Alabama History & Culture News: October 4 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!

'I just cried': Montgomery teen passes state bar exam - WSFA WSFA While they both passed the bar at just 19 years old, Darden is a few months younger. “He's the youngest, like, in recorded history in Alabama,” Darden ...

ASU's Frazine Taylor Wins National Award | Alabama State University Alabama State University She serves on the boards of the Patrons for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at ASU, is a member of the Alabama Cemetery ...

Take a Trip Through the States with Songs for Alabama—America's Songbook - American Songwriter American Songwriter ... Prine was drawn to the Alabama city of Montgomery as a longtime fan of country legend Hank Williams, whose body rests in a cemetery there.

Vandals deface William Rufus King mausoleum at Old Live Oak Cemetery - Selma Sun Selma Sun King is Alabama's only vice president of the United States. The mausoleum dates back to 1853. Buster said vandalizing graves is disrespectful and ...

Selma grave of William Rufus King, Alabama's only U.S. vice president, vandalized with black paint AL.com Doug Buster, president of the Cemetery Preservation Group, a nonprofit that preserves historic cemeteries including King's resting place at ...

Here are 50 great books set in Alabama - al.com

AL.com

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Young Adult, African American. - Read more on Goodreads. 46. Alabama Moon. - Rating: 4.06 (4,668 ratings).

Fine Dining in Alabama Exhibit opens in RBD Library Office of Communications and Marketing - Auburn University Cather is a book collector and dealer in Birmingham, Alabama. His collection contains menus, receipts, photos and other items—many collected from ...

Wilcox Historical Society meets at Rosemary Plantation on Oct. 9 | News | selmasun.com Selma Sun They will discuss the history of the builders and the Matthews family, who were the original residents. "Rosemary Plantation sits near the Alabama ...

The Haunted House Museum In Alabama Both History Buffs And Ghost Hunters Will Love Only In Your State Sturdivant Hall is located in Selma, Alabama. ... The Story Behind This Small Town Cemetery In Alabama Will Chill You To The Bone.

Local historical society to add lounge and coffee bar - WBRC WBRC Local historical society to add lounge and coffee bar. Published: Sep. 23, 2022 at 8:22 PM PDT|Updated: 3 hours ago. Close. Subtitle Settings.

Black history trips are booming: we take a look at Alabama's Civil Rights Trail Travel Weekly Montgomery is also home to Alabama's most-visited black history site, the Legacy Museum, which opened in 2018 and, combined with the neighbouring ..

In her debut book of poetry, Alabama writer Tania Russell unpacks the adultification of Black girls AL.com Page nine of Tania Russell's poetry book “be gentle with Black girls” has the definition of the word “fast”: a girl who is perceived to be engaged ...

Book shows personal side of 'Mockingbird' author Harper Lee | AP News AP News ... despite writing one of the best-selling books ever, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” To Wayne Flynt, the Alabama-born author was his friend, Nelle.

This 80-year-old woman makes history as university's oldest graduate: 'Age is not a barrier' Good Morning America Donzella Washington, 80, graduated from Alabama A&M University on Dec. 6 with a bachelor's degree in social work. Not only did she graduate magna cum ...

Heritage Landing promises economic opportunity for southern Walker County, Alabama Alabama NewsCenter Now, a new project involving private and public partners is transforming land historically tied to the county's legacy of mining into a site for ...

The Story Behind This Small Town Cemetery In Alabama Will Chill You To The Bone

Only In Your State

Speaking of cemeteries, one of the most haunted cemeteries in Alabama is Adams Grove Cemetery, which is attached to Adams Grove Presbyterian ...

Gus Mitchell's store added to Alabama historical sites, plans underway to open museum and ... Selma Sun He hired Jeannetta Edwards to be his Project Manager in 2020. “We made an application with the Alabama Historical Commission to be listed as an ...

Gulf Coast rich in history as Native American Day approaches Orange Beach News | Gulf Shores News Orange Beach museum honors Indian, fishing heritage. The Indian and Sea Museum in Orange Beach, Alabama, is open Tuesday, Wednesday. Orange Beach, Ala ...

Silent Filmmaking in the Birmingham Area, Part 6: Homegrown Silents (2)

Over the years [after all, this blog goes back to 2014] I've written a number of pieces here about the Alabama connections to various silent films. One group, which includes this post, covers silents made in the Birmingham area. I've also written a number of items about actors and actresses from Alabama--such as Johnny Mack Brown, Lois Wilson and Dorothy Sebastian--who starred in silent films. Finally, I've done a few posts about silent films such as One Clear Call and Right of the Strongest based on a work by a state novelist or having some other connection. 

In this post I'm returning to the theme of "homegrown silents" that I covered in the fifth part. Films included in parts one through four originated with companies outside the state who came to the Birmingham area to film. However, in part five and now part six I've written about the Birmingham Amateur Movie Association  and its filmmaking efforts. In part five I also discussed two other local productions, Things You Ought to Know About Birmingham and The Love Beat. Since that post I've learned nothing more about them.   

Below I've included again two newspaper articles about the group I also used in part five. The BAMA originated in a meeting of over fifty people who met in the auditorium of the Birmingham Public Library on Friday night, August 3, 1928. At that meeting committees were established and membership determined, and the group watched The Nolfolk Case, made by a similar organization in New Haven,  Connecticut. The local organization had already joined the Amateur Cinema League of America based in New York City. The League, founded on July 28, 1926, existed until 1954. Publication of their journal, Movie Makers, began in December 1926. 

Officers elected at the first meeting:

Jack London, President
Louise O. Charlton, Director
E.C. Krug, Vice-President
J. Mont Thomas, Secretary
John E. Roberts, Treasurer

Committees/members

Scenario

Harry Garrett, Chair
Mrs. W.H. Yenni
Howard Parish

Membership

Mrs. Erwin Caldwell, Chair
Robert Bromberg
Mrs. J. Martin-Smith, Jr.

Constitution/By-Laws

David R. Solomon, Chair
Mrs. Priestly Toulman, Jr. 
Mrs. Howard Parish

Technical

C.L. Engle, Chair
John Roberts
Erwin Caldwell

Several films were either completed or mentioned in the items below.

What Price Pearls [1929, 16mm]
Trustworthy [1929, 35mm]
The World, the Flesh and Mercedes [1929?]
Man Shy [1929?]

Trustworthy, the story of a boy and his "gang", starred Donald Clayton, Edward Wilken, and Mrs. W.I. Woodcock. Movie Maker magazine, as noted below from its March 1929 issue, described The World, the Flesh and Mercedes as the group's completed "current production" and all that remained was work on the title cards. The November 1928 issue had stated the group's first production would be Man Shy, with a script by Mrs. W.H. Yenni based on a short story "Personally Abducted" by David R. Solomon. I have yet to reconcile these conflicting bits of information. 

Solomon's story had been published in The Designer and the Woman's Magazine in February 1925. In fact, he published a number of stories in various magazines between 1917 and 1934. His story "Fear" appeared in the very first issue of the legendary Weird Tales magazine. That March 1923 publication can be read here. The cover of that issue features "Ooze" by Anthony M. Rud, "the extraordinary novelette" and "the tale of a thousand thrills" which is set in Alabama. I'll be posting about that state connection in the future. 

I have found a bit of information about two individuals named above. Perhaps one day I can research the others. "Jack London", the President, was actually John London III, the son of John and Edith Ward London. Birmingham Public Library has a collection of her papers, and the online description notes that Edith was also active in the BAMA, "for which she wrote movie scripts." Hmmm...

David Rosenbaum Solomon was a Mississippi native, born in Meridian on July 9, 1893. His mother Fanny was also a native of the state, and father Samuel was born in Poland. Solomon finished both his bachelor's and law degrees at the University of Mississippi, the latter in 1918. He practiced for about a year and a half in Meridian, then served as a second lieutenant in a field artillery unit in World War I. Afterward he joined the firm of Leader and Ewing in Birmingham. He married Madeline Hirshfield on November 1, 1920, and died on November 15, 1951, at the age of 58. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery.

These details about Solomon were gathered from several different databases at Ancestry.com I imagine searching there would yield information about many of the people named above. Some serious research at Birmingham Public Library should also turn up more about BAMA and its activities. Perhaps one day...

Beyond these articles, I have yet to discover any information about the films named, either BAMA's or the other two local productions. Perhaps one day...

Birmingham News 4 Aug 1928 via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Birmingham News 14 July 1929 via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Movie Makers March 1929 p. 192

Movie Makers November 1928, p. 717

Dr. Margaret Cleaves Dies in Mobile in 1917

During her lifetime Margaret Abigail Cleaves became a well-known physician and medical researcher in the United States. Today she is largely forgotten, a footnote in medical history. I recently stumbled on a connection to Alabama, so let's investigate.

Cleaves was born on November 25, 1848, in Columbus City, Iowa; she was the third of seven children in the family. Her father John was a physician, and as a child she traveled with him on his rounds. She graduated from a public high school at 16 and taught in public schools until 1870, when she decided to study medicine. She finished her M.D. at the Iowa State University Medical Department in 1873. 

In her career she practiced in several states: Iowa, Illinois, Pennsylvania and beginning in 1890 in New York City. In 1883 she left the U.S. to spend almost two years in Scotland, England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium. Cleaves visited asylums for the insane as well as attending lectures and general hospital clinics.

Cleaves was a prolific researcher, organizer and author in addition to her clinical work. Some 40 of her publications are indexed in the National Library of Medicine's IndexCat database to older medical literature, 1880-1961. They range from 1886 to 1908, with most published in the 1893-1907 period. Those articles describe her work with electrotherapy, phototherapy, radium and conditions in various asylums. Her Wikipedia entry describes her seminal 1903 publication describing the use of radium to treat uterine cervix cancer. 

Among her many organizational achievements was the development of the New York Electro-Therapeutic Clinic, Laboratory and Dispensary in New York City. There she did research and treated numerous male and female neurasthenia patients. Her final publication seems to have been the 1910 book noted below. 

Various sources agree that Cleaves died in Mobile in early November, 1917. Wikipedia says November 7; the article below based on information from two of her sisters has November 13. The 1920 American Medical Biographies entry on Cleaves has the November 7 date and a further note that she died in a Mobile hospital. "Alabama Deaths & Burials Index 1881-1974" via Ancestry.com gives the date as 13 Nov 1917, her age as 69.

None of the sources I've examined have anything on Cleaves' professional activities after the 1910 book noted below. What did she do in those years, besides remaining in New York, and why did she end up in Mobile? Questions for further research...

In the 1900 U.S. Census, Cleaves appears, renting in what is presumably a boarding house at 79 Madison Avenue with a number of other individuals. According to what I found at Ancestry.com, she appears in various city directories for NYC between 1891 and 1915. Some of the addresses were also along Madison Avenue. That north-south street in Manhattan did not become associated with the advertising industry until the 1920's.

Cleaves has a Find-A-Grave entry, but no burial location is listed. There is a long biographical note from Woman of the Century. Parents and two sisters are buried in Columbus City Cemetery, Columbus City, Iowa. Her sister Jennie, who died in 1919, was the only one of those to outlive Margaret. Apparently Cleaves never married. 

Margaret Abigail Cleaves, M.D. [1848-1917]

Source: Willard, Frances Elizabeth (1893) A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life, Moulton via Wikipedia

Source:
Rock Island Argus [Rock Island, Ill.] 16 November 1917 via Chronicling America

This book is available via the Internet Archive.

Also available at the Internet Archive is this 890-page book

Alabama History & Culture News: September 20 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!

Jessica Penot to discuss 'Haunted North Alabama' - The Madison Record

The Madison Record

Author Jessica Penot will discuss her book, “Haunted North Alabama,” on Oct. 11 at Madison Public Library. CONTRIBUTED ...

Pleasant Home Baptist in Andalusia celebrates 125th anniversary The Alabama Baptist Lonette Berg of the Alabama Baptist Historical Commission presents a ... Ashley McKathan wrote and presented the history of the church.

'Fifth Little Girl' of 1963 Klan bombing reunites with nurse - Alabama Daily News Alabama Daily News ... girl” in the bombing, until a doctor arrived on that momentous Sunday, as an unforgettable chapter was being etched into the city's history.

Indian Mound Presentation | Shoals Shorts | courierjournal.net Courier Journal ... Florence Indian Mound Museum is collaborating with the Alabama Chapter of ... Although the cemetery is now a certified site along the National ...

U.S. Steel used convict labor in Birmingham. Has it reckoned with its past? BirminghamWatch When U.S. Steel looked to its own history, how did it characterize this ... BirminghamWatch looked at the history of convict leasing in Alabama as ...

Tuskegee gets milestone 700th win in upset over West Alabama - HBCU Sports HBCU Sports “With this being our 700th win in program history, it also shines a light on players who led the way for our university in the past and will hopefully ...

Auburn University's Rural Studio wins prestigious national design award for work in ...

Alabama NewsCenter

... wins prestigious national design award for work in Alabama's Black Belt ... underscores radio's influence on Alabamians and Alabama history.

Book Review: 'Afternoons with Harper Lee' | Opinion | auburnvillager.com Auburn Villager His book offers much more than that. Their friendship began when Lee moved back to Monreville, Alabama, the county seat of Monroe County, ...

Professor Emeritus Flynt embarking on signing tour to promote newest book about Harper Lee Auburn University Auburn University Professor Emeritus of History Wayne Flynt will soon begin ... 6: Avondale Branch, Birmingham Public Library, Birmingham, Alabama.

Traveling exhibit, annual luncheon to share history of women in agriculture Auburn University Her address is titled “Cultivating New Ground: The Early Decades of Alabama's Rural Women in Home Demonstration Programming.” “Dr. Beasley's ...

The Abandoned Fort Morgan Battle Site In Alabama Is One Of The Eeriest Places In America Only In Your State Fort Morgan is a historic masonry star fort that, at one time, was considered the best example of military architecture in the New World.

Saving historic Selma voting rights landmarks - Alabama Public Radio

Alabama Public Radio

The voting rights marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma back in 1965 are iconic moments in civil rights history.

Her sister was killed in the Birmingham church bombing. A new book tells their story Alabama Public Radio McNair says she's always wanted to write a book about her experience ... Black lawmakers elected to the Alabama legislature since Reconstruction.

Third Thursday Poetry Series presenting Charlotte Pence - Auburn University Auburn University Her most recent book, Code, won Alabama Poetry Society's 2021 Book of the Year award. She has also published two chapbooks, Weaves a Clear Night ( ...

Georgia Ensemble tells a nuanced 'Alabama Story' Atlanta Journal-Constitution ... city of Montgomery, Alabama, based on actual events involving a controversial illustrated children's book about the marriage of two rabbits, ...

Historic church and cemetery restoration project underway in Russell County - WSFA

WSFA

“We might be able to actually help them list the cemetery that's related to Uchee Methodist Church to the Alabama Cemetery Registry,” said Neely.

3 museums you won't want to miss in Mobile | The Bama Buzz The Bama Buzz MUSEUMS IN MOBILE: Are you a history buff or interested in learning more about Mobile? ... Alabama High School Athletics Associatiions - Sports.

How Alabama got the nickname 'Crimson Tide' - NCAA.com NCAA.com Former sports editor Hugh "Doc" Roberts is credited with giving Alabama its Crimson Tide nickname — but that's not the whole story.

In the Community: Exploring history | Alabama Mountains Spot On Alabama The Alabama Historical Commission celebrated the 186th birthday of Gen. Joe Wheeler on Saturday at the home where he lived near.

Piedmont's Railroad Depot Museum gets grant - Yahoo News Yahoo News The Piedmont Historical Society and the City of Piedmont are moving forward ... a grant from the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.

UCLA to make history against Alabama State, its first HBCU opponent Los Angeles Daily News When the UCLA football team kicks off against Alabama State at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, the Bruins will remove themselves from a short list of ...

New exhibit in Montgomery highlights 'Alabama Radio Moments' Alabama NewsCenter The exhibit, which runs through May 2023, highlights the history and ... Developed in partnership with the Alabama Historical Radio Society, ...

The history of Mobile--underfoot! | Alabama Public Radio Alabama Public Radio The biggest highway project in Alabama history will be passing through some of the oldest parts of Alabama's oldest city.

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest: A List

 In July 2016 I wrote a series of five blog posts about a cedar chest full of personal items belonging to my paternal 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 my dad and their parents lived in Gadsden, Alabama. In 2021 I wrote a follow-up post describing our donation of much of the material in the cedar chest to the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The actual cedar chest and a small group of items remain in the family.

Below I've gathered links to all the blog posts and two images from each one. Part One gives a lengthy introduction.

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest, part 1

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest, part 2

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest, part 3

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest, part 4

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest, part 5 

The archives did not keep the dolls or the cradle [made by Beulah Vee's father, Amos Jasper Wright, Sr.]. They already have an extensive collection of dolls. 

Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest, Coda