The Story of a Wayward Printing Press
In March, the History Center will open its new exhibit honoring 75 year old businesses in Jefferson County. One of these companies is the A. H. Cather Publishing Company. The following fascinating story was written by Patrick Cather, a descendant of the company’s founder.
Union General Lovell Rousseau led a raid into Alabama in July of 1864. While in Ashville, Alabama he captured a printing press belonging to George Cather.
Meanwhile, General Rousseau - during his raid on North Central Alabama – had confiscated George Cather’s biggest investment: the printing press. Further, the south’s economy was devastated and, after the war, there was little left in Ashville for Cather to return to. He remained with his family in Maryland until 1872 when he had saved just enough money to travel back to Alabama and reopen his newspaper office. But with his press, type and other equipment gone missing for 8 years, he went to Centre, Alabama instead of Ashville. While there, he became temporary principal of the Centre Academy and also took a salaried job as editor of the Cherokee County newspaper.
Alonzo H. Cather making an impression using the old Smith Acorn Printing Press (c 1956)
And, to conclude the Peter Smith Acorn Press saga, after Heath Cather found out that his brother Belton had junked the press that their father had gone to so much trouble to find again after the Civil War, Heath began his own “quest” to again relocate the original press.
Looking for the Union Label
Women at Atlanta's Merchandise Mart, urging a boycott of Judy Bond Blouses, March 1, 1962. Licensed photo made publicly available by Cornell University's Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives
Back when the American garment industry was anchored in the United States, and after the big companies began retreating from the New York City fashion capital and union strongholds, apparel manufacturers hunting for cheap labor drifted South — to states like Georgia and South Carolina and Alabama.
A colorful chapter in that flight occurred in the 1960s in an Alabama factory, Brewton Fashions, Inc., purchased in 1961 by a subsidiary of New York City-based Judy Bond Blouses.
Judy Bond’s exodus wasn’t the first or final one for such highly mobile, labor-intensive companies. When wages rose, clothing factories could quickly pack up shop and move, assembling new work forces from pools of unskilled labor and staying a step ahead of union activity.
When Judy Bond purchased the men’s shirt factory in south Alabama, it had just slipped from a New York contract by the powerful International Ladies Garment Workers Union of America, which called the Brewton plant a “runaway” shop that put union employees back east out of work.
Immediately the ILGW leadership fought back, moving full-time organizers to Brewton and reaching out to a dozen unaffiliated workers at a Birmingham warehouse Judy Bond had leased.
The company meanwhile ratified a new contract with the United Garment Workers of America, the Brewton plant’s union under former owners, and one ILG officials regarded as a company-leaning organization.
Throughout the early 1960s, ILG hammered away at Judy Bond, organizing a nationwide boycott and placing picketers at department stores wherever the blouses were sold. But Alabama workers were divided about the union’s cause: In this otherwise unidentified picture in the BHC collection, a picketer on Birmingham’s 19th Street North retail district protests the boycott by the “BIG NEW YORK UNION TRYING TO DESTROY ALABAMA INDUSTRIES.”
A woman in Birmingham pickets against the boycott of Alabama-made Judy Bond blouses. The nationwide boycott was organized by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union after the company moved production from New York to a Brewton, Alabama, plant in 1961.
Confrontations between the company and workers sympathetic with ILG, and among workers on both sides, continued. In several instances at Brewton, women who signed ILG cards or wearing ILG pins were driven physically and sometimes violently from the plant by fellow workers, skirmishes that went unpunished by company supervisors. Employees were fired or threatened with firing; company supervisors made it known they kept tabs on after-hours meetings with ILG organizers.
Judy Bond closed the Birmingham warehouse. The company itself was ultimately called on the carpet by the National Labor Relations Board for committing a laundry list of violations of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, findings upheld by a U.S. Court of Appeals in 1966. Brewton objected strenuously that NLRB agents were biased. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a further appeal.
Retired ILG official Martin Morand recalls the episode as a failure of U.S. labor law. A handful of women who were unfairly fired during the period rejected reinstatement when it was finally offered, said Martin Morand, Director of ILG’s Southeast Region, 1964-1970.
Morand, a Cornell graduate and career labor leader now living in New York, called the case a “hollow victory.” “It served, from my point of view, to point out the meaninglessness of the labor law in that situation,” he said. “By 1968, I took the position that we should eliminate the NLRB.”
By the 1960s, the ILG’s 1930s heyday–when northeastern garment workers earned the highest wages and enjoyed a 7-hour workday, retirement fund, and health center–were long gone. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act had modified many pro-labor provisions of the earlier legislation, and anyway, the American south was just the latest stop on the industry’s way out of the country for cheaper labor south of the border, and in Southeast Asia.
In 1975, the shrinking ILG made a poignant mass appeal for consumer support of union work by producing the catchy, “Look for the Union Label” spot on national TV.
The union label referred back to a time when a businesses displayed union emblems in their storefronts, Morand said.
But no labor ballad could save the domestic clothing industry. ILG disappeared in 1995, absorbed into a merger of needle trades and hotel workers unions called UNITE HERE, and the much smaller Workers United union.
And Judy Bond? “The boycott never officially ended,” Morand said. “It was always my impression that no one had ever heard of them, and we made them famous.”
Record-breaker Gene Walker: Birmingham’s lost racing champion [updated, with vintage footage, 01/28/12]
[Note: The following was written by David Morrill of Sylacauga. David is a retired career Orlando Police Department officer with five years as a motorcycle cop. A motorcycling and race enthusiast, writer, and past competitor, he is also a survivor of a high-speed racing accident, which made the Gene Walker history an especially poignant one to write. After reading, click here to see the YouTube video of Gene Walker at Daytona. - L.E.]
Birmingham’s historic Elmwood Cemetery is the final resting place of several Alabama sports legends, from Paul “Bear” Bryant to Dixie Walker. There is another legend buried there who is all but unknown in his own home town. During his career, his exploits made the sports pages of the major newspapers, and his untimely death was mourned by fans nationwide. In the northeast corner of the cemetery is a simple marble headstone that reads: Gene Walker 1893-1924.
John Eugene “Gene” Walker got his first motorcycle in 1910 and rode it to deliver mail for the local post office. But in 1912, the Alabama State Fair sponsored a motorcycle race at the Birmingham Fairgrounds Raceway, and it was Walker who won the final race of the day. Bob Stuibbs, a local Indian Motorcycles dealer, took note, soon putting Walker on a new Indian eight-valve racer and racing him out of his downtown Birmingham dealership.
Birmingham Fairgrounds Raceway 1913/14, O.H. Hunt photograph, Johnny Whitsett Collection
Big bikes with no brakes
Early racing motorcycles were little more than large bicycles with large powerful engines–and no brakes. They could reach speeds of 90 m.p.h. on the tracks of the day, and racing them was a deadly serious business.
The races at Birmingham Fairgrounds’ track drew large crowds who came to see top amateur and professional riders lap the dirt track at a blistering pace. By the fall race of 1913, Walker had established a reputation as the man to beat, winning every race he entered during the week long fall program and setting a new lap record for the track.
The following October, Walker entered his first professional race, the F.A.M. (Federation of American Motorcyclists) one-hour race at Birmingham. While he didn’t win, he was able to set a new lap record and ran with the lead pack throughout the race.
Walker’s ride with Indian
Indian Motorcycle Memorial Ad 1924, Don Emde Collection
By 1915, Walker was hired as a factory rider for Indian Motorcycle Company and moved to Springfield, Mass., the company headquarters. Walker’s first national win came that same year at the F.A.M. National race in Saratoga, N.Y.
The next few years were quiet ones for Walker, as professional racing was virtually curtailed for the duration of World War I. As his mother’s sole source of support, Walker wasn’t subject to the draft. He continued to race in local Birmingham events and worked as a machinist for William Specht Jr., at his Harley Davidson dealership on Third Avenue North. According to one newspaper account, he even performed duties of a motorcycle cop during the winter.
Walker returned to professional racing in 1919, winning six National Races.
In April 1920, Walker, riding his Indian Power Plus race, set the first official motorcycle land speed world record of 115 m.p.h. on the sands of Daytona Beach, Fla. That record became the centerpiece of Indian Motorcycle’s advertising that year and a 1920, Motorcycle and Bicycle Illustrated magazine declared Walker a “Champion of Champions.”
GeneWalker Cycle Photo, Daytona Beach, Fla., 1920, Don Emde Collection
Despite that success, Indian released Walker in 1922 for his refusal to ride in dusty track conditions at the sport’s biggest race of 1921 in Dodge City, Kansas. The company reconsidered that decision when he continued to win races on privately owned Harley-Davidsons, and Walker rejoined Indian for the 1924 season, winning the Championship race on the board track at Los Angeles.
On June 7, 1924, Walker was practicing for a race on the half mile dirt track at Stroudsburg, Penn. While taking practice laps he swerved to avoid a woman crossing the track and crashed. The severely injured Walker was transported to Rosenkrans Hospital, where his condition seemed to improve, but on June 21, 1924, Walker died of his injuries. He was 31-years-old and left behind a widow and two children.
A few days later, Birmingham News sports writer Zipp Newman eulogized the hometown motorcycle celebrity under the headline:
MOTORCYCLE RIDING HAS LOST ITS GREATEST STAR IN DEATH OF WALKER
Bob Horton was also quoted in the Newman’s article: “Walker was always a gentleman. His death marks the passing of the greatest motorcycle rider that ever lived.”
Walker's marker at Elmwood Cemetery
During his 10-year professional career, Walker won 19 championship races and numerous non-championship races on both board and dirt tracks. He set lap records on many of the tracks as well as several motorcycle land speed records. His lap record at the Birmingham Fairgrounds Raceway had not been broken when the track stopped racing in World War I. In 1998, Gene Walker was inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association’s Hall of Fame.
Looking for a Sugar Daddy (or Momma)
The Historical Museum Guide for Alabama lists fifty-seven different historical museums and sites in the state on its website. Fifty-six of them operate out of their own property. Only one of them leases space in an office building – can you guess which one? That’s right; it’s the Birmingham History Center. For the past three years, we have been renting @ 5,000 square feet at the back of the Young and Vann Building. These years have been good ones. We built a museum that gets outstanding reviews. We’ve added to an impressive collection of local artifacts. This space has been a good first step. But now, like a recent graduate, we are ready to move on. We need a building we can call our own. We are busting at the seams and we need to expand. But times are tough for non-profits. Capital campaigns do not do well in recessions. In the tradition of the great philanthropists in American History, we need someone to give us a building.
What could we do with our own building you ask? Here are our three basic needs:
1. Artifact Storage – we currently only have about 800 square feet for storage. As we are collecting three additional artifacts each week, by this time next year we will have 150 more artifacts (many larger than a bread box) than we have now. We do not know where we are going to put them.
2. Programming – we currently only have room to put about 15 chairs together. We cannot even sit a class of students down in one space. We cannot invite speakers; we have no place for them to stand. We cannot show films. We do not have space for hands-on activities. We have to hold special events in the hallway and pay a rental fee to our landlord. I, for one, am tired of signing a rent check every month when I know that money could be used to create programming for students in Jefferson County.
3. Exhibits – We only have room to show a small percentage of our collection. We are limited by space to a small number of featured stories. We have no space to bring in traveling or temporary exhibits.
So Mr. or Ms. Sugar, our needs are simple. Find us a sturdy building downtown in the historic district; say 15 – 20,000 square feet, near some public parking. It should have some open spaces, not too many windows and a nice mahogany-walled office suite for the executive director (I guess that last one is optional). Buy it for us and take a nice tax deduction. We will name it after you. How does the Birmingham History Center at the John Smith Building sound? Too much? How about the Jane Smith Magic City Exhibit Gallery? It is your chance to be immortal. It is your chance to put us on par with every other history museum in Alabama. Please be our Sugar Daddy (or Momma).
Maryon Allen at home in Vestavia Hills, AL 2011
Among our still-living local luminaries, few are more overlooked or helpful to the Birmingham History Center than the multi-talented Maryon Allen.
The former U.S. Senator for Alabama, now 86 , lives in a Vestavia garden home decorated with memorabilia from her days in Washington D.C., where in 1978 she assumed the senate seat of her husband, Sen. Jim Allen, who died of a heart attack.
Maryon lost the democratic primary runoff to run for the unexpired term. But, not to be regarded as “one of those dumb Washington wives,” she stayed on in Washington, dusted off her journalism career, and at the request of Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, wrote the column “Maryon Allen’s Washington.”
People warned me against this,” she said. They said, ‘Washington is not really real.’ But I was 55 at the time and had to prove some things on my own.”
Maryon Allen Photo courtesy U.S. Senate Historical Office
In December 1978 she christened the USS Birmingham nuclear submarine (SS N695), and has donated to the center photos of the vessel surfacing during a maiden voyage. The Allen senate chair and other official items are also destined for the center.
But Maryon’s gifts aren’t limited to those of public office: In her workshop on Creekstone Circle, she is restoring 16 of 27 cloth dolls found tossed in a box years ago at the former Lakeview School on Clairmont Avenue. [The building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, is leased to a commercial tenant.] The 12-inch dolls, clothed in traditional dress of world nations, are believed to be a handicraft project of the Works Progress Administration (1936-43), although their exact origin remains a mystery.
They were found in a box by the late Penny Cunningham, a retired Lakeview teacher and charter BHC board member. She jotted the following note on the box: “Made during the 30′s by WPA (I think). Scattered and finally discarded at Lakeview School.”
Maryon Allen with two WPA dolls undergoing restoration
That’s a good educated guess. Such handicraft projects got their start as work-relief programs for women within various sections of Franklin Roosevelt’s vast WPA. State-run projects under the Division of Women’s and Professional Projects produced jobs as varied as sewing and canning to administrative work and musical, literary, visual and performing arts.
Further down the hierarchy, 24 states–including Alabama–operated crafts programs under the Museum Extension Project, producing educational visual aids such as book illustrations, dioramas, models – and international dolls — cataloged and marketed to public schools. However, there’s scant evidence that they
Dutch pair with cleaned clothes and new hair. Girl is missing a shoe. Boy's hat is made with 27 separate pieces of felt, some the size of peas.
originated in Alabama. More likely a Birmingham teacher ordered them from one of the more prolific Midwestern programs, where handicraft projects in Kansas, Ohio, and particularly Milwaukee County (WI) dominate the Internet. (Eleanor Roosevelt herself visited the noted Milwaukee Handicraft Project in 1936, taking away two dolls as gifts.)
However they arrived at Lakeview, Cunningham passed the artifacts to the history center, which has 11 on display. The rest were given to Maryon, who still makes a living restoring antique clothing and wedding gowns.
Detail showing hand-painted face
Maryon says it takes her about 20 hours to restore one doll, including remaking wigs, mending some mouse-eaten cloth, and washing and starching costumes. Her progress has been interrupted by two major surgeries, not to mention filling orders at her own clothing restoration business. But these are minor interruptions for a career as productive and distinguished as Maryon’s.
The indomitable former senator begins her life story in 1946, leaving the University of Alabama with two years of journalism training. She was married and divorced and, with
In the Creekstone Cottage workshop
three children, found work as columnist for the weekly Shades Valley Sun. Here, she says, her social contacts allowed her to regularly scoop The Birmingham News’ social section. In time, The News came calling, hiring Maryon in early 1964, only to lose her the same year to a storybook love affair with then-Lt. Gov. Jim Allen.
Maryon met Allen during an interview assignment. Both she and The Senator (as she was later to call him) fell instantly in love and were married four months later, she said.
Jim Allen was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1968 and from Washington, D. C., Maryon wrote the syndicated column, “Reflections of a News Hen,” carried by local Alabama papers. Allen’s death midway through his second term left Maryon deep in mourning, but unwilling to leave D.C. until she had conquered the city on her own terms, she said.
Her third and last column ran three years in the Washington Post 1979-1981.
Maryon Allen's parlor crowded with memorabilia from days in Washington D.C. The Allen Senate chair is far right.
When Allen returned to Birmingham, she bought a rambling house at 3215 Cliff Road, reputed to be a former brothel. She immersed herself in restoring the house and developed her interest in restoring vintage clothing. By the mid-1980s, fueled by her national contacts, the pastime had grown into a profitable business, Maryon Allen Co.
“I was so fortunate to be able to do something I enjoyed, and to make a living at it,” she said. “I just think the workmanship of the past was exquisitely beautiful.”
Maryon in 2004 sold the house and took her business to a Vestavia garden home, christened Creekstone Cottage, where she putters, gardens, reads, entertains, and works.
The house is a museum of Allen’s colorful life, with one room painted blue, the color she wore when she first met Alabama Lt. Governor Jim Allen on April 2, 1964.
Have an historic good time
It’s not Halloween without ghosts, and its not the Birmingham History Center without history. Come get a touch of both Friday, Oct. 28, 4:30-7 p.m., for A Gathering of Spirits. Food, drink, a Victorian vibe. Reservations are $12/$10 for members, online at www.birminghamhistorycenter.org, or Visa, MasterCard, Discover by phone: 205-202-4146.
Location: BHC, 1731 First Avenue North, Birmingham (Young & Vann building).
Notable and notorious figures from Birmingham’s past will join us from Oak Hill Cemetery to tell their stories. Meet a dozen of Oak Hill’s permanent residents– Col. Sloss, Madame Lou Wooster, murder victim Emma Hawes, among others.
Beer, wine, punch. Catered by B&A Warehouse.
For those who still have a taste for tradition, The Rocky Horror Picture Show plays at the Alabama Theatre, 7 p.m., just a few blocks away!
Wood-choppers, karsts & steam dummies: The origins of Highland Avenue
Henry Caldwell, Willis Milner & John MIlner
In January 1884, the city of Birmingham, and its founders, the Elyton Land Company, were emerging from a long economic recession. The potential of the District’s mineral wealth was just beginning to bear fruit while the young city matured with new public services like a municipal water system. That system’s bonds, a debt which threatened the city’s future, had just been paid off thanks to the civic-minded generosity of Josiah Morris, James Sloss and Henry Caldwell.
Caldwell, in particular, had reason to be optimistic. As president of the Elyton company he controlled the still-unimproved 1,500-acre South Highlands parcel just south of the city limit at 9th Avenue South. He tapped the company’s general manager, his brother-in-law Major Willis Milner, to supervise the planning and construction of roads and utilities. Most important to the success of the suburb would be an attractive park and resort at the terminus of a trolley line which showed the choicest building sites to their best advantage.
In 1884 those lots were still “primeval forest”, protected from trespassing “wood-choppers” by armed company agents. Milner and his cousin, John, a railroad engineer, prepared a large-scale topographical survey of the entire parcel before setting the route for what would become Highland Avenue.
Construction on Highland Avenue in 1885
In order to make the route navigable by horse-drawn carriages and mule-drawn trolleys, the road’s grade was limited to a maximum of 3%, forcing it to wind its way along the contour lines of the map. The 100-foot-wide right-of-way was carefully detailed to maximize the frontage estate lots. Natural depressions in the terrain, the result of dormant sink holes in the area’s limestone karst substrate, were reserved as parks and flood basins. A larger tract, near the eastern end of the boulevard, was selected for “Lakeview Park”, with an artificial lake, resort hotel, dance hall, beer garden and other entertainments, including the county’s first base ball diamond (the site, in 1893, of the first ever football game between Alabama and Auburn).
Milner proposed to connect a new trolley service to the meager existing line downtown. The new tracks would cross over the Railroad Reservation and into the South Side at 22nd Street. At 5th Avenue South, the line would split to reach as far as 15th Street to the west before returning to Five Points South. The other branch continued as far east as 29th Street. Those two termini, within the city’s projected street grid, would then be connected by the looping new scenic boulevard of Highland Avenue. The first road construction contracts, signed in 1884, specified a paved road-bed of 25 feet. Road construction coincided with the landscaping of Lakeview Park, whose lake was filled with water piped in from nearby springs. Work was suspended while the company awaited a charter from the state legislature permitting it to construct and operate its proposed public trolley system. Once that was approved, work resumed in early 1885. The completed railway was dedicated on October 1 of that year. The system cost $3,500 per mile over a 7-mile route and earned about $24,000 for the company in each of its first few years.
Overview of Lakeview Park
Soon it became evident that the trolley should be upgraded to steam power, and the 16-pound rails were removed and replaced with 40-pound rail. The resulting steam dummy line, the first in the South, was enormously successful at first, but declined as competing streetcar resorts opened at East Lake, West Lake and Edgewood. Meanwhile the company overextended itself by constructing a belt railroad for the movement of freight and fell into receivership during the financial panic of 1899.
A portion of Highland Avenue was included within the municipal limits of the Town of Highland, incorporated in 1887. The town graded and curbed that section of the thoroughfare. Once Birmingham annexed Highland in 1893, it proceeded to improve the remainder of the boulevard. The streetcar system continued under the auspices of the Birmingham Traction Company.
One Man’s Lunchbox
What could you tell about a man if you just had his empty lunch box? Not much, probably. The size of the lunch box might tell you a little about his appetite. The elaborateness of the box might tell you a little about his wealth. For working adults in the late 19th and early 20th century, lunchboxes were an earmark of social standing—if you were caught toting one, it indicated that you didn’t have the time or money to go home or out to an eatery for your midday meal. As you can see from the photograph, this lunch box is quite small, only about 8 inches long, 5 inches wide and 2.5 inches tall. It is barely large enough to put a sandwich in it, barely big enough for a full piece of fruit, maybe some dates or apple slices. The box itself is very plain – no pictures of Davy Crockett or President Cleveland or advertisements of any kind. It is obviously old, well-used, made of tin with a front key latch. It is in the collection of the Birmingham History Center – item number 671.26, donated by the Oak Hill Memorial Association.
- Captain William C. Ward’s Lunchbox
Luckily, the box came with an old envelope inside. There was nothing in the envelope but on the front cover someone had written in pencil “Gentleman’s Lunchbox of Captain William C. Ward, C.S.A., who moved in 1885 from Selma to Birmingham where he practiced [law] until his death. In those days professional and business men customarily either returned home for the midday meal or carried lunchboxes. Captain Ward rode the street car each day to and from 12 Avenue South and First Avenue North. His residence was at 1717 12th Avenue South. His office was in the Steiner Bank Building on First Avenue North at 21st Street. Captain Ward wore a gentleman’s cape in inclement weather and carried his lunchbox daily.”
Now we have something to go on. A little digging comes up with a remarkable story of an interesting man. Born in Bibb County, Alabama the same year as Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie (and my great-great grandfather Cornelius Desmond) in 1835 (the year that Haley’s Comet appeared in the 19th century), William Columbus Ward lived on a farm with his parents, David and Elizabeth Ward, near Six Mile. As a young man, he graduated from the University of Alabama in 1858 and became a math teacher at Howard College in Marion until the Civil War started.
He served in the Confederate Army as a Corporal in Company G of the famous 4th Alabama Regiment, fighting in most of the early battles in Virginia. On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863, he was severely wounded while attacking the right flank of the 20th Maine Regiment on Little Round Top. He spent 35 days in a field hospital on the battleground, eventually recovering from his wound. He was exchanged and returned to Alabama. In 1865, he served as Captain of Company A of the 62nd Alabama Regiment in defense of the State. He was again wounded, this time at Spanish Fort, and was captured on April 9, 1865. He was a prisoner at Ship Island until paroled on May 1, 1865.
- The Steiner Bank Building on First Avenue
Returning home, he prepared himself for the bar by private study and began practicing law in Selma in 1866. In 1885, he moved to Birmingham and became general counsel for the Elyton Land Company. In the city, he enjoyed a large and lucrative practice, taking an active interest in education, politics and public affairs while raising six children with his wife, Alice Ann (Bailey) Ward. He became a popular public speaker, giving orations and addresses at various events. In the early 20th century, he published several historical works, including a paper entitled “The Building of the State,” for the Alabama Historical Society. He died at his home in Birmingham in 1910, just in time to see the comet come back to the sky.
So, can you tell much from a man’s empty lunch box? In this case, I guess you can. Captain William Columbus Ward was a very busy man. He did not have time, during the day, to go home at noon (to deal with a wife and six children). He barely had time at work to eat lunch. As a former soldier in the Confederate service, he probably became very used to eating little at midday anyway. The size of his lunch box was just right. It is now on display in the History Center’s new exhibit case in the lobby of the Alabama Theatre, an appropriate place for a man who enjoyed giving public presentations. One man’s lunchbox, one man’s story.
Birmingham Trivia Quiz
Think you know Birmingham -let’s see if you can do it without Google search.
1. Where was the first Birmingham, Alabama located?
2. How many Medal of Honor winners were from Jefferson County?
USS Birmingham
3. The World War I light cruiser USS Birmingham was famous for what reason?
4. What was the name of the first recorded male quartet?
5. What product was produced by the National Dope Company between 1909 to1911?
6. How many different theaters have operated in downtown Birmingham over the years?
7. Who founded the largest religious media network in the world in the Birmingham area?
Yankees broadcaster born in Birmingham
8. Born Melvin Israel in Birmingham, he was famous for the phrase “How About That!”
9. What town was the first county seat of Jefferson County?
1o. What song performed by the Glenn Miller Band about a place in Birmingham became one of the top hits of the World War II era?
11. What international community service club was founded in Birmingham in 1917?
12. Which current head football coach in the Birmingham area once won the Heisman Trophy as the best college football player in the nation?
13. What was the name of the only automobile made in Birmingham?
14. What was the first public building in Alabama to have air conditioning?
President Harding Rides Into Town
15. Who was the first recorded medical patient in Jefferson County?
16. How many neighborhoods are there in Birmingham?
17. Statistically, Birmingham earned this infamous title in 1894?
18. How did Alabama football teams get the nickname “The Crimson Tide?”
19. Where was the home of “Mr. Realee Good?”
20. What is the longest free flowing river in Alabama?
A New Era in Birmingham Politics
21. What club with over 7,000 members met at the Alabama Theater between 1933 and 1943?
22. What was the first enclosed mall in the Southeast and the fifth ever to be built in the United States?
23. Who was the first African-American mayor of Birmingham?
24. Two events in 1873 almost destroyed the new city of Birmingham – what were they?
25. What is the oldest surviving professional baseball field in the country?
(“Oo-OOOH-oo- oo-oo-oo-oo-ooohh…”)
Have you ever been to Orlando, Florida and visiting Walt Disney World? I have been there twice, once when it was just, almost-completed around 1972 and another time about 15 years later. One of my favorite rides is the Haunted Mansion. At the entrance, a host ghost (voiced by Paul Frees, a veteran announcer who also did TV commercials in the 1960s – he was the voice of the Little Green Sprout in the Jolly Green Giant commercials, for example), boomed out “Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion.” This was followed by a ride through many rooms filled with ghastly ghostly humor and special effects. In one room, a male and female pair of opera singers join in singing the theme song of the mansion, “Grim Grinning Ghosts,” with the female voice wailing at high soprano and ad-libbing on the third verse.
Loulie Jean Norman
I recently learned at a gathering of Birmingham trivia experts that this particular soprano enjoyed a long career in Hollywood as a coloratura – one who specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs and leaps in the highest register. Her name was Loulie Jean Norman. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama and graduated from Phillips High School in 1931 as a classmate and eventual lifelong friend of Hugh Martin, the composer most famous for writing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” In fact, Martin once became part of a quartet formed by Miss Norman and performed with her in the musical “Of Thee I Sing” at the Birmingham Little Theatre.
But unless you have been to the Haunted Mansion or are in your nineties and remember attending that performance long ago, you probably think you have never heard her remarkable voice. You are probably wrong. Loulie Jean Norman’s voice may be one of the most recognized in movie and television history. She began her career performing with Mel Torme in the 1940’s, singing back up on his hit recording of “California Suite.” She then found regular work dubbing singing voices for a whole list of movie stars, including Dihann Carroll (Poggy and Bess), Juliet Prowse (G.I. Blues) and Stella Stevens (Too Late Blues).
She sang the role of Princess for the recording of the Jerry Lewis film, Cinderfella, in 1960, sang backup vocal on the Elvis Presley song “Moonlight Swim” in the movie Blue Hawaii and on the soundtrack for the movie Easter Parade, featuring Judy Garland. She also dubbed in for Jane Powell in the 1954 movie Athena (music by her friend Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane). She was one of the original Ray Coniff Singers, a popular chorus in the 1960s and made regular appearances on the Dean Martin, Carol Burnett and Dinah Shore shows. She sang with all of the great vocalists and composers of the 1940s – 1970s, including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Ray Charles, Spike Jones, Frankie Laine and Henry Mancini.
Ironically, she is probably most recognized for two songs in which she does not sing a word. In 1961, a young unknown group called the Tokens decided to cover Soloman Linda’s song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” for RCA records. They needed an experienced soprano to sing the impossibly high top melody, with the extended phrase “oh.” Loulie Jean Norman was chosen for the part. The song reached number #1 on the Hot Billboard 100 and stayed there for three weeks. Take a listen here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LBmUwi6mEo.
Space, the Final Frontier
However, learning of the second song from my trivia friends blew me away. In 1964, westerns dominated the television screen – Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Rawhide, etc. A middle-aged script writer named Gene Roddenberry came up with a concept of doing a western style show in outer space. He called it Star Trek, eventually selling the idea to NBC. He hired Alexander Courage to write a theme song for the show. Roddenberry had the option of writing lyrics for the song, which he did.
“Beyond the rim of the star-light, my love is wand’ring in star-flight, I know he’ll find in star-clustered reaches love, Strange love a star woman teaches. I know his journey ends never, His star trek will go on forever. But tell him while he wanders his starry sea, remember me, remember me.”
Courage was so repulsed by the lyrics that he hired Loulie Jean Norman to sing an extended phrase to his melody, listen here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHhePr0TKfc. Thus, the famous “Oo-OOOH-oo- oo-oo-oo-oo-ooohh…” that every Star Trek fan knows and loves. Loulie Jean Norman died in her Studio City home in California in 2005, one of the least famous, most recognized voices in 20th century America.
