Alabama Illustrated , livre ebook

ALABAMA ILLUSTRATED
ENGRAVINGS FROM 19TH CENTURY NEWSPAPERS
T EXT AND C APTIONS BY J AMES L. B AGGETT AND K ELSEY S COUTEN B ATES I MAGES FROM THE B IRMINGHAM P UBLIC L IBRARY A RCHIVES
The Market, Mobile, Alabama Harper s Weekly , July 16, 1887 Artist: Charles Graham
ALABAMA ILLUSTRATED
ENGRAVINGS FROM 19TH CENTURY NEWSPAPERS
Turner Publishing Company
200 4th Avenue North Suite 950
Nashville, Tennessee 37219
(615) 255-2665
www.turnerpublishing.com
Alabama Illustrated: Engravings from 19th Century Newspapers
Copyright 2009 Turner Publishing Company
All rights reserved.
This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009922662
ISBN-13: 978-1-59652-536-8
Printed in China
09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16-0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C ONTENTS
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I NTRODUCTION
T HE S ECEDING A LABAMA D ELEGATION IN C ONGRESS
P ORTRAIT OF H ON . W ILLIAM R. K ING , V ICE P RESIDENT OF THE U NITED S TATES
R ESIDENCE OF THE L ATE V ICE P RESIDENT K ING -H IS D EATH P LACE
S CENE ON THE A LABAMA R IVER , L OADING C OTTON
T HE T ILT
T HE A MPHITHEATRE
S TATE H OUSE W HERE THE C ONGRESS OF THE S OUTHERN C ONFEDERACY M EETS
I NAUGURATION OF P RESIDENT J EFFERSON D AVIS
C OTTON -S HOOT ON THE A LABAMA AND S HOOTING C OTTON -B ALES
C ITY OF M ONTGOMERY , A LABAMA
T HE C ABINET OF THE C ONFEDERATE S TATES AT M ONTGOMERY
T HE W HITE H OUSE AT M ONTGOMERY -R ENT $5000 A Y EAR
U NION S OUTHERN M EN W ELCOMING O UR G UN -B OATS IN A LABAMA
T HE C ITY OF H UNTSVILLE , A LABAMA
S EARCHING FOR R EBELS IN A C AVE IN A LABAMA
T HE M URDER OF G ENERAL R OBERT L. M C OOK , N EAR S ALEM , A LABAMA
S TEVENSON H ELD BY U NION F ORCES AND N EGROES B UILDING S TOCKADES
T HE W AR IN A LABAMA -F ORT G RANT
S TEVENSON , A LABAMA
H UNTSVILLE , A LABAMA, FROM G ENERAL L OGAN S H EAD -Q UARTERS
O UR F LEET OFF M OBILE , V IEW OF M OBILE , G RANT S P ASS, AND F ORT M ORGAN
S OLDIERS B ALL AT H UNTSVILLE , A LABAMA -D ANCING THE V IRGINIA R EEL
F ORT M ORGAN AND THE R EBEL F LEET AND O FF M OBILE
T HE F EDERAL A RMY C ROSSING THE C OOSA R IVER
A LABAMIANS R ECEIVING R ATIONS
P ICTURES OF THE S OUTH -M AGNOLIA G ROVE , ON THE S HELL R OAD AT M OBILE
A N I LLEGAL S TILL IN A LABAMA
V IEW OF THE T OMBIGBEE R IVER , A LABAMA
E MERSON C OLLEGE , M OBILE , A LABAMA
A PPROACH TO M ONTGOMERY , A LABAMA
A N IGHT D RILL ON THE L EVEE AT M OBILE , A LABAMA
M OBILE -T HE G ULF C ITY
S ZENE NAHE L EEDS , A LABAMA , WAHREND DES S TURMES AM 19, F EBRUAR 1884
B ERHERUNG DES S TURMES IN A LABAMA
T HE C AMP G ROUND , T HE G RAND R EVIEW , AND T HE P RIZE C OMPANY
T HE N EW B RIDGE OVER THE A LABAMA AT S ELMA
F IFTIETH A NNIVERSARY OF THE M ONTGOMERY T RUE B LUES
T HE R ECENT F LOODS IN THE A LABAMA R IVER -A F AMILY R EFUGE IN A T REE -T OP
B IRMINGHAM , A LABAMA -S CENE IN A R EAL E STATE E XCHANGE
T HE G REAT I NDUSTRY OF B IRMINGHAM , A LABAMA -A P IG I RON F URNACE
C HARCOAL B URNERS
C OKE O VENS
W HARF S CENE AT M OBILE , A LABAMA
M ONTGOMERY , A LABAMA
T HE A TTACK ON THE J AIL AT B IRMINGHAM , A LABAMA
A LABAMA -D ISASTROUS W RECK , N EAR B IRMINGHAM
B OOKER T. W ASHINGTON
N OTES ON THE E NGRAVINGS
S UGGESTIONS FOR A DDITIONAL R EADING
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
This volume, Alabama Illustrated: Engravings from 19th Century Newspapers , is the result of the cooperation and efforts of many individuals and organizations. It is with great thanks that we acknowledge the valuable contribution of the following for their generous support:
Don Veasey, Birmingham Public Library Archives
Yolanda Valentin, Birmingham Public Library Archives
Gigi Gowdy, Birmingham Public Library Archives
Sara Roberts Stokes, Birmingham Public Library
Graham Boettcher, Birmingham Museum of Art
Dan Brooks, Arlington Antebellum Home and Gardens
Frances Robb, Independent Scholar
Patti Olvey, Gorgas Library, University of Alabama
We also wish to acknowledge the continued support of the Birmingham Public Library Board:
Gwendolyn B. Welch, President
Nell Allen, Vice-President
Shanta Craig-Owens, Parliamentarian
E. Bryding Adams
Thomas J. Adams, Jr.
Gwendolyn R. Amamoo
Lillie M. H. Fincher
Anthony Johnson
Samuel A. Rumore, Jr.
Dora Sims
Jimmie S. Williams
And special thanks to Larry P. Langford, Mayor of Birmingham.

The Surface Cut at the Morris Iron Mine at Redding Near Birmingham, Alabama Harper s Weekly , September 27, 1890 Artist: unknown
I NTRODUCTION
In the nineteenth century, many Americans received news and learned about the world beyond their own hometowns by reading illustrated newspapers. Prior to the 1890s, the technology did not exist to economically publish photographs in newspapers, so some publishers employed artists to draw and engrave images of places, events, and people. Many of these engraved illustrations, which accompanied news stories, poems, and short fiction, are impressive for their detail and artistic quality.
From the 1850s to the 1890s, more than 250 engraved images of Alabama were published in national and international illustrated newspapers. This book contains more than 40 of those illustrations from five nineteenth-century newspapers: Harper s Weekly and Frank Leslie s Illustrated Newspaper , both published in New York; Ballou s Pictorial and Gleason s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion , both published in Boston; and The Illustrated London News , a British publication. Harper s and Frank Leslie s were the best-known and largest-circulating American papers. The papers competed with one another, and Frank Leslie boasted that he could publish an image of an event within two weeks of it happening.
The brief time between an event and the printing of an illustration required newspaper publishers to follow a multi-step process in creating the image. For this reason, newspaper engravings provide a valuable but imperfect view of the past. An artist in the field, sometimes visiting a city or town or following an army, would make a preliminary sketch and often add notes. Sometimes that artist would finish the drawing later from notes or memory, or it was completed by a different artist at the newspaper s offices. Other engravings were copied faithfully from photographs, while some were drawn from the artist s imagination based on eyewitness accounts or news reports.
Once the paper sketch was completed, another artist then copied the paper drawing in reverse onto an engraving plate, usually made of wood or copper. For wood engraving, artisans cut away the blank spaces with a knife or other tool, leaving a raised image. Wood plates worked well in the printing presses of the time, and one plate could be used to print thousands of images. For copper plates, an artist incised the image into the surface of the copper using a steel tool called a burin. For large or complex engravings, several engravers divided the printing block into sections with each working on a different part.
The images of Alabama included here are typical of those published for many places. They include portraits of political leaders, landscapes, cityscapes, and events such as storms, parades, sports, and work. Historians have noted a tendency among the nineteenth-century northeastern press to portray the South as backward, exotic, or at the least, not like the North.