Everyday Life
Published Materials
Life in the South
Callaway, Elvy E. The Other Side of the South. D. Ryerson, 1934. [Hall Collection F215 .C25 1934x]
Clark, Thomas Dionysius. The Emerging South. Oxford University Press, 1961. [Alabama Collection F209 .C58]
Collins, Charles Wallace. Whither Solid South? A Study in Politics and Race Relations. Pelican, 1947. [Hall Collection F215 .C7 1947x]
Couch, W. T. Culture in the South. University of North Carolina Press, 1934. [Hall Collection F215 .C84]
In Pictures
These works feature photographs of rural Southerners, Black and white, especially sharecroppers, taken during the Depression. Caldwell was a popular Georgia novelist and Bourke-White was a photojournalist and editor from New York. Agee was a journalist and novelist from Tennessee and Evans, born in Missouri, was a photographer for the Farm Security Administration. All four were white.
- Caldwell, Erskine, and Margaret Bourke-White. You Have Seen Their Faces. Viking, 1937. [Alabama Collection HD207 .C3 1937a]
- Agee, James, and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin, 1941. [Alabama Collection F326 .A17]
Daniels, Jonathan. A Southerner Discovers the South. Macmillan, 1938. [Hall Collection F215 .D25]
Dollard, John. Caste and Class in a Southern Town. Harper, 1949. [Rare Collection F215 .D65 1949]
Dykeman, Wilma. Seeds of Southern Change. University of Chicago Press, 1962. [Hall Collection F215.A55 D9]
Hart, Albert Bushnell. The Southern South. D. Appleton and Co., 1910. [Alabama Collection F216 .A94]
Johnson, Gerald W. The Wasted Land. University of North Carolina Press, 1937. [Alabama Collection F215 .O285]
Kennedy, Stetson. Southern Exposure. Doubleday, 1946. [Hall Collection F215 .K33]
1930s Alabama
Carmer was a New Yorker, but he spent six years in the South as a professor at the University of Alabama. This work recounts his travels in the state during that period, where he met ordinary Alabamians and took in a variety of experiences, many of them sensational. Cason was a native Alabamian, although he did leave the South for a time to work as a journalist. After his return to his alma mater, the University of Alabama, to teach journalism, he wrote this book of essays that took on many stereotypes about the South, especially those of blacks and poor whites.
Carmer, Carl. Stars Fell on Alabama. The Literary Guild, 1934. [Alabama Collection F326 .C27 1934a]
Cason, Clarence. 90° in the Shade. University of North Carolina Press, 1935. [Alabama Collection F215 .C27]
Moore, John Monroe. The South To-Day. Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada, 1916. [Alabama Collection HC107 .A13 M7]
Smith, Lillian Eugenia. Killers of the Dream. Norton, 1949. [Hall Collection E185.61 .S64 1949x]
Tannenbaum, Frank. Darker Phases of the South. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1924. [Alabama Collection HN79 .A2 T3]
Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877-1913. Louisiana State University Press, 1951. [Hall Collection F215 .W85]
Migration & Life Outside the South
Arnesen, Eric. Black Protest and the Great Migration: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003. [Alabama Collection E185.6 .A76 2003]
Coles, Robert. The South Goes North. Little, Brown, 1971. [Hall Collection HC110.P6 C56 vol. 3]
Scott, Emmett J. Negro Migration During the War. Arno Press, 1969. [Hall Collection E185.9 .S42 1969]
Archival Materials
General
Marjorie L. Smith Cotton Slides (2007.004)
- 71 color slides taken around Hayneville, Lowndes County, Alabama showing various stages of cotton production, from picking cotton by hand to machine harvesting and processing in the cotton gin to making the bales ready for market
Farm Security Administration Photographs (2009.093)
- 80 photographs (copies) taken by the Farm Security Administration’s photographers of Alabama agriculture and industry during the Depression, with images of white and African American sharecropper families and homes, churches, schools and farm scenes, taken around Moundville, Eutaw, Selma, Scottsboro, Greensboro and Birmingham, Alabama.
Schaudies-Banks-Ragland photographs (2014.021)
- 37 framed portraits and other photographs, most of men serving in World War I and World War II, many of them African American.
Photographic Album of African American Family (2016.002
- Photograph album of an African American family, probably from around the Washington, D.C., area, depicting everyday life, travels to Niagara Falls and Atlanta, and campus life at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina and other scenes from the countryside of South Carolina.
World War II photograph album (MSS.4091)
- Album containing mainly 2.5″ x 2.5″ snapshots of an unidentified African American soldier during the 1940s
Woodward Family photographs (MSS.1577)
- Nearly 2000 photographs, some personal, others showing the establishment of Woodward Iron Company industrial sites throughout Alabama, including industrial photos detailing construction, operation and the everyday lives and company towns of workers black and white.
William B. Shirdan papers (MSS.1266)
- Letters from this soldier who served in the 310th QM RHD Company during World War II to his family in Montgomery, Alabama.
William T. Demarest pamphlet (MSS.1816)
- “The Alabama Obligation,” about conditions at a school for African Americans in Brewton Alabama during the early to mid twentieth century.
William C. Castleman Letter (MSS.2966)
- A love letter from William Castleman in Sparta, Kentucky, to Lura C. Baker in Verona, Kentucky.
Matthews family papers (MSS.3387)
- Letters written to and from members of the W. B. Matthews family in Atlanta, including one recommendation letter from W. E. B. DuBois, and a series of letters written by Joseph Cotter Jr. discuss race relations during World War I.
Norris Hill Sr. photographs and papers (MSS.4142)
- Photographs and snapshots as well as the junior high school diploma of Norris Hill Sr. of Akron, Ohio.
Doris Brown George photographs and newspaper clipping (MSS.4143)
- Photographs from the estate of Doris Brown George of New York, and and article in the Amsterdam News about Ms. George chairing an NAACP dinner in 1984.
Patti Julia Malone autograph album and papers (MSS.4169)
- Autograph album that Ms. Malone took on various European tours with the Fisk Jubilee Singers between 1884 and 1891.
Henry Gant scrapbook (MSS.4172)
- Scrapbook on the Gant family, particularly on Henry Gant and his sons, Eugene (Gene) and Tim.
James Smith U.S. Army discharge papers (W.0145)
- Two forms discharging James Smith, an African American born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, from the United States Army Tenth Cavalry Regiment, in 1872.
Charlie J. Black papers (MSS.0167)
- Photocopy of Black’s autobiography, “After The Fact: 20/20 Hindsight,” which covers Black’s youth in Beatrice, Monroe County, Alabama, his upbringing, education, teaching career, and political life in Washington.
Ada Belle Parker scrapbook (MSS.2962)
- Scrapbook containing correspondence, newspaper clippings, and ephemera concerning civil rights, Christianity, and centenarians gathered by Ada Belle Parker.
Joseph C. Manning letters (MSS.3818)
- Letters showing Manning’s efforts to stop the disenfranchisement of African American voters in Alabama in early twentieth century.
Education
Brown Hill School Trustees’ minutes (MSS.0217)
- Trustees’ minutes, covering 1916-1924 (including parents’ rolls), of this school for African-American students in Loachapoka, Lee County, Alabama.
Jennie B. Scott family papers (MSS.4108)
- Papers of family that lived in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama in the latter half of the nineteenth century and through the mid-1960s.
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute traveling program advertisement (MSS.2110)
- An advertisement for the traveling program, “Negro Education in Black Belt of the South,” featuring the Tuskegee Quintette.
Jennie C. Lee papers (W.0113)
- Photographs, letters, programs, and other materials created and collected by Lee, who was director of the Tuskegee Choir for twenty-five years (1903-1928).
Ephraim Madison Henry papers (W.0114)
- Correspondence, concert programs, and other miscellaneous documents of Ephraim Madison Henry, covering his time at Tuskegee Institute, particularly with the school’s choir.
Thelma O’Brien photographs and letter (MSS.4144)
- photographs and snapshots from the estate of Thelma O’Brien of Boston, Massachusetts, and a letter from the assistant principal at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf giving Ms. O’Brien advice on employment.
Mary L. Scott Letters (MSS.2645)
- Correspondence to Ms. Mary L. Scott, a teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, from three people along with a painting, two programs, and two felt pendants.
Church Life
Thomas Harvey (T. H.) Houston papers (MSS.4145)
- Photographs and papers of this Alabama Methodist clergyman.
Oscar W. Adams papers (MSS.0010)
- Correspondence of this Birmingham, Alabama, minister of the A.M.E. Zion Church, principally concerning the struggle to remain solvent during the Great Depression.
Brien Chapel A.M.E. Church records (MSS.0211)
- Records of this African Methodist Episcopal church in Burnsville, Alabama, from 1924-1973.
Wylheme H. Ragland collection of funeral bulletins (MSS.3763)
- Funeral, memorial, and wedding worship bulletins primarily from the Decatur, Alabama, area, from the 1930s through 2016.
Forty-fifth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, worship bulletins and other records (MSS.4060)
- Programs for a variety of events related to the 45th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, from 1949 to 1979