In these Days of Modern Times (2)

Sometimes I just want to do something silly on this blog, so here we are. Again.

Back in October 2021 I posted some photographs of our front porch. Here's what I said then:

We seem to have had a lot of Amazon orders delivered lately [for some mysterious reason!], and many of them come with an email and a photograph of the item(s) on our porch. I present some here for the general amusement of the  readers to show the endless variety of Amazon delivery placement on this porch. The [Halloween] pumpkins are keeping watch. 

A tip of the hat to all the anonymous Amazon drivers and photographers out there.

So now I'm back with a whole new set. These are from April and May 2022. 

To be continued, I'm sure...

1 April 2022 

Some of these can be rather artistic. 

2 April 2022

6 April 2022 

20 April 2022

24 April 2022

26 April 2022

30 April 2022

2 May 2022

5 May 2022

11 May 2022

Grand Theater in Huntsville

Recently my brother Richard and I were going through some papers at mom's house in Huntsville, and we found this piece torn from a newspaper many years ago. Mom saved an item on the other side, but this side gives the source and date and includes an advertisement for a movie showing at the Grand Theater. Neither Richard nor I remembered the Grand even though we both grew up in Huntsville. So naturally I decided to investigate.

I found some information on the Cinema Treasures site and a page devoted to Huntsville movie theaters. The Grand first opened in April 1920 on Jefferson Street, but that original movie house burned in December 1924. Its replacement opened the following year and featured a Robert Morton theater organ. The Theater closed on May 25, 1960.

As the ad below notes, the theater featured the final local showings that day of The Bridge On the River Kwai, a classic World War II film released on December 14, 1957, in the United States. I suspect the Grand was a second-run theater at the time of this ad, since the film is showing there six months after its U.S. release.

Can't beat those ticket prices, though! 

Alabama Slaves Auctioned in New Orleans in 1858

The digital collections of the Smithsonian Institution are a rich source of Alabama-related materials. In a recent wandering there I came across the item below.

That item is a broadside advertising a slave auction in New Orleans on March 25, 1858. As noted, the auction took place in the rotunda of the St. Louis Hotel, built in 1838 at the corner of St. Louis and Chartres Street. Such auctions were common there before the Civil War. The hotel, rebuilt in 1960, continues to operate as the Omni Royal Orleans.

Of course, one thing about this broadside really caught my attention. Thirteen slaves were to be auctioned, eight were from Alabama and the others being "acclimated slaves". His wife Martha and their four children were included with George, so there are actually thirteen from the state:

Absalom, 28, plantation hand

Ned, 43, plantation hand

Tom, about 46, plantation hand

Bill, 23, plantation hand

Frank, 25, plantation hand

Alfred, 35, plantation hand

Polly, 23, cook, washer and ironer

George, 23, plantation hand and carriage driver; to be sold with his wife Martha, 30 and their four children, Ned, 7, Nancy 6, Horace, 4, and Mary, 1

The broadside gives more details about the eight that might be of interest to the buyer or in the interest of full disclosure by the seller. 

One question immediately arises: why weren't these slaves auctioned in Montgomery, which had a large slave market for many years? A slave market also operated in Mobile. Perhaps transport of the slaves to one of the New Orleans markets would bring higher prices. Also unknown is whether these slaves came from the same Alabama plantation. 

I did manage to find some information on the slave auctioneer, "N. Vignie". The Louisiana Statewide Death Index gives Norbert Vignie's birth year as 1811 and death date as April 29, 1877, in New Orleans. The 1850 U.S. Census notes his occupation as auctioneer in the "Miscellaneous Business Services" industry. 

Vignie's office is given on the broadside as No. 8 Banks' Arcade Passage; the Arcade was a block-long structure built in 1833 by Thomas Banks. The building is now the St. James Hotel. He also lists the corner of Conti Street and Exchange Alley, the site of numerous office and retail establishments over the years. Presumably he had two offices, which might mean he was very active in the slave trade auctions in the city. 

In 1870 the U.S. Census listed him as living in Ward 6 of New Orleans, perhaps at the 293 Royal Street that appeared in the 1875 city directory. His occupation? "Retired auctioneer."

Too bad we can't follow the life stories of the slaves beyond this broadside. 

Source: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

St. Louis Hotel 

Source: Wikipedia

Google maps shows this building at 293 Royal Street in New Orleans, near the Hotel Monteleone, and perhaps Vignie's last address.

Train Robber Rube Burrow in the Dime Novels (1)

Back in the day I did a good bit of research and writing on crime in the South and in Alabama. In 1989 my book Criminal Activity in the Deep South, 1700-1930: An Annotated Bibliography was published and is still available from the publisher and other sources. I've also published articles on Texas gunfighter John Wesley Hardin's sojourn into Alabama. Another topic has been train robber Rube Burrow [1855-1890], and that article brings us to today's posting.

Burrow has been the subject of much ink over the years. One of the best recent books is Rick Miller's Rube Burrow, Desperado published in 2014. Miller is a well-known author on outlaw and western topics. Barbara Carruth's Legends of Rube Burrow & Gang appeared in 2021. You can peruse many other books here. Articles are also numerous.

Since the universe of published material on Burrow and his associates is so large, I decided to write on his career in dime novels, the cheap literature of crime, adventure and romance stories that dominated "lower class" reading markets in America in the second half of the 19th century. The output of one firm alone, Beadle and Adams, was enormous. Beginning in 1859, the company published over 1400 titles. Thousands more from other publishers were issued into the 1920s. Another popular format was the story papers, published roughly 1850-1910, which were issued weekly. By the 1920s pulp magazines had pretty much replaced both formats. 

I discuss several of the nine Burrow dime novels in this article, as well as offering some background on the form and Burrow the historical figure. In Part 2 of this post, I'll offer covers of some of these dime novels, some photos of the real Burrow, links to dime novel resources online and a bibliography of further reading in print sources. 

As noted in the last image, this article was published in the Quarterly of the National Association and Center for Outlaw and Lawman History, based at the time of publication in 1992 at the University of Wyoming. The publication and organization has a convoluted history, but lasted in some form from the late 1970s until about 2007. 

Part 2 of this post is here. 

Train Robber Rube Burrow in the Dime Novels (2)

You can read the first part of this blog post here.

Part 2 includes some of the covers and title pages of the Rube Burrow dime novels. I've also appended a bibliography on dime novels I compiled back in the day.

Further comments are below some of the covers. 

Two of many dime novel resources online are here and here. 

You can read this one at the Internet Archive.

George W. Agee was Superintendent of the Southern Express Company's Western Division and coordinated efforts to capture Burrow. Other dime novels draw heavily from his account. 

William Ward's ca. 1900 novel; note the difference in subtitles between the cover and title page. Ward was a prolific dime novelist; he wrote more than 30 on Jesse James and his gang alone. 

Source: eBay

The Log Cabin Library was published between about 1889 and 1897 by dime novel publisher Street and Smith; over 450 issues appeared. Burrow is a detective in this work of total fiction. Author W.B. Lawson was actually St. George Rathbone [1854-1898].  Like so many dime novels and similar literature, this item is very rare. The real Burrow did have some connection with Florida but not as a detective! An excellent review of Burrow's real Florida adventures by William Warren Rogers, Jr., can be found here. In the second footnote Dr. Rogers gives a bibliographical listing of all the Burrow dime novels. 

This title by "Harry Hawkeye" was published in 1908. Hawkeye was actually Paul Emilius J. Lowe. You can read the book here. The drawing below is taken from Hawkeye.

Cover Source: Amazon

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama