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. 

Helen Oliver, "Suspicious Person" in 1915

Well, in New Orleans, anyway. 

My son Amos alerted me to this item, which he found on Reddit, whatever that is.

Of course, I immediately began searching for more information. This item does appear in the New Orleans City Archives Police Department Mugshots Collection. 

We learn several things about Helen from this arrest card. She had a known alias, Eveline Smith. She was "taken", presumably arrested, on New Year's Eve, 1915. She claimed to be a manicurist. Her "criminal occupation" was "suspicious person", which may have meant she was a young woman alone on the streets at night--a possible prostitute.

She apparently gave her birthplace as Illinois and age as 21, so she was born in 1894. Her residence was in Birmingham, Alabama. She was a bit over 5 feet tall, weighed 117 and slim of build. Her complexion was fair, eyes brown, hair black and had freckles on her arms and a few on her face. The last names of the arresting detectives are also given on the card. 

On Ancestry.com I found the New Orleans Police Department Arrest Books 1881-1931. And there was Helen Oliver, in the First Precinct record for December 30-31, 1915. This resource gives us more information. Oliver's alias is spelled "Evelyn" Smith. She lived at 135 South Rampart and occupation is listed here as "none". Oliver was single and could read and write. She was arrested at her residence and charged with 1436 D & S [whatever those were], "pending investigation".

But wait, there's more. Also listed in that same page is George Smith, age 19, a single white male working as a clerk. He could also read and write. And guess what? His residence is also given as 135 South Rampart.

Smith was arrested at the St. Charles Hotel and given the same charges, pending investigation. The arresting officers for Helen Oliver and George Smith were the same--Det. Gregson and Ford Bitz [as best I can read the record]. A third officer was involved in the Smith arrest.

So far, the trail of Helen Oliver, "suspicious person" ends here. Was her residence really in Birmingham, and she was only in New Orleans temporarily? Were she and Smith some sort of couple in crime or romance or both? We may never know, but I'm sure there's more to the story.

I located a Helen B. Oliver in Birmingham city directories [via Ancestry] for 1914 and 1915, but she's probably not the same person. Helen B. was married to Robert E. Oliver and in 1914 they lived at 1227 Iroquois and 126 North 60th Street in 1915. I found nothing else about them. 

A portion of Oliver's entry in the New Orleans Police arrest book

A portion of Smith's entry in the New Orleans Police arrest book

Who Was Don Downs?

Recently Dianne and I had an enjoyable meal at Ragtime Cafe on Valleydale Road. The restaurant has been operating in Hoover for over three decades. The inside walls are decorated with lots of sports images, much of it related to the University of Alabama, sad to say. Yet I did notice the painting below of an Auburn football player. So who was Don Downs??

As it turns out, Don Downs played wide receiver during the 1960, 1961, and 1962 seasons under Auburn coach Shug Jordan. The Sports Reference site lists him with 21 receptions as a senior, ranked 9th in the SEC. His 13.4 years per catch ranked 7th. Football rosters at Auburn University note that in 1962 he wore number 88, weighed 205 lbs. and was 6-1. His hometown was Birmingham, and he graduated from Ensley High School.

Downs' obituary at al.com has a death date of December 3, 2019. That piece also tells us that he was the first Auburn football player to earn a degree in Forest Management. After graduation Downs worked as a distribution consultant, which allowed him to travel. 

The artist for this painting, which is dated 1959, is Warren Pratt. I have been unable to find anything about him except for a few more paintings similar to this one. One ink and watercolor from 1955 depicts Sonny Humphreys in his University of Tennessee playing days. I also found a pastel Pratt painted of Oakland Athletics pitcher Rollie Fingers and one of Baltimore Orioles player Andy Atchebarren from 1971.  

If you know any more about Don Downs or Warren Pratt, let us know in the comments!

Oh, and if Downs played at Auburn 1960-62, why are the dates on the painting 1958 and 1959??

 

Anne Royall Describes Alabama Doctors in 1821

Anne Royall

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama

Anne Royall took on many roles during her lifetime: wife, widow, traveler, author, newspaper editor, and prolific letter writer. She was also convicted in 1829 of being a "common scold", a sort of public nuisance, after her encounters with some evangelical Presbyterians in Washington, D.C. Royall was fined $10, which was paid by two local newspaper editors. Details can be found in her Encyclopedia of Alabama and Wikipedia entries. 

Between 1826 and 1831 Royall published several volumes about her travels, primarily in the South. Her most famous is probably her second, Letters from Alabama on Various Subjects that appeared in 1830. The first 14 letters actually describe her journey from Virginia through Lexington and Bowling Green in Kentucky and Nashville and Fayetteville in Tennessee. Once she arrived in Alabama, she visited Huntsville, Melton's Bluff, Courtland, Moulton and Florence. The first letter was dated November 8, 1817; the last, from Huntsville on June 8, 1822. The letters were addressed to "Matt" Dunbar, a young lawyer friend in Virginia.

Thus Royall visited Alabama during its territorial and early statehood periods. In all of her travel books she wrote in a lively style and with a sharp wit. She details the landscapes she saw, the people famous and common she met and how they lived. In one of the Alabama letters she describes a meeting at Melton's Bluff in January 1818 with General Andrew Jackson, whom she greatly admired. She noted that he was nursing members of the Mitchell family, white and black, who were suffering from fever.

Royall was born on June 11, 1769, near Baltimore. In 1797 she married Major William Royall, a wealthy Revolutionary War veteran. He died in 1812 and since they had no children, Anne inherited his 7000 acres and seven slaves. She sold the land and four of the slaves and began her travels in the South. The will was overturned in 1819, and she was left without income. By 1826 she had become one of the many authors of popular travel books in the United States. 

In 1831 she settled permanently in Washington, D.C., and published two newspapers that focused her caustic wit on politicians and fraud and waste in government. Royal died October 1, 1854, and is buried in Congressional Cemetery. 

Anne Newport Royall's travel books have left us an important record of the areas through which she traveled, including Alabama. In those early years people were pouring into the new territory and then state seeking opportunities in a frontier with vast available lands and few restrictions from weak local and state governments. The letter excerpted below was written from Florence on July 15, 1821, and displays her wit about the "unaccountable" number of physicians that "flock to this country."

Of course, these doctors were coming to seek new opportunities just like everyone else. Many had probably left towns or communities with too many doctors; after all, regulation of medical practice at this time was almost non-existent. Toward the end of this part, she notes, "Many of these physicians, however, are becoming planters, by which they will doubtless make their bread."

And indeed some doctors did. Dr. Joshua Sanford Wilson--also a politician-- developed a plantation in Clarke County and built its mansion between 1846 and 1851. The structure is known today as the Wilson-Finlay House. Another physician-planter-politician in Alabama was Alexander Williams Mitchell who began construction of Belle Mont in the 1820s. His plantation of more than 1700 acres was located in what is now Colbert County. 

Written from Florence on July 15, 1821 [p. 148 of the Letters]

Auburn Postcard: Serum Plant 1918

My brother Richard and I were at mom's house in Huntsville recently and found this postcard in some  family memorabilia. The card, dated by postmark October 26, 1918, was sent by our paternal grandfather, Amos Jasper Wright, Sr., to our grandmother Rosa Mae. He wrote from Auburn, where he had arrived from their home in Gadsden ten days earlier to begin U.S. Army training. He tells her he's alright, that he got the package she sent but there was no mentholated salve. Perhaps he can find some locally, he says. The "Julia" mentioned is his older sister. Amos closes by telling Rosa Mae to write often. Their wedding anniversary is coming up; they married on October 31, 1915. 

My grandmother Rosa Mae, according to one of her journals, "rode the train and visited him a few weeks. Roomed at a Mrs. Whatley's and ate at a Mrs. O'Neal's across the street." The Whatley may have been Mrs. Alma Whatley, one of many Whatleys in Auburn and one who became a prominent businesswoman before her retirement in 1971. Amos was in service 54 days before hurting his back and being discharged on December 9, 1918. Of course, the war had ended by that time. I've written a blog post about his time in Auburn. 

Now, what about the actual card? And that serum plant? 

That facility opened on the campus of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute in 1915. At the time hog cholera was devastating the livestock of farmers, causing millions of dollars worth of losses and interrupting supplies of the important food animal. For several years Charles Allen Cary, who became the first professor of veterinary medicine at Auburn in 1892, had lobbied the state legislature for funds to build a plant to make serum to fight the hog cholera at a price farmers could afford. Finally, $25,000 was appropriated. 

The serum plant building stood on campus into the 1960s. The Harrison School of Pharmacy building is now on the site.

I found the information on Alma Whatley in the "Whatley Road" entry of Sam Hendrix's 2021 book, Auburn: A History in Street Names, pp. 662-664. For more information about Cary, see Hendrix's 2018 book The Cary Legacy: Dr. Charles Allen Cary, Father of Veterinary Medicine at Auburn and in the South. 

My grandfather on the Auburn campus in 1918 with that iconic tower in the background. We still have that jacket he's wearing. He also brought back the pennant below. The note was written by my dad, Amos J. Wright, Jr. 

 

Dr. Cary, center with sleeve rolled up, conducts a hog cholera inoculation demonstration for a group of county agents, probably about the time he succeeded in getting a hog cholera serum plant built at Auburn in 1915.

Source: The Cary Legacy

Pelham Doctors in 1900

I've written a number of posts on this blog related to medical history in Alabama, especially Birmingham; and also many on the history of Pelham, where we live. You can find a list of some of the Magic City medical history items here. A list of Pelham postings is here. Both lists were completed in 2017, so both need updating--maybe someday. This piece examines a bit of Pelham's medical history. 

As I sometimes do on a cold winter evening, I recently dipped into the 1900 volume of the Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama. In addition to administrative materials and papers presented at the annual meeting, this publication included each year a county-by-county listing of the doctors in Alabama. Each listing was divided into those who were members of the medical society and those who were not. Thus the Transactions, which were published from the 1850s into the 1920s are something of a snapshot each year of the state's medical profession. 

Below you can see a page from the 1900 volume that gives doctors for Shelby County. Listed first are the officers of the county society, then the members and finally doctors who had not joined. Each entry often includes medical college and year of graduation as well as the year of certification to practice in Alabama. 

In that listing are three doctors in Pelham in 1900. Here I've included what I found about these men. 

Garland Henry Smith

Smith was born on July 10, 1860, and graduated from the Medical College of Alabama in 1889. Wayne Flynt's University of Alabama Medical Alumni Association 1859-2003 lists him in class of 1890 & being from the community of Kennedy in Lamar County. At the time the medical school was in Mobile, and operated there from 1859 until 1920 when it was moved to Tuscaloosa and then Birmingham in 1945. According to the Transactions he was certified by the Shelby County medical board in 1890. 

He apparently moved around the county. The 1890 and 1896 Transactions put him in Siluria. The 1900 volume puts him in Pelham. The 1902 publication has him living in Ganadarque, which had a post office from 1895 until 1903, the name having been changed from Newala in 1895. Finally, the  American Medical Association's Directory of Deceased Physicians 1804-1929 lists him in Saginaw at the time of his death on September 2, 1905. He seems to have been a member of the medical society during his career in Shelby County. 

In 2015 I did a blog post on the Pelham Cemetery; several physicians who practiced in the town are buried there. That includes Smith; you can see his marker via Find-A-Grave below. The photo there was better than mine! Pearl Denson wife of of Dr. G.H. Smith is also buried in the Pelham Cemetery; a photo of her grave is also in the blog post. She died in 1935. Since her maiden name was Denson, is she related to the next Pelham physician on our 1900 list? 

Dr. Smith is buried in the Pelham Cemetery. 

Source: Find-A-Grave

Eli Forest Denson

Denson was born on February 15, 1853, and graduated from Vanderbilt medical school in 1879. He was certified by the Shelby County board in that same year. He appears in various volumes of the Transactions through 1902, never as a member of the society. Denson does not appear in Shelby County in the 1907 volume, so he may have moved out of Pelham at some point. He died on July 14, 1910, age 57 and is buried in the Pelham Cemetery.  His wife Emma lived until 1937 and is also buried there. 

Dr. Denson is buried in the Pelham Cemetery. 

Source: Find-A-Grave 

Joseph Madison Johnson

Johnson was also a Vanderbilt graduate, finishing in 1883. He was certified by the Shelby County board in that same years. In addition to 1900, I found him in the 1896 Transactions but not in 1902 in Pelham. I did not find him via U.S. Census records, Find-A-Grave or the AMA directory of deceased physicians. He was not a society member in those years. Otherwise, Johnson is a mystery.

A William Rufus King Johnson, 1880 graduate of Atlanta Medical College, and certified by the county board in that year, shows up in Pelham in the 1889 and 1890 Transactions  and is not a society member. He does not appear in the city in the 1896 or 1898 Transactions.

The American Medical Association's Directory of Deceased Physicians 1804-1929 has a listing for him. with some additional and different information. He was born May 12, 1854, in Highland, Alabama. Johnson graduated from the Atlanta Medical College in 1878 and certified in Alabama that same year. He was certified to practice in Texas in 1907, and lived in several places in that state until his death in Mt. Pleasant of a cerebral hemorrhage on October 30, 1928. Was he related to Joseph Madison Johnson? 

Several other doctors are known to have practiced in Pelham in the early 20th century. Pelham was not incorporated at the time, but population figures for the Pelham "precinct" can be found in the Alabama Official and Statistical Register 1919. In 1900 602 people lived there and 1100 in 1910.

I've written a blog post about John Payne, who is also buried in the Pelham Cemetery. Although a physician who grew up in Shelby County, and was certified by that county's board, his practice before his untimely death seems to have been in Birmingham. 

Young & Company's Business and Professional Directory of Alabama 1910-1911 lists an A.W. Horton as a physician in Pelham. Dr Andrew W. Horton died in 1910 at the age of 37 and is buried in the Pelham Cemetery.

The American Medical Directory for 1916 has a doctor listed in Pelham, Braxton Bragg Pugh. He died in Uniontown in Perry County in 1938, so he may not have been in Pelham long. 

The American Medical Directory for the years 1912, 1914, 1918 have no doctors in Pelham. 

Source:

Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, 1900 via the Internet Archive 

Alabama's Poet Laureates

April is National Poetry Month in the U.S., and each year I've tried to post a new item on this blog related to Alabama poets and poetry. I also post a number of such items on my Twitter account @ajwright31. I've written about Sara Henderson Hay, who grew up in Anniston. I've done posts on the Anthology of Alabama Poetry published in 1928 and Alabama Horizons, a collection that appeared in 1999. Well-known author Langston Hughes wrote four poems related to Alabama, and I've written about those. I've also posted about Alabama poetry at other times of the year.

This year I thought I'd write something about the state's poet laureate program. In 1930 the Alabama Writers Conclave [now Cooperative] established the post and named Samuel Mintern Peck to it. The following year the legislature formally recognized the poet laureate position by law. Today the AWC nominates and the governor formally makes the appointment. Since 1983 terms have been limited to four years. This person is the official public face of poetry in Alabama. 

Below are the state's poet laureates with term dates, life dates, and links for more information. The black and white photos were taken from the 2000 anthology of laureate poems noted at the end of the post. I originally wanted to include an image of a book by each person, but decided against that to keep the length reasonable. 

Oh, and two Alabama cities have recently named poet laureates. Birmingham's is Salaam Green and Mobile's is Charlotte Pence. These positions are funded by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. 

1930-1938

Samuel Mintern Peck [1854-1938]

1954-1958

Mary B. Ward [1890-1985]

1959-1974

Bert Henderson [1903-1976]

1975-1982

William Young Elliott [1902-1976]

1983-1987

Carl P. Morton [1920-1994]

1988-1991

Morton D. Prouty, Jr. [1918-1998]

1992-1995

Ralph Hammond [1916-2010]

1995-1999

Helen Blackshear [1911-2003]

1999-2003

Helen Norris [1916-2013]

2004-2012

Sue Brannon Walker [ca. 1940-]

2013-2016

Andrew Glaze [1920-2016]

2018-2022

Jennifer Horne

2022-2026

Ashely M. Jones