Happy October (Island)!

October Island by William March.  First Edition, Little Brown and Co., 1952.

March's sixth novel, published in 1952, did not receive the same critical praise as some of his earlier works.  Some did like the novel, like the New York Times critic, Charles Poore, who praises March's "novel of salt and savor" full of "quiet, uninsistent irony" and his "mordant undertones of commentary on what it truly means to be an outcast."  But we love it, and we love our William March all the same.  And we really love this dust jacket, which is full of mid-century style. Happy October.

The Bad Seed is the Big Shocker!

Al Hirshfeld's drawing of the cast of the play, The Bad Seed, published in the New York Times, December 5, 1954.
Can you find the "Ninas"?

Fifty-seven years ago today, on December 8, 1954, the Sherwood Anderson theatrical adaptation of William March's novel, The Bad Seed opened on Broadway. March, born William Campbell, was a native of Alabama and a former student of The University of Alabama.

If you haven't read the novel, you should. And though we can't travel back in time to see the play as it first appeared, most of the actors moved from stage to screen for the 1956 film adaptation.

March's papers are held in the Hoole Library, and there is a larger-than-life bust of him in our reading room too. A fascinating man of many talents, look for more on March in the months to come! In the meantime, make some popcorn, get under a blanket, and watch one of the creepiest children of American cinema do her stuff.

Notice from the Tuscaloosa News, 1956 on the film, The Bad Seed

Alabama's Storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham

We recently said goodbye to renowned storyteller, author, photographer, and radio personality, Kathryn Tucker Windham. She will be greatly missed, but she will live on in our hearts and through her stories. The Hoole Library houses over twenty different works, including sound and video recordings as part of our Alabama Collection.

Born in Selma, Alabama and raised in Thomasville, Ms. Windham inherited her gift of storytelling from her father, a local banker, at a very young age. From early on, she also showed a keen interest in writing. At the tender age of twelve, she began writing movie reviews for the Thomasville Times.

Her career as a reporter would continue to grow, and she began to work as a freelance journalist in Thomasville after graduating from Montgomery’s Huntingdon College in 1939. Windham became a police reporter and features writer for Montgomery’s Alabama Journal. Her work as a reporter in a very masculine profession was groundbreaking and inspiring to women writers all over Alabama and beyond.

Ms. Windham also had a lifetime love of photography, a passion and talent she put to use as a courthouse reporter and editor for the Birmingham News. Later, she would begin publishing books of her photographs and including them in works. She is well known for many, many things, but many think of her 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey when they think of her. Everyone loves her ghost stories. Inspired by an inquiry about “Jeffrey,” a friendly ghost residing in the Windham’s home in Selma, Windham began a series of collections of ghost stories, the first being 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, published in 1969. She followed up with collections of ghost stories from Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, more Alabama ghosts, and Southern ghosts.

She has been featured as a teller at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee over twelve times. She authored a book, My Name is Julia and created a one-woman play of the same name, which she performed in period costume about another great Alabamian, Julia Tutwiler. The play was debuted at the Birmingham Public Library in 1981.

There is a special place in my heart for Kathryn Tucker Windham -- as her stories were the foundation for the first major exhibition I did at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library. In Fall, 2000, just after coming to The University of Alabama, I worked with MFA candidate in the Book Arts, Suzanne Gray, on her MFA Thesis exhibition, Piano Lessons and Other Recollections, a book of stories by Ms. Windham, which was printed, illustrated, and bound by Suzanne Gray as her thesis project. The exhibit featured Suzanne's work as well as a selection of Ms. Windham's books, and included a tombstone pinata which I keep in my office to remind me of that exhibit and the opening.

Detail from Piano Lessons and other Recollections, stories from Kathryn Tucker Windham
Major Tiara Press, 2000. From the Hoole Library Book Arts Collection
Prefaces by Lori Allen Siegelman and Suzanne Gray.
This book was letterpress printed by Suzanne Gray from photopolymer plates and lead types on Frankfurt paper using Adobe Garamond and Garamond Italic typefaces. ... Twenty-six of the 125 copies are bradel bound with hand-colored illustrations and are in protective containers. They are lettered A to Z. Ninety-nine copies are quarter-cloth bound and numbered 1 to 99.
Illustrations by the printer; decorative papers by the printer and Suzanne Moore.

Students, scholars, and storytellers alike will return to Ms. Windham's stories and books. They are here for you to enjoy! I like to think that maybe Kathryn Tucker Windham herself is here with us sometimes -- I'd love nothing better to catch a glimpse of her and Jeffrey in the stacks, making mischief. She of all people, would appreciate that notion -- inscribing her books to her legions of fans, young and old, like this:

Guess who's coming to Hoole? Wayne Greenhaw!

Few Alabama authors have written more, and have produced so much variety as Wayne Greenhaw. He has written novels, plays, works of non-fiction, and several hundred articles in regional, national, and international publications.

Wayne will be at the Hoole Library on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at 5 pm (talk to begin at 5:30 pm) to discuss his new book, Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama (Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press, 2011)

Greenhaw is the 2006 recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer, given annually by the Alabama Writers’ Forum and Alabama Southern Community College at Monroeville’s Alabama Writers’ Symposium. In 2005, Greenhaw was recipient of the ninth Clarence Cason Award for Nonfiction, given annually by the University of Alabama’s College of Communication, joining such distinguished writers as Gay Talese, Rick Bragg, Diane McWhorter, and Howell Raines. Greenhaw's short story, "The Old Guy," won first place in the Hackney Literary Awards at Birmingham Southern College's 2007 Writing Today conference.

After graduating from high school in 1958, Greenhaw traveled to Mexico from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, by four different trains. In the central Mexican mountain Spanish colonial town of San Miguel de Allende he attended Instituto Allende. He returned for the next three summers, studying at the writing center under Ashmead Scott.

At The University of Alabama he studied under the legendary Hudson Strode. In 1967, after working as a reporter for the Alabama Journal, Montgomery's afternoon newspaper, his first novel, the Golfer, was published by J.B. Lippincott Company.

After his first nonfiction book, The Making of a Hero: Lt. William L. Calley and the My Lai Massacre, was published in 1971, he was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard.

Throughout his years as a journalist in Alabama, where he was a stringer for the New York Times, Time magazine, and others, Greenhaw met and nourished friendships and relationships with Dr. Martin Luther King, Governor George C. Wallace, numerous political personalities and Southern cultural icons. Greenhaw was a protegé and mentee of fellow Alabama author and University of Alabama graduate, William Bradford Huie. As part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the birth of William Bradford Huie, Greenhaw, along with Huie's widow Martha, spoke at the opening of the exhibition on November 10, 2010.

Wayne Greenhaw's talk on his new book, Fighting the Devil in Dixie will begin at 5:30 pm, but doors will open at 5 pm. Books will be on sale for the event, and a reception will follow. This event is free and open to the public. The event is co-sponsored by University Libraries, the Alabama Center for the Book, the Summersell Center for the Study of the South, and the WBH@100 Collaborative Group. As part of the event, Wayne Greenhaw will present the Hoole Library with some personal copies of his works to be included in the Alabama Collection. In addition, we have a very special guest to introduce Mr. Greenhaw!

About Fighting the Devil in Dixie:

" Shortly after the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Ku Klux Klan—determined to keep segregation as the way of life in Alabama—staged a resurgence, and the strong-armed leadership of Governor George C. Wallace, who defied the new civil rights laws, empowered the Klan’s most violent members.

As Wallace’s power grew, however, blacks began fighting back in the courthouses and schoolhouses, as did young Southern lawyers like Charles “Chuck” Morgan, who became the ACLU’s Southern director; Morris Dees, who cofounded the Southern Poverty Law Center; and Bill Baxley, Alabama attorney general, who successfully prosecuted the bomber of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and legally halted some of Wallace’s agencies designed to slow down integration. Fighting the Devil in Dixie is the first book to tell this story in full, from the Klan’s kidnappings, bombings, and murders of the 1950s to Wallace’s run for a fourth term as governor in the early 1980s, asking forgiveness and winning with the black vote."

Publishers' Binding: Remembering Cuba (Week) Edition

So last week was Cuba Week at The University of Alabama. Here's a little Memories of Cuba (Week) binding for you to enjoy....

Memories of Cuba and other poems
by Janan Ewan
Boston, R.G. Bager, 1908.
pba01177, from the Hoole Alabama Collection

Temperature and Tragedy: 90 Degrees in the Shade

90 Degrees in the Shade by Clarence Cason,
published in 1935 by the University of North Carolina Press

Cason's important book of essays on Southern culture is a compelling snapshot of aspects of life in Alabama during that period. In light of the ongoing heatwave, 90 degrees in the shade sounds like a welcome relief.

On the page between the half title and title page, there is a photograph of a group of men in their shirtsleeves, sitting at a table under an old tree on a few metal chairs and an old barrel. There's a dog on the ground, looking into the distance, panting. They are probably playing cards. Under the photograph, the caption states, "Air-conditioning cannot be a grand success in the South for the reason that the honest natives of the region recognize the natural summer heat as a welcome ally in that it makes the inside of houses and offices agreeably uninviting, if not actually prohibited territory."

Our weather and our constitutions have changed remarkably since then. Air conditioning is not only welcomed, it's outright required.

Cason, a native of Ragland Alabama, was a 1917 University of Alabama graduate, where he was the managing editor of the Crimson-White, UA's newspaper. After graduation, Cason enlisted in the United States Army, serving France during World War I. Upon his return from Europe, he worked as a reporter for several newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Times. He taught high school briefly, and also attended a theological seminary before returning to school to earn a Master's Degree from the University of Wisconsin.

Clarence Cason, in his 1917 Corolla (UA yearbook) portrait.

He taught at the University of Minnesota, then in 1928 he was hired by The University of Alabama to develop a journalism school. He published, mentored, and in the early 1930s, he began to compile his essays on the south. This was to become his book, 90 Degrees in the Shade. Tragically, and despite the love and encouragement of his colleagues and friends, Cason took his own life just days before the book's release. It is said that it was his overwhelming fear of how his book was to be received by his fellow Southerners became too much for him to bear.

Cason's legacy lives on at The University of Alabama, with the Clarence Cason Award, established in 1997 to honor exemplary non-fiction over a long career.

The Hoole Library holds several editions of the book, including the first edition shown above. To take a look at portions of the book in Google Books' version of 90 Degrees in the Shade, it is online here:

And to read a fascinating article by literary scholar, Phil Beidler about Cason and his contemporary, Carl Carmer (author of Stars Fell on Alabama, published in 1934), entitled, Yankee Interloper and Native Son: Carl Carmer and Clarence Cason: Unlikely Twins of Alabama Expose click here. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to get a sense of aspects of life in Alabama in the 1930s.

A Night (to remember) at the Opry, June 11, 1949

Hank Williams Country Music Folio

Acuff-Rose Music, Nashville, Tennessee, 1948
From the Wade Hall Sheet Music Collection

It's hard to believe that the musical icon and Alabama native Hank Williams (September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was only twenty-nine years old when he passed away. He left a catalog behind that a performer who lived one hundred years would envy.

June 11, 1949 marks the sixtieth anniversary of Hank Williams' very first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, where he performed two of his many, many legendary hits, Lovesick Blues and Mind your Own Business.

Here's a taste of his magic on the Opry stage -- a little bit grainy, but you get the idea.

The Hoole Special Collections Library has a significant collection of sheet music and sound recordings from Alabama's myriad of musical royalty. The Hoole Library also has significant holdings including published and manuscript materials by authors and scholars who explore Alabama's rich musical history. In 2005, the Hoole Library hosted one such author, Alabama native Paul Hemphill, whose book Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams (Viking, 2005) was featured in the NYTimes Book Review (written by none other than Garrison Keillor) the very week he came to the Hoole Library!

Flier from Paul Hemphill talk, 2005.
A small exhibit of Hank Williams materials was featured
in conjunction with this event at the Hoole Library.

Hank Williams is without a doubt a songwriting and performing legend. He established himself in an all-too-brief life as a pioneer and inspiration for generations to come, and is considered one of the most important songwriters of the 20th century. Not only does his name live on with his son, daughter and grandchildren, who all work as professional musicians, but his songs live on with countless covers, tributes, and homages to his unmistakable style.