. 



Pre-Code films got away with this sort of thing. 



Meanwhile, Martin has found a cabin and nearby mineshaft to live in. Guess who washes up on his beach--Claire, of course.



Claire and Tom quickly develop feelings for each other in this almost-bucolic Adam-and-Eve situation. 






Meanwhile, in the ruins of a seaside town, Helen is reunited with her children and living with a man named Tom.






Some of the men with Jephson have entered the cavern to search for Claire and Martin. 



Claire and Martin are ready for them. 

Some townspeople happen to be in the area and rescue the pair. The group returns to town, and Martin and Helen are reunited.



 Needless to say, Claire and Tom are devastated by this development.  


Helen visits Claire and they discuss their mutual love, Martin. Claire is determined not to give him up. 


However, when Claire sees Helen and Martin at a town meeting, she realizes they are a happy couple. She heads to the beach.


In a scene that mirrors Helen's earlier in the film, a distraught Claire swims away, presumably to her death. Martin has followed her and watches her go.


The End