Alabama History & Culture News: February 2 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. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

Learning Alabama history is a piece of cake: New book takes readers on a culinary tour Yahoo News Author Monica Tapper will be signing her new book "A Culinary Tour Through Alabama History" on Feb. 3 in Montgomery.

Netflix, Obamas to distribute Africatown documentary 'Descendant' - al.com AL.com 'The Last Slave Ship,' Alabama author dives into Clotilda's history and his role in a historic discovery. For many independent films, ...

'The Last Slave Ship,' Alabama author dives into Clotilda's history and his role in a historic ... AL.com In the book, “The Last Slave Ship,” Alabama author Ben Raines dives into the history of the ship Clotilda and the enslaved passengers who arrived ...

Cynthia Tucker: Teaching facts would bring knowledge, not guilt | Columnists | reflector.com The Daily Reflector When I was a fourth-grader in the segregated schools of Alabama, I was taught history from a textbook called “Know Alabama.

Author showcases 'Forgotten Places' - The Troy Messenger The Troy Messenger The Pioneer Museum of Alabama is a place for looking back at times, ... of the Pike County Historical, Genealogical and Preservation Society, ...

Historical Markers explained | News | unionspringsherald.com Union Springs Herald I have chosen to start with the Union Springs, Alabama Historical Marker, which is located in front of the Union Springs City Hall building ...

Remains of Alabama soldier killed in German forest during World War II identified - al.com AL.com The remains, buried in the Ardennes American Cemetery in 1950, were disinterred in April 2019 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base ...

Alabama sculptor Clydetta Fulmer immortalizes pioneers in bronze Alabama NewsCenter ... Clydetta Fulmer with the bronze bust of suffragette Pattie Ruffner Jacobs she created for the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Melanin Cafe – Opelika, Alabama - Atlas Obscura Atlas Obscura Discover Melanin Cafe in Opelika, Alabama: At this coffee shop, each drink celebrates African-American history and luminaries.

The future of Dothan's historic Moody Building | WHNT.com WHNT The future of Dothan's historic Moody Building. Alabama News. by: Alex Valdez. Posted: Jan 25, 2022 / 10:36 AM CST / Updated ...

Alabama Historian Mike Bunn talks early years in CVHS virtual program - Valley Times-News Valley Times-News He has written numerous books about Alabama in the first half of the nineteenth century. On Sunday, he discussed his new book, “Fourteenth Colony: ...

A Shipwreck Leads to a Reckoning - The New York Times The New York Times On Election Day in Alabama in 1874, Cudjo Lewis, Pollee Allen and Charlie Lewis ... What distinguishes Raines's book is not only the story of that ...

“Presidential Archivist: A Memoir” By: David E. Alsobrook | Alabama Public Radio Alabama Public Radio Alabama Historian Tells of Presidents and Their Libraries. ... The early chapters of this book, dealing with his training at Auburn's newly ...

The last American slave ship lies 20 feet underwater. Its legacy runs far deeper - Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times He discusses his book, "The Last Slave Ship," and the triumph and tragedy of its ... How important is it to persuade Alabama to excavate the ship?

Birmingham Photos of the Day [82]: Judy Garland in 1961

Judy Garland [1922-1969] is one of the most famous American entertainers of the 20th century and remains well known today. Her performance as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz is alone enough to ensure her immortality in popular culture. Yet from her days as a child appearing with two older sisters in a vaudeville act until her death at 47 in 1969, her life was filled with many other achievements. She acted and sang in musical films and acted in dramatic ones; she was nominated for Academy Awards in each genre. She released both studio and live recording albums and was the first woman to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. Later in life she had a weekly television show and toured concert stages extensively. That brings us to the subject of this blog post.

From 1960 until 1965 Garland appeared in Europe, Canada and the United States in numerous concerts. These venues ranged from the Palladium in London to Carnegie Hall in New York. On April 11, 1961, she performed at Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama. 

The concert was sponsored by the Birmingham Music Club, which is "the oldest cultural arts group" in the city according to their web site. Founded in 1905, the group formed the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in 1933. On April 8 she had appeared in Washington, D.C., and then on April 13 in Atlanta. 

The two photographs included here show Garland arriving in the city by train and getting into a waiting car. Both were taken by Anthony Falletta for the Birmingham News. I wonder if others exist. I imagine the concert was reviewed in the local newspapers; perhaps I'll research that one day.

Twelve days after the concert in Birmingham, Garland made her legendary Carnegie Hall performance, which has been called by some "the greatest night in show business history." A double album of the concert won five Grammy Awards, including the aforementioned Album of the Year as well as Female Vocal of the Year. Judy at Carnegie Hall spent 95 weeks on the Billboard chart, 13 at number one. 

Unfortunately, Judy Garland's storied life came to a sad and early end. Plagued all her life with health, financial, substance and relationship problems, she died of a barbiturate overdose in London on June 22, 1969. I wonder if anyone who attended her Birmingham concert is still alive to remember it. 

Garland has another connection to Birmingham. As the Wikipedia article about her notes: 

On September 16, 1963, Garland – along with daughter Liza, Carolyn Jones, June Allyson, and Allyson's daughter Pam Powell – held a press conference to highlight and protest the recent bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that resulted in the death of four young African American girls. They expressed their shock at the events and requested funds for the families of the victims. Pam Powell and Liza Minnelli both announced their intention to attend the funeral of the victims during the press conference.^[130][131]

In these photos, Garland arrives in Birmingham on April 11, 1961

Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History

Source:  Alabama Department of Archives and History

Alabama History & Culture News: January 24 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. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

Fairhope is an Alabama place of wonders, from sunsets to seafood to storybook castles ...

Alabama NewsCenter

The late Winston Groom, creator of “Forrest Gump,” lived in nearby Magnolia Springs. Business is so brisk that they've added The Book Cellar, an event ...

Outlaw House just a memory, new book highlights unique sites in Alabama | WKRG WKRG It's one of two Mobile County landmarks featured in a new book that highlights unique old buildings in Alabama. Apart from some stones from the ...

'Descendant' Review: Africatown Documentary Rectifies Black Erasure by Filling Historical Gaps Yahoo Because for the many Black folks living in Africatown, Alabama, where the last slave ship made landfall, remembering is what they do best.

Africatown building sold by descendants of Clotilda owner cannot be renovated, will be demolished AL.com ... settlement to develop and build a new Welcome Center adjacent to the Old Plateau Cemetery where gravesites of Clotilda passengers are located.

The Last Slave Ship review: the Clotilda, Africatown and a lasting American injustice - The Guardian The Guardian Ben Raines offers a welcome and affecting history lesson about a dark moment ... custom-built schooner, the Clotilda, returned to Mobile, Alabama, ...

Albertville Museum receives Alabama Humanities recovery grant | News | sandmountainreporter.com

Sand Mountain Reporter

The Albertville Museum has earned a $6000 competitive Alabama Humanities ... Our Mission of protecting and displaying the History of Albertville.

PBS host Darley Newman explores Alabama Civil Rights Trail in new season of 'Travels with ... Alabama NewsCenter Darley Newman visits many historic sites on the Alabama Civil Rights Trail in two episodes of her PBS series "Travels with Darley," including ...

7 Writers of the Harlem Renaissance - HISTORY History.com Author Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). Corbis/Getty Images. After growing up in rural Alabama and Florida, Zora Neale Hurston attended Howard ...

US researchers test pig-to-human transplant in donated body - New Haven Register

New Haven Register

This time around, surgeons in Alabama transplanted a pig's kidneys into a brain-dead man — a step-by-step rehearsal for an operation they hope to try ...

CVHS to host historian Mike Bunn in virtual program - Valley Times-News Valley Times-News 23, the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society will be featuring this subject in a virtual meeting. Mike Bunn, one of Alabama's leading ...

Historian invites public to dedication at historic Speake cemetery | News | moultonadvertiser.com Moulton Advertiser However, the ceremony will be open to the public and visitors are welcome to attend, Mize said. “Members of the Alabama Historical Commission will be ...

Imani Perry on how the racial sins of the South belong to us all - Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times A native of Alabama who was raised in New England, Perry considers the South ... and in the sense of where I'm situated socially and historically.

Alumna Publishes First Coloring Book About African-American Inventors | Alabama State University

Alabama State University

“The coloring and activities book is a fun and interactive way to start learning our Black American history,” Thompson-Gray said.

Alabama is in a 'State of Denial': Join the discussion of a whitewashed history poisoning our ... AL.com The 1901 Alabama Constitution was forged in a period most Alabama history textbooks breeze past — the years following Reconstruction when Union ...

Historian invites public to dedication at historic Speake cemetery | News | moultonadvertiser.com Moulton Advertiser A Lawrence County cemetery is being added to the state's list of ... “Members of the Alabama Historical Commission will be present,” Mize said.

Alabama A&M Athletics Hall of Famer and team photographer Sidney Jackson dies - HBCU Sports HBCU Sports Funeral services will be at Saint Joseph Catholic Church (2300 Beasley Avenue, Huntsville) at 9 a.m. on Monday, January 24 followed by military burial ...

Published author has ties to Greenville The Greenville Advocate “My mother worked at the Alabama Institute as well. ... Barnes started her published career with two poetry books, “More P's Please,” volumes 1 ...

CVHS to host historian Mike Bunn in virtual program - Valley Times-News Valley Times-News Mike Bunn, one of Alabama's leading historians and director of the ... Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama, will be speaking on his most recent book, ...

Cardiology & Cardiovascular Surgery: Intersections in Alabama

Today I'm posting a piece by a guest author, Dr. James Boogaerts of the UAB School of Medicine. He discusses the way in which the specialties of cardiology and cardiovascular surgery came to the state-specifically at what is now the UAB Heersink School of Medicine-after World War II.

A more detailed look at some of this history can be found in 

Holman WL, Deas DS Jr, Kirklin JK. Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB): A Legacy of Innovation, Education, and Contributions. Semin Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2020 Winter;32(4):606-616

A good overview of the state's medical history is Howard Holley's 1983 book, A History of Medicine in Alabama. 

I would like to thank Dr. Boogaerts for allowing me to add his piece to AlabamaYesterdays. I have added a few images and notes at the end. 

Much of Alabama's medical history is poorly documented. I've written quite a few related posts on this blog; you can find links to some of them here. 

History of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery

-  Intersections in Alabama -

James Boogaerts, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
UAB Division of Cardiovascular Disease

Received his Ph.D. & M.D. from LSU Medical Center in New Orleans, completed his residency and a cardiology fellowship at UAB 1984-90

  

     Dr. John Burrett, first cardiologist in Alabama, arrived in Birmingham in 1946. Dr. Burrett had lived on East 88_th Street in Manhattan when he graduated in 1937 from New York Medical College, where his father was dean. He subsequently moved to Boston and worked in the physiology lab of Dr. Walter B. Cannon at Harvard, then trained as a cardiology fellow with Dr. Paul Dudley White, who had begun the first cardiology service in the U.S., at the Massachusetts  General Hospital, in 1916.  Dr. Burrett and Dr. White co-published a research article on congenital heart disease in 1945.

 

John Burrett 

Paul Dudley White           

 

     One question regarding the John Burrett story is why an established physician from the Northeast would move to the South in the mid-40s and join the faculty of the Medical College of Alabama, which had moved in 1945 from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham.  The facts are that Dr. Burrett had met Dr. Joseph Donald, an Alabama surgeon, during his military service and he had met and married a nurse, Clara Bray, who was training in Manhattan.  Her home was in Orlando, Florida, but her extended family was from Georgia.

 

Tinsley Harrison

Al Blalock

Vivien Thomas 

     Tinsley Harrison came to UAB in 1950.  His roommate and close friend during med school and residency at Johns Hopkins (in the 1920s) was Alfred Blalock, who performed the first-ever elective cardiovascular surgery on November 29, 1944, with VivienThomas talking him through the operative procedure.  Two decades later, Levi Watkins - by happenstance - followed the pathway of Vivien Thomas to Vanderbilt and later to Johns Hopkins. Levi Watkins enrolled in Vanderbilt School of Medicine in 1966 and then moved through Johns Hopkins as a surgical resident and joined the faculty at Hopkins as a cardiac surgeon.     

   

Dr. Levi Watkins

Luther Hill

Michael DeBakey

John W. Kirklin

 Earlier, Luther Hill had performed the first successful emergency cardiac surgery in the U.S. - in Montgomery, Alabama in 1902 - when he sutured the heart of patient with a penetrating stab wound.  Michael DeBakey, while a medical student at Tulane in New Orleans, pioneered use of the roller pump for blood transfusions in the 1930s; the roller pump was later used in the first heart-lung bypass machine in 1953.  In 1955, while at Mayo Clinic, significant improvements were made by John Kirklin and his team.  Kirklin was recruited to UAB in Birmingham in 1966.

Dr. Andreas Gruentzig 

     Andreas Gruentzig arrived at Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta in 1980.  One of his cardiology fellows was Gary Roubin.  While on faculty at Emory, Roubin pioneered development of the intracoronary stent.  He came to UAB in 1989.

Dr. Gary Roubin      

 

      Contributions of physicians working in Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia - Luther Hill, Tinsley Harrison, Michael Debakey, Al Blalock, Vivien Thomas, John Kirklin, Levi Watkins, Andreas Gruentzig, and Gary Roubin - are thus connected to both early and recent pivotal events in cardiology and cardiovascular surgery.

 

See   *pump*  and   *balloon*  and   *stent*  pages

Article by Burrett, White and others published in the July 1942 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation while Burrett worked in White's lab in Boston. 

After he joined the Medical College of Alabama faculty in 1946, Dr. Burrett published a few articles in his area of expertise. two of them are listed below. The one above appeared in the October 1947 Jefferson-Hillman Hospital Bulletin and had a different format. As noted on the first page above, he reviewed the "so-called orthodox therapy" on myocardial infarction [heart attack]. His talk at the house staff bi-monthly seminar was followed by extensive discussion of his remarks.  

1: BURRETT JB, KAHN SS. Incidence of a very slow ventricular rate in a young adult with A-V block and Stokes-Adams attacks. Jefferson-Hillman Hosp Bull. 1947 Jul;1(3):56-64. PMID: 20252035.

2: BURRETT JB. Nonsurgical congenital heart disease. J Med Assoc State Ala. 1950 Sep;20(3):79-81. PMID: 15437143