Old Alabama Stuff: University of Alabama Centennial Bulletin

In 1931 the University of Alabama held an elaborate celebration for its centennial year. The new state's legislature had chartered the school on December 18, 1820. However, the location in Tuscaloosa was not chosen until December 29, 1827. The university finally opened on a thousand acres a mile from the city on April 18, 1831.

The 1931 celebration lasted for three days, May 10-12. Afterward a 152-page proceedings volume was published; many images from that publication can be seen below. So what happened on those spring days 100 years after the opening of the university?

The centennial book indicates the amount of planning involved in this event. Below you can see a two-page list of the committees set up to plan the celebration. These groups included a general oversight committee, plus more specific ones such as History and Research, Book, Publicity, Program, Dance and Music. And, of course, there was a Barbeque Committee, since a BBQ picnic was among the events. A photo can be seen below. 

Two of the nation's oldest universities, Yale (1701) and Princeton (1746) were invited to send representatives. From January 22 until May 7 the "University of Alabama Centennial Radio Hour" was broadcast on Birmingham's WAPI. The program was actually half an hour long, on Thursday afternoons from four to four-thirty. The schedule of topics is below. The centennial "orator" was Claude Bowers. A bust of university President George Denny was unveiled in the Union Building. 

The main event was the centennial pageant, written and directed by Theodore Viehman. and presented in Denny Stadium. Nine episodes and a similar number of interludes portrayed state history from the time of Native Americans until the arrival of "the first white men in Alabama" as well as the history of the university. 

Claude Bowers and Theodore Viehman had no special connections to the university or even the state of Alabama but were well known at the time. Bowers [1878-1958] worked as a newspaper writer and editor and wrote several best-selling history books. He also served as ambassador to Spain and Chile from 1933 until 1953. Bowers was widely known as an "orator" based on his frequent public speaking. 

Theodore Viehman [1889-1970], the author and director of the pageant, spent his career as a drama coach and director. His work ranged from summer theater productions at colleges to plays on Broadway. Viehman directed community theater in various cities, including the Tulsa Little Theater from 1942 until 1961. He wrote other pageants for cities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere; he had written and directed one for Tuscaloosa in 1916. 

Based on the photograph of the picnic, this event seems to have been well attended. 

Hudson Strode's "Now in Mexico"

As the downsizing of my book collection continues, I'm even letting go of volumes that have Alabama connections. Can you believe it? This post is about such a book and its author.

Strode was born in Cairo, Illinois, on Halloween, 1892. His father Thomas was a native of Huntsville, Alabama. Because Thomas suffered from tuberculosis, the family soon moved to Denver but Thomas died in 1896. By the time Strode was 12 his mother Hope had remarried, and the family had moved to Demopolis. 

He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1913 and received a master's in English at Columbia University. Hudson Strode taught English and creative writing at the University of Alabama from 1916 until retirement in 1963 with various time outs for travel, breakdowns and service at the Pensacola Naval Air Station during World War II. In 1975 he published The Eleventh House, a memoir that covered events in his life until the start of World War II. Strode died on September 22, 1976. The New York Times noted his passing. 

Many of Strode's books relate to his travels to places such as Cuba, Bermuda, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Asia and India and Mexico. He also published a three volume biography of Jefferson Davis and edited Spring Harvest: A Collection of Stories from Alabama. I hope to do a blog post on that anthology at some point soon. 

Strode's greatest legacy is the long list of former students who published more than 50 novels and 100 short stories. Borden Deal alone published more than 20 novels and a number of stories. I've put together this listing from various sources and have included links and a representative--or in some cases only--novel or other publication. Many of these authors were prolific novelists, short story writers, and poets; others published a single book. As far as I know, all of these individuals are deceased except Nancy Huddleston Packer.  

John Mayo Goss, one of his students, won First Prize in the 1946 O. Henry Memorial Award contest given to the best story published in the previous year. Strode was one of three judges that year; stories by Truman Capote, Patricia Highsmith, Eudora Welty and others did not win. This tale has been dissected on the Passing Tramp mystery blog. Two years later Goss published a novel, This Magnificent World. 

STUDENTS [probably incomplete]

Links are given to entries at the Encyclopedia of Alabama or other sources. 

Douglas Fields Bailey, Devil Make a Third [1948]

Babs Deal, The Walls Came Tumbling Down [1968]


Borden Deal, Bluegrass [1976]

Lonnie Coleman, Beulah Land [1973]

John Finlay, Mind and Blood: Collected Poems [1992]

Robert Faucet Gibbons, Bright as the Morning [1943]

John Mayo Goss, This Magnificent World [1948]

Winston Groom, Forrest Gump [1986, also many other books!]

Harriet Hassell, Rachel's Children [1938]

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird [1960]

Helen Norris, Something More Than Earth [1940]

Nancy Huddleston Packer, Old Ladies [2012]

Thomas Hal Phillips, The Bitterweed Path [1950] 

Catherine Rodgers [McLain], The Towers Inheritance [1958]

Elise Sanguinetti, The Last of the Whitfields [1962]

Carlyle Tillery, Red Bone Woman [1950]

Ann Waldron, The Princeton Murders [2003]

Alabama author Alina Stefanescu wrote a blog post in 2009 about Strode's Tuscaloosa home and his life and career. That post includes a partial list of Strode's students with some comments. 

The photos below should give you some idea about the book, published in 1947. I've made comments below a couple of them. 

Full disclosure: no, I haven't read it, and since I'm not likely to, I'm letting it go.  

Hudson Strode [1892-1976]

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama

This copy was purchased at Smith & Hardwick, a legendary book store that operated in Birmingham from 1934 until 2004. I remember visiting its second location in Forest Park before it closed. 

I assume Mrs. Spigener is this lady, and she was married to this gentleman. You can see their modest Tuscaloosa home on Zillow. 

Yes, my copy is signed by the author.