Alabama Yesterdays: Random wanderings through Alabama history
General anesthesia using gases for surgery is one of America's great nineteenth century medical achievements. In early 1845 dentist Horace Wells used nitrous oxide to painlessly extract a tooth. In October 1846 dentist William T.G. Morton successfully demonstrated ether anesthesia in Boston during an operation by John Collins Warren. The Morton/Warren event soon made it's way around the world. The…
"A Torrid Extravaganza" the ad declares. "Daring Glamorous Beauties in Risque Dances." In Gadsden, Alabama, in 1941? Well! Let's investigate. In my wanderings through old issues of the Gadsden Times I've encountered many such advertisements for revue-type variety shows in Gadsden in the 1940s. I'll be doing future blog posts on some others. Let's take a look at the performers and other elements of…
In 2023 I posted an item related to my visit to Huntsville Hospital in 1958. That admission for a tonsillectomy was documented in a Huntsville Times newspaper article published on June 10, 1958. I was listed along with numerous other individuals who were admitted, born or discharged at Huntsville Hospital and Fifth Avenue General Hospital. These listings may have been common at one time and here's…
As I often do, I was perusing some old issues of the Gadsden Times recently and in July and August 1941 issues I found several articles about polio cases in the state. Effective polio vaccines did not appear in the United States until Jonas Salk's in 1955 and Albert Sabin's in 1961, so what was the state and nation's status on the eve of America's entry into World War II? Polio [poliomyelitis] is…
Well, here we are at my 1000th posting on this blog since March 2014. Scary. I thought I would devote this one to a bit of family history. In July 2016 I wrote a series of five blog posts about a cedar chest full of personal items belonging to my Dad's older sister Beulah Vee Wright. Part One gives a lengthy introduction. She died in December 1939 at the age of eighteen, so the items date from the…
I've written several pieces on this blog about football star, actor and Dothan native Johnny Mack Brown . Two of them discussed his 1928 silent films Our Dancing Daughters and A Lady of Chance . T he first paired him with Joan Crawford [one of two he made with her] and another Alabama native, Dorothy Sebastian . He starred with Norma Shearer in the second film, much of which is set in Alabama.…
I have a sizeable and growing Alabama postcard collection, and this post highlights six that feature motels. I have many others on that topic, as well as hospitals, libraries, etc, to use for future postings. Postcards can be fascinating links to specific times, places and the minutia of life, even more so when they were actually mailed and include a message. I've already written a number of…
Here we have another item from the old Gadsden Times issues I've been paging through in recent months. This brief article relates to one of the most important topics in the state's history--Alabama and Auburn football. The two schools first played each other in that sport on February 22, 1893. The game took place at Lakeview Park in Birmingham. Auburn--formally known at the time as Alabama…
Walker Evans is one of the most famous American documentary photographers of the 20th century. He made at least two trips to Alabama during the Great Depression as he traveled through America taking photographs. This barn photo was taken in December 1935. His best known visit to the state came in the summer of 1936 when he and writer James Agee travelled from New York to Hale County to document…
My brother Richard recently alerted me to this actress from Alabama; I was not familiar with her. Let's investigate. I've done a number of pieces on the blog about actresses whose careers began before 1960; some are linked from this post . Joyzelle Joyner is certainly one of those women from the state who found some success in Hollywood, although her career film career did not last very long.…
Last year I wrote about two bank robberies in Shelby County in 1931 and 1932. I've also written about the infamous 1926 bank robbery in Hartselle, which has never been solved. Now it's time to take a look at another 1932 bank robbery in Shelby County. All of these posts align with a longtime interest of mine in the history of crime in Alabama and the Deep South. I've even published a book about…
Over the years members of our family have published several books. Those items include two books related to Native American history in Alabama by my father, Amos J. Wright, Jr., a book by yours truly on crime in the Deep South and several books that featured mom's art. Since 2018 my son Amos Jasper Wright IV has published three books. His first, the short story collection Nobody Knows How It Got…
I've done a lot of postings about bookstores on this blog, including a few I've never visited since they are no longer around. Many of the earlier ones are listed in this post from April 2022. In 2024 I wrote pieces about Branch Books in Hartselle and Branch Books 2 in Cullman. In March 2025 I posted an item about a "bookstore tour" of Huntsville my brother Richard and I undertook one weekend.…
I've mentioned in several recent posts that I've been perusing numerous issues of the Gadsden Times newspaper from the 1930s and 1940s saved by my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright. She also had some old issues of the Birmingham News mixed in the batch. I'm finding lots of fascinating articles and advertisements. The two items here are ads that focus on two people with strong Alabama…
Yes, here we are with another advertisement from the old issues of the Gadsden Times I've been going through in recent months. Saved by my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright , most were from the 1930s and 1940s. She also saved a massive Etowah County centennial edition of the paper dated June 23, 1968, where I found this ad. I wasn't familiar with the McClendon Memorial Museum in Duck Springs ,…
In recent months I've gone through numerous 1930s and 1940s issues of the Gadsden Times. My grandmother Rosa Mae Wright saved these publications, especially during World War II. I found a lot of fascinating articles [and advertisements!], and this blog post features one of them. I've also recently enjoyed Lars Anderson's 2007 book, Carlisle Vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner and…
In July 2024 our daughter Becca, her husband Josh, son Ezra and stepson Zach came to Pelham for a visit. One thing she wanted to do was take her kids to some places she remembered fondly from growing up in the area. So off we went! For more nostalgia about Pelham, see my post "Pelham As We Knew It in 1985". More comments below. When Becca and son Amos were kids, we spent some time in the…
Last year I posted the first two pieces in this series intended to focus on random photos or ephemera that I have laying around. The first one featured a strange Auburn University figure and the second one the business card for a state senator candidate in a 1922 election. Now we come to this blank stock certificate, found for me on eBay by my son Amos. At first I thought the business operated in…
Film poster Source: Wikipedia I've written several posts on this blog about actress Tallulah Bankhead [1902-1968], a Huntsville native. These pieces include her films Lifeboat and Faithless , her visits to Birmingham and then around Alabama , her appearances on Lucille Ball's TV shows and her final acting role in a two-part episode of the 1960s Batman TV show as the villain, Black Widow . Now it's…
I've done a lot of postings about bookstores on this blog, including a few I've never visited since they are no longer around. Many of the earlier ones are listed in this post . In 2024 I wrote pieces about Branch Books in Hartselle and Branch Books 2 in Cullman. I posted an item about a "bookstore tour" of Huntsville my brother Richard and I undertook one weekend in 2025. Just recently in…
Since 2015 I have started each year with a post outlining some of the pieces I'd like to write in the coming months. These posts have become a history of futility on this blog. I list some topics I'd like to cover, and over the year I might get one or two of them done. So many topics, so little time, so many new topics popping up all the time. If you have the inclination, you can read all about…
Well, not in the same year, of course. Once upon an Internet time there was a marvelous genealogical complex known as RootsWeb that offered vast resources free of charge. I know, the stuff of fairy tales. The early Internet/WWW was like that. Then Ancestry.com bought it in 2000 and has since pretty much destroyed it. But I digress... I once found on RootsWeb excerpts from the Shelby County…
The historic Five Points South area of Birmingham's Southside has been in the news over the last year or so and not in positive ways, unfortunately. In September 2024 four people were killed and 17 injured in a shooting outside the Hush Lounge. This past Halloween a fire did extensive damage to the Cobb Lane block of structures including an historic home and buildings housing many cultural and…
Since the United States Post Office Department was established in 1792, numerous post offices have opened and closed around the country. The current Postal Service maintains a state-by-state listing of open and closed facilities, but even there many discontinued offices are not listed. One post office that has come and gone in Alabama was in Stewart in Hale County. Below you can see the sign from…
I've done a lot of postings about bookstores on this blog, including a few I've never visited because they are no longer open. Many of the earlier ones are listed in this post . In 2024 I wrote pieces about Branch Books in Hartselle and Branch Books 2 in Cullman. Earlier this year I posted an item about a "bookstore tour" of Huntsville my brother Richard and I undertook one weekend. This post…