(Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier) Lafayette wuz Here 4/3/25

It was on April 3, 1825, during his tour of the United States that French general and Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained at Montgomery with great fanfare -- so much fanfare, in fact that Governor Israel Pickens spared no expense for Lafayette's visit to Alabama. His visit actually expended more funds than existed in the state treasury! Lafayette also visited Cahaba and Mobile as part of his tour of the state of Alabama.

The Hoole Library's holdings in this area are not vast by any means, but there are a few interesting things that further illustrate the lavishness and significance of Lafayette's visit to the state of Alabama 183 years ago today!

Donated by Patrick Cather, Hoole a small collection of typescript copies of financial materials relating to Lafayette's visit in our manuscript collections. The bill of fare furnished by J.B. Houer included six hams, 8 roast turkeys, 6 roast pigs, 24 fowls, 12 ducks, 6 dishes roast beef, eight dishes mutton and kid with the necessary trimmings, and vegetables in proportion.... (one can only imagine the trimmings and vegetables needed to set off the array of meats listed)



Additional materials were donated by D.L. McCall, including research materials for an article he wrote on Lafayette's visit to Alabama in April 1825. The paper was subsequently published in Alabama Historical Quarterly, Vol. Seventeen, 1955. One letter, written by Governor Pickens to Lafayette expresses such unbridled excitement about the prospect of Lafayette visiting Alabama.

It reads, in part, "Never on any occasion in my life have enjoyed so valued an honor that now afforded me of being the medium of communicating to you the cordial sentiments of my fellow citizens. Although this new state has only within a very few years been admitted to the American family of republics (Alabama became the 22nd state on December 14, 1819!) and but recently indeed has the territory it occupies emerged from a wilderness; yet its inhabitants are the immediate descendants of your companions in their great first struggle for liberty and they are not insensible that most of the soil they inhabit and the valued privileges they enjoy from a portion of the patrimonial inheritance then achieved. And altho our infant institutions have not sufficiently matured to promise you that animating display of the monuments of the arts, which you have witnessed with gratification in some of our elder sister States; Yet of one truth I assure you that nowhere will the veteran friend of liberty and of man, receive a more cordial and united welcome."



The Hoole Rare Book Collection also holds the twelve volume set, Mémoires, correspondance, et manuscrits du général Lafayette, published in Brussels in 1837-1839. This set was originally part of the T.P. Thompson library, which is the foundation for the Hoole Rare Book Collections.

Tonight at Hoole: The Gladney Lecture for Justice and Social Change with the Rev. Dr. Dorsey Odell Blake

Please join at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, 2nd Floor Mary Harmon Bryant Hall at 7:30 this evening, Wednesday, April 2nd for the 2008 The Rose Gladney Lecture for Justice and Social Change with Rev. Dr. Dorsey Odell Blake.

Rev. Dr. Blake's lecture is entitled "40 Years after King: Wilderness or Promised Land".



A copy of the flier for download is available here:
http://www.lib.ua.edu/events/documents/blake_flier_final.pdf

Rev. Blake was the first head of the African American Studies Program at the University of Alabama, and was the first full-time African-American Male faculty member (1972-1977 at UA). Dr. Dorsey Odell Blake is the Presiding Minister of The Church for The Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, CA. Founded in 1944 during a time of local, national, and global tension and conflict, The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples is the nation's first interracial, interfaith congregation. Its mission, as articulated by co-founding pastors, Dr. Howard Thurman and Dr. Alfred Fisk, and visionary members, was to create a religious fellowship that transcended artificial barriers of race, nation, culture, gender, and social distinctions.

In establishing the context for the lecture series, Rose Gladney has written: "This great experiment in democratic governance which we call America draws strength from multiple human struggles to create not only a more physically comfortable life, but also a just and equitable society. I am fortunate to have grown into adulthood in the midst of the 20th century's greatest examples of such struggle: the African-American liberation movement, the women's liberation movement, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender liberation movements—all symbols and symptoms of the larger human struggle for justice and social change." Dr. Rose Gladney is a retired UA Professor of American Studies. The Rose Gladney Lecture for Justice and Social Change was endowed in her honor.

The Gladney Lecture is co-sponsored by UA Libraries, American Studies, Honor's College, New College, Religious Studies, Women's Studies, African American Studies Program, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Diversity Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Tuscaloosa Entertains: A New Exhibit

A new exhibit is on display in the administrative suite area on the 2nd floor of Gorgas Library. This collaborative exhibit project, Tuscaloosa Entertains: Where the Fun was had in the Druid City between the World Wars features narrative and images that explore aspects of leisure time in Tuscaloosa from the 1920s through the early 1950s.

Using digital surrogates of archival materials from the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library and other sources for their research, three graduate students in History, Mills Barker, Jensen Branscombe and Stephanie Chalifoux provide insight into entertainment venues including dance halls, theaters, soda fountains, and jook joints in the Druid City, Tuscaloosa. The project was advised by Kari Frederickson, Associate Professor of History and director of the Frances Summersell Center for the Study of the South, as well as Jessica Lacher-Feldman, Associate Professor and Public and Outreach Services Coordinator for the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library.

The exhibit project also explored ways in creating visual interest with limited collections-based resources. The exhibit relies in part on the use of Sanborn Fire Maps to illustrate the physical space in downtown Tuscaloosa where photographs are non-existent. The exhibit also features advertisements, anecdotes, quotes, and descriptive narrative to inform the audience.

One fun anecdote reads, "Tuscaloosa attracted some famous performers and traveling vaudeville acts like the Marx Brothers. Harpo Marx recalled that the brothers were so bored in Tuscaloosa that they stopped singing in the middle of a song to watch a large bug walk across the stage. He remembered, 'the four of us got down on hands and knees and began to follow the bug, making bets whether it was a beetle, a cockroach, or a bedbug'.”

That visit must have stayed in their minds when writing their film, Animal Crackers, as this clip will attest -- watch it, it's worth it (or if you're impatient, skip to the 2 minute mark)!

Please be sure to visit the exhibit in Gorgas Library 2nd floor!

Hoole Library Featured in ARL book and website, Celebrating Research

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The W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, and specifically the David Walker Lupton African-American Cookbook Collection is featured in the Association of Research Libraries' book and website, Celebrating Research: Rare and Special Collections from the Membership of the Association of Research Libraries.

The book and Web site profiles selected rare and special collections available for use in the major research libraries of North America, compiled to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Association of Research Libraries.

The collection profile for the David Walker Lupton Collection is available on the site at www.celebratingresearch.org/libraries/alabama/cookbooks.shtml

and the profile for the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library is available at www.celebratingresearch.org/libraries/alabama/index.shtml

The David Walker Lupton African American Cookbook Collection consists of over 450 volumes covering the period from 1827, when the first book with recipes by an African American was published, through the year 2000. To read more about the Lupton collection and to view a hand list of the volumes in the collection, visit www.lib.ua.edu/lupton.htm The collection and the book was also recently featured on Join us at the Table, a weekly radio show in Miami. The show's website is here: http://juatt.com/ and to listen to Jessica Lacher-Feldman's interview about the Lupton Collection visit http://cdn3.libsyn.com/nanrob/juatt020208.mp3 The interview is towards the middle of the show.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! A Memorable dinner at Antoines in New Orleans: March 17, 1914

Featured here is the menu and program cover from the annual St. Patrick's Day Dinner in New Orleans. This particular dinner was held at Antoine's and featured such delicious green delicacies as Absinthe Verte and Artichaux Bayard. The final course seems especially compelling -- cigars, cigarettes, and Café Diabolique -- flambéed coffee served tableside, and still an Antoine's tradition. This program and menu and several other equally interesting St. Patrick's Day Dinners, including one from 100 years ago - 1908) are from the T.P. Thompson Collection at the Hoole Special Collections Library. T.P. Thompson's book collections are the foundation of the Hoole Library's rare books collections. And his papers are an incredible collection of materials that relate to his collections, his civic and business life, and his deep love for the city of New Orleans.

To learn more about T.P. Thompson, stay tuned for Exhibit Mashup No. 2! (Hint No. 2) And have a very happy St. Patrick's Day and a very safe and happy spring break to those who are lucky enough to get one!

Turning Japanese: How Winnifred Eaton became Onoto Watanna in Victorian America

Join us Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at the Hoole Special Collections Library, 2nd Floor Mary Harmon Bryant Hall at 4:30 pm for a lecture by Dr. Edward Tang, Associate Professor of American Studies, The University of Alabama. [flier for event here]

His talk, Turning Japanese: How Winnifred Eaton became Onoto Watanna in Victorian America explores the complicated life of Winnifred Eaton (1879-1954), one of the first known writers of Asian descent to be published in America. She wrote several popular novels set in Japan, yet she tried to hide her own ethnic identity – she was born in Canada to an English father and Chinese mother who had been adopted by missionaries. Eaton published under the Japanese pen name -- Onoto Watanna.

Many of Eaton’s novels revolve around romances between American men and Japanese women. In Me, A Book of Remembrance, which was published anonymously, she wrote a thinly veiled autobiography in which she discussed her work as a writer but avoided mentioning her half-Chinese background.

“Eaton’s identity as a writer relied on cultural borrowings and blurrings,” Tang said. “By assuming the identity of a Japanese woman, she bowed to market demands for things Japanese but also challenged distinct racial or ethnic categories that many people at the turn of the century assumed to be fixed and stable.”

The lecture is in conjunction with an exhibit of books by Eaton/Watanna from the Hoole Special Collections Library and the 2008 Sakura Festival at UA and in Tuscaloosa. The books on exhibit are from the Richard Minsky Collection at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, and from a gift from Dr. John Crowley. Some of Eaton/Watanna's works are featured in the UA Libraries collaborative digital project, Publishers' Bindings Online, 1815-1930: The Art of Books.

It was in Chicago that Eaton/Watanna published her first novel, Mrs. Nume of Japan (1899), which told the story of a romance involving two couples, one American and one Japanese, who switch partners during a series of romantic and tragic encounters. It was an immediate success. From then on she published almost a novel a year. Moving to New York she wrote her next novel, A Japanese Nightingale in 1901. It was translated into many languages and was even made into a Broadway play and film (1919). She lived in New York until 1917. During that time, she married and divorced Bertrand Babcock with whom she had four children. She had much financial and writing success. In 1910, she wrote the bestseller Tama, which is shown here.

This lecture is part of the Sakura Festival in Tuscaloosa and The University of Alabama. A reception will follow. This event, is of course free and open to the public.

Exhibit Mashups @ Hoole: Bringing things together in wild and wonderful ways!

Exhibit Mashup No. 1, Dickens meets Goetzel meets the WPA is about to come down! Come see it at Hoole Special Collections Library lobby before Friday, March 14. After spring break, the new Exhibit Mashup No. 2 will open.

Want a hint about what's coming next?

Here it is! This exhibit will open the first week in April in the lobby of the Hoole Special Collections Library.