Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Passed the Test

I've written before on this blog about Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon, "the first certified, practicing female physician in Alabama". Dr. Dillon was a fascinating individual, the daughter of Benjamin Tanner, a prominent African-American minister in Pennsylvania and the sister of painter Henry O. Tanner. She graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1891, the only black in her class. 

She was recruited by Booker T. Washington to become the physician at Tuskegee Institute, and she agreed. However, first she had to pass Alabama's certification exam, a grueling test that took place over several days and involved prominent white male physicians as examiners. At the time just a few black male doctors had passed the test and were practicing in Alabama. Washington arranged for her to be tutored by one of them, an old friend, Montgomery physician Cornelius Dorsette.  She passed the test. 

You can read more details about her life and career in the blog post I linked to in the first sentence. I've recently come across the two newspaper articles below that I have not seen before and which offer information about Dillon's examination. 

The earliest and second one below is from the Washington Bee on October 3, 1891. That District of Columbia newspaper was primarily read by African-Americans. The article is actually a reprint, with no author give, from the Alabama Exchange. I have been unable to locate any information about that publication; perhaps it was a short-lived African-American paper in the state. 

Booker T. Washington expected Dillon to start work at Tuskegee on September 1, so this article notes she "applied" to the state medical board on August 17. She took the exam in the state health office in Montgomery, "in which she was required to write the answers, without referring to any book of reference". Her answers were scored on ten different topics by ten examiners, all white male physicians. The testing ended August 25. See my previous blog post for more details.

Dillon made a total of 78.81 and a 75 minimum was required, the article states. She will teach anatomy and hygiene at Tuskegee in addition to her clinical duties. "She had a good literary education, having spent six years in college, writes a masculine hand, and it is stated that her examination was very creditable." 

The second article by date [first one shown below], was published in the Capital City Courier in Lincoln, Nebraska. This piece has an attributed author, Lida Rose McCabe, a white journalist best known as the first female reporter to visit the gold fields in Alaska. Her article was filed from Philadelphia on November 5, and appeared in the Courier two days later.

"Alabama has now its first woman physician," McCabe wrote. Some of Dillon's background is included. Before her first marriage she worked as a bookkeeper for the Christian Recorder. Founded in 1852 by the African Episcopal Methodist Church, it is the oldest continuously published African-American newspaper in America. Her father was a minister in that church. "She spent her leisure hours reading medicine", McCabe wrote. She entered medical school after the death of her first husband. "Dr. Dillon was subjected to one of the severest ordeals" in state history--presumably state medical examination history, which had begun in 1877. McCabe notes the reluctance of the state's conservative medical professionals to admit black doctors unless "fully qualified". However, "Mrs. Dillon was courteously received."

McCabe states with no exceptions that Dillon was Alabama's first female physician. The earlier Bee article claims that Dillon was the first female certified by the state medical board, and that another female physician had been certified by the Jefferson County medical board at an earlier date. Under the 1877 law governing medical practice in Alabama, a candidate could take the exam either in Montgomery at the state board or before any county board. This arrangement allowed county medical societies to retain some power.

The white physician named as certified in Jefferson County was Anna M. Longshore [1829-1912]. Like Dillon, she came from a prominent family. Her father Joseph, a physician, helped establish the Woman's Medical College that Dillon would graduate from four decades later. Anna and her cousin Hannah were among the eight women in the first class of 1852. 

Longshore did indeed take the exam in Jefferson County, but the Transactions of the Medical Association for 1892 [p.142] list her as "certificate refused." Thus Longshore may have been the first woman to take a certification exam in Alabama, but she did not pass. See my earlier post on Dillon for more about Longshore's long career as a physician and lecturer on medical topics. Why she came to Alabama to take the exam remains a mystery.

Another question is why Dillon took the exam in Montgomery and not in Macon County where Tuskegee Institute is located. Perhaps Washington and Dorsette wanted her to attempt the test in the state capital, before prominent white physicians, where a successful effort would receive more attention. 

As I noted in my original blog post on Dr. Dillon, she "was not the first female physician in Alabama, but the first to be certified by the state examination process under the law passed in 1877. In the 1850s Louisa Shepard graduated from her father's medical school in Dadeville, the Graefenberg Medical Institute. The school closed in 1861 after graduating some 50 students, including two of Louisa's brothers. She never practiced medicine; she married William Presley and they moved to Texas. Louisa died in 1901."

Source: Capital City Courier [Lincoln, Nebraska] 7 November 1891
via Chronicling America

Source: Washington [D.C.] Bee 3  October 1891

via Chronicling America

Dillon's exam August 17-25, 1891, is available online via the Alabama Department of Archives and History. 

Zora Neale Hurston's Letter to William Stanley Hoole

As one does now and then, I was recently glancing through Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, collected and edited by Carla Kaplan and published in 2002. So what should I find but a letter with an interesting Alabama connection. Let's investigate. 

I'm not going to say much about Hurston, who's life and career are well known. Her entry in the Encyclopedia of Alabama will give you the basics. Although born January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, she and her family soon moved to Eatonville, an all-black town in Florida. During the course of her life, she worked at odd jobs, wrote stories and essays, and did folklore field research in New Orleans, Florida, and Alabama. In the 1950s, she had a connection with another Alabama author, William Bradford Huie. See the Encyclopedia article for more details.

Hurston's final decade were filled with financial and health worries, and after moving back to Florida she worked as a maid. After a stroke in 1959 she entered a nursing home and died there on January 28, 1960. She was practically forgotten despite her substantial research and publication records. Author Alice Walker located her unmarked grave and published an article in 1975 that revived interest in Hurston's work.

William Stanley Hoole [1903-1990] had a long career as librarian and historian. Born in South Carolina, he finished his doctorate in English at Duke University and then taught first at what is now Jacksonville State University and then Birmingham-Southern. He left there for Baylor University and then what is now the University of North Texas,. In 1944 he became director of libraries at the University of Alabama, a post he held for 27 years. During that time he led tremendous growth of the libraries and archives there; the special collections were named after him in 1977. 

Hoole wrote or edited 50 books, over 100 articles and numerous book reviews. His career encompassed significant achievements in the fields of both librarianship and history. He helped establish the Alabama Historical Association and edited its journal from 1948-1967. Subjects of his writing ranged from aspects of librarianship to Confederacy topics. 

He seems to have written Hurston and other authors inquiring about their current projects and asking for a paragraph describing them. I've yet to determine if these were collected in any of his publications. 

Hurston writes from New York City on March 7, 1936, to Hoole at Birmingham-Southern College.  Her first paragraph is an explanation and apology. "I think I must be God's left-hand mule, because I have to work hard. That's very funny too, because no lazier mortal ever cried for breath. But the press of new things, plus the press of old things yet unfinished keep me on the treadmill all the time."  Thus she hasn't answered his "kind and flattering letter before now."

The project Hurston describes is Their Eyes are Watching God which was published the following year. Then she tells Hoole, "I am glad in a way to see my beloved southland coming into so much prominence in literature. I wish some of it was more considered. I observe that some writers are playing to the gallery."

As she ends her letter Hurston describes some of the southern authors she admires, such as Erskine Caldwell, who wrote numerous novels including God's Little Acre, and Carl Carmer for his work Stars Fell on Alabama. She gives special praise to an Alabama writer. "T.S. Stribling is a monnyark, that's something like a king you know, only bigger and better. I love him." 

Stribling wrote 16 novels and numerous articles and short stories. A trilogy of novels was set around Florence from antebellum times into the twentieth century; one of those, The Store, won a Pulitzer Price for fiction in 1933. 

Her final words? "P.S. I come of an Alabama family. Macon County."

William Stanley Hoole 

Birmingham Photo (87): Rush Hotel in 1931

According to its entry at the great BhamWiki site, this hotel was developed by D.M. Rush around 1919 and operated until about 1949. The 1945 Birmingham Yellow pages gives its address as 316 1/2 North 18th Street and the phone number was 7-09411. The small hotel occupied just the second floor of the building seen in the photo below, and was one of the few such accommodations available to blacks in the city.

In the 1930's the facility was owned by Tom Hayes. The place apparently provided hotel arrangements for visiting teams in town to play the Birmingham Black Barons, which played professional baseball in the Negro leagues from 1919 until 1960. In his book Black Baseball's Last Team Standing: The Birmingham Black Barons, 1919-1962 [2019], Bill Plott has a couple of tidbits about the hotel. Manager of the Barons in 1938 was William "Dizzy" Dismukes, a Birmingham native who had also managed the team in 1924. Anyone who wanted to try out for the team that year could contact him at the Rush Hotel [p.117]. He also writes that in 1953 Dismukes had set up shop again at the hotel, this time to recruit for the New York Yankees [p.221]. Thus the hotel may have operated past 1949.

A man named Joe Rush was Black Barons owner in 1923 and 1924, and owner and president in 1925. The Birmingham Black History Project on Facebook has more information about the Rush family. 

Below I've also included a photo from Google Street View showing what the building looked like in 2019. 

Photo by W.B. Phillips in 1931 

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Here's the building via Google Street View February 2019. You can see the same arch over the doorway and the eight windows in the second story. 

Old Alabama Stuff : A Battle House Hotel Menu from 1857

The Battle House Hotel in Mobile has a long and storied history. The facility originally opened in 1852, but that structure burned in 1905. Three years later the current Battle House opened on the same spot, one of the first steel frame structures built in Alabama. The name today is the Battle House Renaissance Mobile Hotel and Spa. 

Thus the menu below, from the collection of the New York Public Library and dated March 4, 1857, was used almost five years after James Battle and two half-nephews opened the original hotel on November 13, 1852. The location already had a history as Andrew Jackson's military headquarters during the War of 1812. Two other hotels built on the site had burned.

So just what victuals were being offered that day on the "Bill of Fare" at the Battle House? Well, down the left side we see listings of wines, sherries and champagnes. Among the wines is "Commander Nicholson's Sercial, black seal, bottle racked 1842". Sercial is the driest of wines from the Madeira Islands. Along the right side are more wines, brandies, port, burgundy, claret, and porter and ale. Presumably whiskies were available for the gentlemen who adjourned to a smoking room after the meal. 

The menu lists a variety of meat dishes, including ham, tongue, and "Calf's head brain sauce". Yummy. Side dishes include baked oyster, boiled hominy, another calf's head, sirloin, beef currie [sic], turkey wings, breaded pork, and musette of mutton. Seafood included baked oysters and tripe al lyonnaise. There's several roasted meats, duck, puddings and pastries and barley soup. One important side dish was macaroni au gratin. And how about that baked sago pudding?

Room service was available at an extra charge. Lunch was served for just the ladies from 11 to 12 in the dining room. Children taking a seat at the table were charged full price. Dinner for children and nurses took place from 1 to 1:30.

F.H. Chamberlain and Company are listed as proprietors of the Battle House. Chamberlain, a Baldwin County landowner, had built the Grand Hotel in Point Clear in 1847. 

Below I've included a giant image of the menu to make it more readable and a photo of the hotel from the 1940s. 

Source:

Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. "DAILY MENU [held by] BATTLE HOUSE [at] "MOBILE,AL." (HOTEL)" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1857.

Part of the Buttolph Collection of Menus

Battle House in the 1940s

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History

Alabama Official Highway Maps 2023-2024

I've done a number of posts on this blog about various maps, usually related to Alabama, Shelby County or Pelham. One of these days I hope to do a piece linking all those items together. In the meantime, here's another one...

This post is the fourth featuring those "Official Highway Maps" of the state you can get for free from the state travel website or pick up at welcome centers or rest stops. I love these maps with their colorful covers; and when you open them up, you have a huge detailed map of the state. 

In the first entry in this series I covered maps from 1976 until 2009-10. Images included the Space and Rocket Center, Barber Motorsports Museum, a statue in Tuskegee, bike riders, the state coat of arms, a beach or two and much more. Images in the second post covered the Gorgas House in Tuscaloosa, Sturdivant Hall in Selma, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Birmingham Museum of Art, a different Space and Rocket Center photo, Birmingham Museum of Art, and others, including beaches. The dates in that post ranged from 2004 to 2021-22. Just for fun I also included a 1974 state map from Texaco and a railroad map issued by the state.

In the early days the back cover might include examples of road signs or in at least one case just "HELP" which could be put on your dashboard. However, most back covers feature the governor at the time and that practice continues today. The third post focused on a 1973 map I came across, with George Wallace on the back. I'm not sure when the state started creating these particular kinds of maps.

So now we come to the latest highway map covers, and here they are....

A Quick Visit to the Huntsville Courthouse Square

While I was in Huntsville back in October, I met Dr. Jack Ellis at The Poppy & Parliament pub on the courthouse square for lunch. Jack is a scholar and gentleman who taught at UAH for a number of years. We have a mutual interest--the history of black physicians in Alabama. That topic occupied much of our conversation over a great lunch.

As we finished, Jack suggested a walk around the square and down to Big Spring Park. So off we went...

I only discuss a few of the many sights and history below that you can see in downtown Huntsville. 

First, we walked down to Big Spring. Here are the "ugliest ducks in the park" as Jack put it, posing beside the Indian Creek Canal, the first in the state according to this marker. That canal was developed to move cotton all the way to the Tennessee River.

Actually, there is a canal in Gulf Shores that's a bit older.

Archaeologists Dig Up 1,400-Year-Old Native American Canal in Alabama

The nearly mile-long structure allowed inhabitants to paddle to rich fishing grounds and access trade routes http://tinyurl.com/23twwnhu

The We Are Huntsville web site has the story of the Little Lion:

"Sitting near the actual spring in Big Spring Park is an often over-looked Huntsville landmark. The Little Lion of Big Spring Park was gifted to the city by J.F. Hummel for the opening of Big Spring Park in 1900.

The marble lion was meant to stay in the park “as long as children play in the park”. Sadly, the statue was defaced and damaged in the 1960’s but the Historic Huntsville Foundation refurbished and restored the little lion to the park in 1995."

Holger Toftoy was instrumental in bringing German V-2 rockets and parts back to the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of World War II. He was also involved in  Operation Paperclip which brought scientists here as well. He directed the Ordnance Missile Laboratories at Redstone Arsenal from 1952 until 1958. 

Holger Toftoy [1902-1967]

Source: Wikipedia

The Alabama Territory was officially established on December 10, 1817, so this bank had been operating in the Mississippi Territory since chartered. As noted, the bank operated until February 1825, more than five years after Alabama became a state. 

This building opened in 1836 and served as a bank until 2010, when Regions moved its branch there to another location. The structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The architect was George Steele, who also designed the building for the Huntsville Female College. I've written about that institution here.

Harrison Brothers Hardware is always worth a visit. Lots of goodies inside!

A postcard view of Big Spring Park, ca. 1950

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History

Auburn Postcard: Ross Chemical Building

Here we are with another historical postcard to explore. I picked one from Auburn University, since my family has many ties to that institution. As noted below, my grandfather Amos J. Wright, Sr., did his military training on campus at the end of World War II. My parents Amos J. Wright, Jr., and Carolyn Shores Wright met and married while attending Auburn--or Alabama Polytechnic Institute, as it was formally known then--in the late 1940s. My wife Dianne and I met at Auburn--in the library! Daughter Becca graduated from Auburn as well. 

Note that "Samford" is misspelled as "Sanford" on the card. On the back of the card below we see the number "24052" which according to this history of Dexter Press postcards after 1950 makes it part of the 1950-51 batch of cards. That history includes some information about the press from the 1930s until it went out of business in the 1980. 

If this postcard indeed dates to ca. 1950, it was printed just before U.S. postage on postcards increased. From 1872 until 1951, postage was just one cent. The only exception was the two cent rate imposed in 1917-1918 during World War I. 

The post office approved this kind of "divided back" card on March 1, 1907. 

The building's namesake, Bennett Battle Ross [1864-1930] was a Tuskegee native who studied at Auburn, the University of Chicago, and universities in Germany. Ross then taught for six years each at Auburn and LSU before returning to Auburn as professor of general and agricultural chemistry and state chemist. He served as dean of agricultural sciences from 1911 until 1922 and dean of chemistry and pharmacy from 1922 until his death in 1930. In 1926 he published Chemistry in Agriculture. 

Ross Hall has 43,478 square feet of space and was built in 1930. In 1963, the School of Chemistry moved to Saunders Hall. In 1977 Ross was renovated for the use of mechanical, chemical and aerospace engineering. 

In all of the family photographs we have are some Dad took while at Auburn in 1945 and 1946. You can read my blog post about them here. This photo of the Ross Chemical Building was among them. 

Oh, and that building in the background of the postcard? Samford Hall? Here's my grandfather in 1918 standing near the spot where Ross Hall would later be built. Having been drafted into the army, he was in Auburn doing basic training. Luckily for him World War I ended before his unit was deployed, and he returned home to Gadsden. My blog post about all that is here.

Ross Chemical Building [now Ross Hall] in a 1948 postcard

Source: Alabama Postcards Collection via Auburn University Digital Library 

Bennett Battle Ross [25 Dec 1864-4 April 1930]

He is buried in Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

Source: FindAGrave