Old Alabama Stuff (9): Sandwiches & Soda in Birmingham in 1906

Back in October 2015 I posted an entry on Gunn's Pharmacy in my "Birmingham Photo of the Day" series. The BhamWiki article for that business included that ca. 1915 photograph but also one from the interior taken from an article in American Druggist & Pharmaceutical Record Volume 52, Jan-Jun 1908. I decided to take a look at the entire article and found it on Google Books. That article is included below, along with larger versions of two photos taken inside Jacob's Pharmacy. Let's take a closer look.

The article covers both some general and specific aspects of the drug store trade in Birmingham at the time. Between 40 and 50 such stores were operating in the city depending on the ups and downs of the local economy. Five of these stores are discussed: Parker's, Patton-Pope Drug Company, Gunn & Gambill, Jacob's and Collier's. Although pharmaceuticals and such provide good income, "they are secondary considerations" to the soda fountain food and drinks also offered. At Parker's, just purchased by Gunn & Gambill, a large newstand was also available.

Many of the places served sandwiches, "...all made by the same person, a woman who gets telephone orders at night and delivers the goods next morning through a corps of little boys. Only one kind is sold. It is a turkey sandwich with a pungent dressing somewhat resembling chili sauce, and is distinctly good. Each sandwich is wrapped in a waxed paper and is served in this paper on a saucer, without knife or fork. At the most carefully tended fountain the attendant partially unwrapped the sandwich so that it lay on the plate with the paper beneath, but ready to the hand of the customer. In the others the package was thrown down in any sort of fashion on the saucer. The sandwiches cost six cents delivered, and sell at ten cents each." 

The soda man at one of the successful stores noted how sandwichs brought in customers during slow times. Busy times included lunch hours between noon and 2 and then after the nearby theaters released their patrons. At the busy times store menus were taken up so customers would not waste time perusing them.

The soda fountain in Parker's extended the full length of the store and had 26 tables in addition to the counter space. Three adult men and three or four boys available during the busy times worked the fountain. 

Considerable space in the article is devoted to Jacob's Pharmacy with it's brand new "thirty foot soda counter" and fixtures. The store also featured a private room on the upper level for the fitting of trusses used for hernia patients. Jacob's heavily promoted this business, promising to refund the travel expenses for any patient who could not be properly fitted.

The anonymous author of this piece engages in a bit of wistful editorializing at the end. "We have consistently decried the commercialization of pharmacy, and cannot but view with regret the extent to which commercialism has gone in the introduction of the restaurant feature, but...it is a condition and not a theory which confronts us, and it cannot but prove interesting to other druggists in the United States to know the methods which are being pursued by the Yankees of the South who live in Birmingham."

A fascinating article "The Heyday of Drugstores in Alabama" by James Kuykendall can be found in the January 1987 issue of the Alabama Review.

Alabama Book Covers (8): T.S. Stribling

As a writer of fiction, Thomas Sigismund Stribling led two lives. The Tennessee native wrote 16 novels, including a trio set in the Florence, Alabama, area, and spanning the antebellum era into the twentieth century. The second novel of those three, The Store, won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1933. Oddly, his second novel, Birthright, was turned into a silent movie in 1924 by pioneer black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. Michieaux made a sound version in 1939. 

Before his first novel was published in 1917, Stribling wrote numerous "Sunday-school stories" for religious publications. He also began writing boys' adventure stories and later some science fiction and westerns and many detective short stories. He continued writing stories even as the novels appeared. A number of the detective stories featured Professor Henry Poggioli. 

Stribling was the first Alabama author to win a Pulitzer for literature; the only other one is Harper Lee. Stribling is said to have sold more books between the too World Wars than such giants as Hemingway and Faulkner. He died in Florence in 1965. The University of North Alabama Archives site has much information about his life and the manuscript materials they house.

Various covers of Stribling novels and collections and magazine issues with his stories can be seen below. 

T.S. Stribling [1881-1965]

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama 

 Lobby card for the 1939 film by Oscar Micheaux

Source: Getty 

This March 1927 issue contains a reprint of Stribling's story "The Green Splotches" first published in a 1920 issue of Adventure. A recent blog post has a lengthy discussion of the story.

Source: Wikipedia



Movies with Alabama Connections (5): Bayou

If you examine this film's entry at the Internet Movie Database [IMDB], you'd never know there are Alabama connections. But hey, I found some.

In the September 5, 1956, issue of the Mobile Press-Register, the following notice appeared. "Harold Daniels has been named by the American National Films, newly organized Mobile motion picture producing company, as director of its first film, 'Bitter Swamp.' Production on the film is scheduled to begin Oct. 1 on location in Louisiana." 

The Saturday, June 1, 1957, issue of the newspaper had more information about the film. "Big, blonde Peter Graves, star of the Mobilian produced film 'Bayou' stood up in the Admiral Semmes Hotel last night and delivered himself of an address on Hollywood methods...Michael Ripps, Mobile producer of the film, told of some of the difficulties experienced in shooting on the Louisiana location."

So we learn several things from these two brief paragraphs about Bayou, which had its original release in June 1957. American National Films, a Mobile company, produced the picture. According to the IMDB, Bayou was the firm's only movie. As mentioned in the first notice, Harold Daniels did indeed direct the film. In addition to his 19 credits as an actor, Daniels directed 24 feature and TV movies including My World Dies Screaming in 1958 and House of the Black Death in 1964. A native of Buffalo, New York, he died in 1971.

The movie was filmed on location around Barataria Bay in Louisiana. Executive Producer Michael A. Ripps has several other credits in the IMDB. He is listed as writer of The Fat Black Pussycat [1963] and producer of Common Law Wife [1963] among a few other classics. Edward I. Fessler is listed as the author of both the story and screenplay for the film; it's the only credit given for him at the Internet Movie Database. By the time of first release the movie's title had been changed and it would acquire another title on re-release. United Artists distributed Bayou but the film did poorly despite such a major firm's support.

The tag line for initial release, as seen on the poster below, was "Somewhere, a 15-year old girl may be a teenager...in the Cajun country, she's a woman full-grown!...and every Bayou man knows it." So does Martin Davis, a young architect from New York, who comes to New Orleans on business and is taken to a carnival in Cajun country. There he meets Marie, the teenager, who's working to support her father and is lusted after by Ulysses, a brutal local store owner who has attempted to rape her. Read the summary at Wikipedia or find a copy of the film if you can to see how this New York vs. Cajun competition turned out.

Peter Graves played the architect; he would go on to a prominent career on television in Mission Impossible and other programs. The role of Ulysses fell to Tim Carey, a character actor who had appeared in such classics as East of Eden and Paths of Glory. Ed Nelson, who would go on to later fame in the TV series Peyton Place, and Jonathan Haze, largely known for a role in the original Little Shop of Horrors, were also in the cast. 

Marie, the cause of it all, was played by Lita Milan, whose acting career was a mix of film and television roles. She is probably best remembered as the female lead in Paul Newman's western, The Left Handed Gun [1958]. The Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen web site has much detail about her life and acting. Unfortunately, according to an article from 2013, she was at that time living in poverty in Madrid, Spain.  

As noted above, Bayou did not perform well during its first release. In 1961 rights to the film were purchased, and it became Poor White Trash which circulated on the drive-in circuit around the South for years. The film should not be confused with another one of that title released in 2000. I have no idea if the movie is currently available in any format or via streaming. Please enlighten us in the comment section if you have more information! 

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Graves in 1967

Source: Wikipedia 

Lita Milan on the lobby card for Bayou 

I doubt that's the Cajun country of Louisiana behind her, but Ms. Milan probably made good use of this sultry look in Bayou. 

Ed Nelson in his role as Dr. Michael Rossi in the TV version of Peyton Place

Source: Wikipedia

Jonathan Haze in his most famous role in the 1960 Roger Corman film Little Shop of Horrors

Source: Wikipedia 

Birmingham Photo of the Day (42): Camp Fire Girls in 1930

This photograph shows eighteen young women and their leader standing around a fire and in front of a building somewhere in the Birmingham area. A sign just over the leader's head says "Colored Y.W.C.A. All Ladies Welcome." In the lower right someone has written "Camp Fire Girls."

Camp Fire Girls was founded early in the twentieth century as a female counterpart to the Boy Scouts and just before creation of the Girl Scouts. A YMCA employee and physician, Luther Gulick, was instrumental in the group's early organization. The YWCA USA began in the nineteenth century. 

Segregation in Alabama at this time probably meant that African-American organizations often worked together in various ways.

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Cocaine Comes to Alabama in 1884

In an earlier post on this blog I wrote about early anesthesia in the state. I noted that Dr. William Sanders of Mobile had reported the use of cocaine for local anesthesia in 19 eye surgeries in April 1885. Apparently that drug had been used for a similar purpose several months earlier in Montgomery.

In September 1884 Carl Koller's use of topical cocaine for eye surgery was reported in Germany. The use of cocaine for local anesthesia reached America in a matter of weeks, and surgeons in New York and elsewhere used the method both on patients and in self-experiments. Several of these doctors, including the great William Halsted, became addicted. At the time of his discovery Koller was a surgeon in Vienna and a colleague of Sigmund Freud. 

By the end of 1884 more than 180 articles had appeared in the world medical literature describing cocaine use for local anesthesia in eye, nose, throat and other areas. A newspaper article in the Montgomery Advertiser in late November 1884 noted use by a local doctor named B.J. Baldwin.

That article is reproduced in full below from its reprinting in the Huntsville Weekly Democrat of November 26, 1884. Baldwin was apparently Benjamin James Baldwin. He appears in the listing of Montgomery County physicians in the 1889 Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. He is identified as a medical school graduate of "Bellevue" in 1877. That apparently means Bellevue Hospital Medical College, which operated in New York City until 1898 when it merged with New York University. Baldwin was certified via exam by the Montgomery County medical board of examiners in 1883. 

Baldwin was born in Montgomery on February 6, 1864. He became a prominent figure in state medical circles. In 1892 he served as President of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. His presidential address at the annual meeting in Montgomery in April of that year can be found here. Baldwin died on June 9, 1936, in Chilton County. 

Here is the entire Montgomery newspaper article as reprinted by the Huntsville Weekly Democrat. The author has the chronology of ether and chloroform anesthesia development reversed. Efforts to use nitrous oxide and ether as surgical anesthetics culminated in October 1846 in Boston when William Morton provided ether inhalation for a patient of surgeon John Collins Warren. Simpson and colleagues did not establish the anesthetic properties of chloroform until November 1847.

The article notes about cocaine, "Its discovery marks a new era in surgery" and that is very true. Koller's work with that drug inaugurated decades of clinical use and research into various other drugs for local and regional anesthesia; and the techniques enjoy wide medical application today. The many wounded Civil War soldiers who became addicted to morphine and then the quick spread of cocaine into the non-medical population in the late 1880's also created the kinds of addiction issues society deals with to this day.

The "poet Cowley" who is quoted in the article is Abraham Cowley [1618-1667], an English poet and essayist. His 1662 poem "A Legend of Coca" is one of the earliest mentions of the coca plant in English literature. The entire poem can found in Mortimer's 1901 book Peru.History of coca on pages 26-27 here. And now the article:


The science of medicine has made another step towards the relief of pain, and this time it comes through an humble medical student of Vienna. England can boast of the discovery of chloroform, and, through it, the relief of millions of sufferers. The name of Sir James Y. Simpson, it discoverer, will live through eternity and the statue erected to his memory in Westminister Abbey tells the thousands of visitors who walk through its sacred halls in what esteem the mother land holds this great benefactor. America can claim the discovery of ether a few years later, and while its discoverers have not been rewarded as was Sir James Y. Simpson, yet our people bow in reverence and gratitude to Wells, Long and Morton. 

It does not detract from the great blessings which ether and chloroform bestow upon human race, for they both have their special places, to say that the new German anesthetic for certain purposes has entirely supplanted them. About one month ago Dr. Koller, a student in a Vienna hospital, gave the startling news to the medical world that, by dropping a few drops of the Hydrochorate [SIC] of Cocaine in the eye any operation could be performed without pain and that the same was true of other parts of the body. 

American surgeons at once cabled to Germany for a supply of this marvelous drug, but only succeeded in getting a small amount. Last week, Dr. B.J. Baldwin, of this city, received a few grains from New York and under its influence performed eleven operations on the eye with entire satisfaction and absolutely without pain. 

The Cocaine is dissolved and dropped into the eye at intervals of five minutes until it has been used four times. It produces no pain, and leaves no unpleasant after effects. It seems to act by destroying the sensibility of the parts to which it is applied, but it does not, like chloroform, produce unconsciousness. Its discovery marks a new era in surgery and its action is the marvel of the medical age.

A short history of Cocaine in this connection will prove interesting. Cocaine is obtained from the leaves of the ordinary coco plant which is found wild in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia. The natives of the Western countries of South America chew these leaves as a stimulant when fatigued. So much vaunted is the coco as a stimulant that the poet Cowley represents an Indian chief as addressing Venus thus:

"Our Varichoca first this coco sent,
Endowed with leaves of wondrous nourishment,
Whose juice suck'd in, and to the stomach taken,
Long Hunger and long Labor can sustain,
From which our faint and weary bodies find
More succor, more to cheer the dropping mind
Than can your Bacchus and your Cerea joined.
The Quitoitla with this provision stored,
Can pass the vast and cloudy Andes."

It was used by the Indians of Peru in ancient times as an offering to the sun, and it is still held in veneration by the miners, who believe it has a softening effect upon the veins of one when chewed and thrown upon it. The cost of ordinary coco is very little, but he hydrochlorate of cocaine is very expensive. At present it is only manufactured by one firm, in Germany, and it costs two hundred and forty dollars an ounce or three thousand eight hundred dollars a pound. 

It will probably become cheaper when other chemists begin to manufacture it. The discovery of the action of cocaine is regarded by the medical profession as more wonderful than chloroform. Let suffering humanity build a mountain of gratitude to this humble medical student of Vienna. Though scarcely out of his teens Dr. Koller is now famous over the civilized world, and the good he has done is a greater glory than the crown of his own Imperial Land.  

A Parade of Alabama T-Shirts (3)

OK, here's the final part, I promise. Part 1 and part 2 cover other shirts. I am happy to be able to record all these for posterity. Or something. A few comments are below.

Birmingham was one of the venues hosting men's soccer games as part of the 1996 Olympics based in Atlanta. The image above and the two below were used as part of the advertising leading up to the games.

When the kids were much younger and still at home, we often went to Gulf Shores on vacations. We stayed on the Fort Morgan peninsula at the Gulf Shores Plantation Resort. One thing we really enjoyed about the place was the large indoor pool, which was a lifesaver for all of us after a couple of hours in the hot summer sun. We spent more time at that pool than we did on the beach. In the early years the place featured the Cabana Cafe, a small but funky bar and eatery near the beach. 

The Plantation was about halfway between Gulf Shores and Fort Morgan and fairly isolated at that time. The last time we were there six or more years ago, other developments had sprouted up around it. The overbuilding and traffic hassles from Gulf Shores to Panama City is a main reason we have moved east to St. George Island and Apalachicola for so many vacations in the past twenty or more years.

I covered a bit of the family and organizational history of the Birmingham Youth Hockey League in Part 1. This shirt promoted a tournament the BYHL hosted.

In Part 2 I included a t-shirt that featured the UAB bookstore, and here's another. I recently had to get rid of a UAB t-shirt that my wife Dianne bought for me when I started working there in 1983. Now THAT would be a real antique. 

I'll close this review of my Alabama t-shirt collection with the best one of all!

A Parade of Alabama T-Shirts (2)

The exciting saga of my Alabama t-shirt collection that began in part 1 continues. Comments below. A final group will come in part 3!

This shirt advertises the UAB bookstore in the days before Barnes & Noble's college division took it over. That phone number is no longer active either. The fine print on this page notes "Barnes and Noble at UAB is now the UAB Bookstore" but the main page still has B&N's name in a couple of places. Maybe there is a transition going on since the store moved back into the new Hill Student Center.

This shirt dates from the early 1980's when Dianne and I were in library school.

As I noted in part 1, I'm a sucker for map shirts. I've included two closeups below. The map even includes Pelham as the only town on I-65 between Birmingham and Montgomery. I also like where they placed the football player on this shirt.