ArchiTreats

Join us for a ‘Bonus' ArchiTreats: Food for Thought panel discussion on Stealth Reconstruction: The Untold Story of Racial Politics in Recent Southern History. This was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History October 14, 2010. Most Americans know the basic facts and events of the modern civil rights movement, but few have a sense of how the civil rights movement actually played out in southern politics over the remainder of the twentieth century. Glen Browder's and Artemesia Stanberry's book, Stealth Reconstruction, explores how white politicians and black activists worked together quietly, practically, and bi-racially to change the South from the 1970s through the 1990s. The book features prominent Alabama political players of the past and present - including Richard Arrington, Fred Gray, Jerome Gray, Howell Heflin, Paul Hubbert, Joe Reed, and George Wallace - and includes surprising revelations about racial politics during that era. In this ArchiTreats program, a panel of Alabamians discuss this process of political change and examine how Alabama got from the continuous turmoil of the mid-twentieth century to biracial politics in the twenty-first century. In addition to co-authors Browder and Stanberry, the panel participants were moderator Tim Lennox (WAKA-TV broadcast journalist), Dr. Sharron Herron (Alabama State University political scientist), Markeshia Ricks (State Government reporter for Montgomery Advertiser), and Dr. Bill Stewart (Professor Emeritus in political science from the University of Alabama).

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought continues another year of informative talks on Alabama history at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Join us as R. Volney Riser presents Montgomery’s U.S. District Court: A History. In his presentation Riser will explore the district court from its earliest days as the United States Court for the Tombigbee District of the Mississippi Territory through the 1940s and the earliest days of the modern civil rights movement. He will visit the personalities of some of the judges, including Harry Toulmin (the man who arraigned Vice‐president Aaron Burr for treason), Richard Busteed (the carpetbagger judge who was widely considered to be the most corrupt man in Alabama), former governor Thomas Goode Jones (who, as judge, aided an attack on the 1901 Alabama Constitution), and Charles Brents Kennamer (the north Alabama Republican who quietly presided over some of the eent). arliest courtroom skirmishes of the mid‐twentieth century civil rights movement. Dr. R. Volney “Rob” Riser is Assistant Professor of History and Co‐chair of the Department of History and Social Sciences at the University of West Alabama. He has authored two books: Defying Disfranchisement: Black Voting Rights Activism in the Jim Crow South, 18901908 and A Goodly Heritage, a History of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. He is currently working on his third and fourth books: The Litigious Mr. Washington: Booker T. Washington’s Legal Battle Against Jim Crow and Politics, Popular Constitutionalism, and Disfranchisement. He also has published articles in the Southern Historian, Alabama Law Review, and the American Journal of Legal History. ArchiTreats: Food for Thought lecture series is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353‐4726.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought continues another year of informative talks on Alabama history at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Join us as Mary Spanos presents Southeastern Indian Textiles from the Prehistoric Period to Removal. The textile history of the Southeast offers a complex and fascinating story that is unique among prehistoric cultures. Eight thousand years ago, Paleo-Indians left impressions of woven materials in clay-floor surfaces in Dust Cave in north Alabama. Southeast Indians in the Archaic era wrapped their dead in cloth before burying them in a bog in Florida. Two thousand years ago Woodland-era Indians, near present-day Fort Payne, covered their pottery with designs made by rolling cord-wrapped sticks in the soft clay or pre-fired pots. Five hundred years ago, Mississippian Indians left behind textile artifacts that included garments, bags, footwear, and images of textiles on pottery and copper ceremonial objects. The arrival of European settlers had a tremendous effect on the textile traditions of the Southeast Indians as cloth and clothing were very popular trade items between the indigenous population and the early settlers. By the 1830s, just prior to their removal from the Southeast, Indians were wearing traditional handmade textile accessories with their newly traded European clothing and were assembling cotton cloth factories to gin, spin, and weave the cotton they had begun to raise. An important textile artifact of that era, Osceola’s Garter, is part of the permanent collection at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Mary Spanos received an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Alabama. Her research focuses on the prehistoric and early historic textiles of the Southeastern region of North America and includes the technology and traditions of native societies and European settlers. She is currently responsible for the research, design, and production of the prehistoric and early historic costumes for the new archaeology museum under construction on the campus of the University of South Alabama. Prior to her research on prehistoric textiles, she was the associate editor and a frequent contributor to Spin-Off, a national magazine for hand-spinners. ArchiTreats: Food for Thought lecture series is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be prolabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353‐4726.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought offers informative talks on Alabama history at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Join us as Joe L . Reed presents Alabama State University Student Sit-In Protests of 1960. On February 1, 1960 four black students at North Carolina A&T University went to the F.W. Woolworth store to order food and decided to ‘sit down’ and eat rather that stand up. This decision to ‘sit down’ sparked a massive new movement in support of civil and economic rights . For the first time, students made an independent decision, on their own, to actively oppose segregation. Soon the movement spread to Montgomery where Alabama State U niversity became the focal point of the entire ‘sit‐in’ movement in Alabama. Joe L. Reed was born in Conecuh County where he attended public schools. He served a tour of duty in the U.S. Army in Korea. A graduate of Alabama State University (ASU), Reed was president of the junior class and president of the student body. While a student there, he was an organizer of the ‘sit‐in’ movement in Montgomery, and a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He received a master’s degree in Political Science from Case Western Reserve University and an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from ASU. Reed has served numerous positions in the Democratic Party and as a Montgomery City Councilman for 24 years and is widely known as a champion for voting rights and equal representation. Currently, Reed serves as Associate Executive Secretary of the A labama Education Association. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more info rmation, call (334) 353‐4726. This program is part of the statewide Becoming Alabama initiative to commemorate three landmark events in the development of Alabama: the Creek War of 1813‐1814, the Civil War and Emancipation, and t he Civil Rights Movement.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought begins another year of informative talks on Alabama history at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Join us as George Shorter presents Old St. Stephens: Where Alabama Began. Located on the Tombigbee River in southwest Alabama, Old St. Stephens is one of the most important historical and archaeological sites in the state. During a brief three decades, from the 1790s to its decline in the 1820s, St. Stephens was the site of a Spanish fort, an American fort and trading post, and the Alabama Territorial capital, as well as the place w here the legislature met when Alabama became a state. The Alabama Department of Tourism has designated 2010 as the Year of Alabama Small Towns and Downtowns. This program will explore the history of one of Alabama’s earliest towns ‐ Old St. Stephens, Where Alabama Began. George Shorter received Landscape Architecture and Anthropology degrees from LSU. Since 1995 he has worked as a Research Associate at the Center for Archaeological Studies at the University of South Alabama. His research focuses on colonial occupations and early settlement during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and includes projects at Old Mobile (1702‐1711), Port Dauphin Village (1702‐1720s), the French stockade on Dauphin Island (1702‐1718), and various other French colonial sites in the Mobile area. He also recently completed two years of research at Fort Morgan. For the past twelve years he has dire cted archaeological projects at Old St. Stephens. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353‐4726.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought continues another year of informative talks on Alabama history at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Join us as Billy J. Singleton presents A Strange New Bird: The Airplane Comes to Alabama. The first century of powered flight in Alabama began in February 1910 with the arrival of Wilbur Wright in the capital city of Montgomery. In search of a suitable location to establish a spring training camp for student aviators, Wright selected Montgomery as the site of the nation’s first civilian pilot training school because of the region’s genial climate and suitable grounds. The establishment of the Wright flying school marked the beginning of a remarkable aviation heritage in Montgomery, a legacy further enhanced by the evolution of military aviation on the former site of the flying school of the Wright Brothers. The same factors that attracted the Wrights to Montgomery made the area an ideal location for the establishment of military flight training and aerospace education programs, and formed the foundation of the first century of powered flight in Alabama. Billy Singleton has been involved in the aviation industry for more than three decades. Recently retired as a pilot for a major airline, he continues to fly as a corporate pilot based in Birmingham. A native of Alabama, Singleton serves as chairman of the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame, vice-chairman of the Wright Brothers / Maxwell Field Museum project, and member of the Board of Directors of the Southern Museum of Flight. He received a bachelor’s degree from Troy State University and a Master of Aeronautical Science degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He is the author of Images of Aviation: Montgomery Aviation and num erous articles relating to aviation history and safety. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353‐4726.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us as Wayne Flynt presents Reflections on My Life in Alabama History. This presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and His tory. Wayne Flynt perhaps is Alabama’s best‐known living historian. While many people know him through his teaching and writing, few are aware that he was a minister before he became a historian. Living in Alabama for more than half of the twentieth century, Flynt viewed and studied events through a ‘double vision’ of historian and minister. In this presentation, Flynt will reflect upon and suggest an ethical vision for the long sweep of Alabama history. He will examine how the state failed to fulfill its own moral vision, and how that failure crippled the state. At the same time he will suggest positive aspects of the e. state, focusing on its attachment to tradition, community, family, honor, and endurance. Wayne Flynt has lived in Alabama most of his life, growing up in Birmingham, Dothan and Anniston. He holds degrees from Samford University (formerly Howard College) and Florida State University. Flynt is Professor Emeritus, having served as chairman of the History Department at Auburn University. He is the author of eleven books, including Alabama in the Twentieth Century and the Pulitzer Prize‐nominated Poor but Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites. He is co‐author of Alabama: A History of a Deep South State, which also was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He also serves as the editor‐in‐chief of the o nline Encyclopedia of Alabama. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353‐4726.

Join us as the South’s most beloved storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham, shares highlights from her new memoir Spit, Scarey Ann, and Sweat Bees: One Thing Leads to Another. This ‘Bonus’ ArchiTreats: Food for Thought presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Mrs. Windham’s newest book takes us back to rural Thomasville, Alabama, where the author lived. She gives a snapshot of her growing up years, and presents stories about family members and friends, and favorite pastimes. Spit, Scarey Ann, and Sweat Bees offers a picture of domestic life in small town Alabama in the 1920s and ’30s. Kathryn Tucker Windham was one of the first women daily newspaper reporters in Alabama. Today, she is one of America’s best-known storytellers, performing at storytelling and literary festivals nationally, and also a featured commentator on National Public Radio. She has written more than two dozen books, including Jeffrey’s Favorite 13 Ghost Stories (a compilation of her favorite Jeffrey stories) and her classic Alabama, One Big Front Porch. This ‘Bonus’ ArchiTreats presentation is in addition to the regular series of third-Thursday free lectures presented by the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353-4712.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us as Wayne Flynt presents Reflections on My Life in Alabama History. This presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and His tory. Wayne Flynt perhaps is Alabama’s best‐known living historian. While many people know him through his teaching and writing, few are aware that he was a minister before he became a historian. Living in Alabama for more than half of the twentieth century, Flynt viewed and studied events through a ‘double vision’ of historian and minister. In this presentation, Flynt will reflect upon and suggest an ethical vision for the long sweep of Alabama history. He will examine how the state failed to fulfill its own moral vision, and how that failure crippled the state. At the same time he will suggest positive aspects of the e. state, focusing on its attachment to tradition, community, family, honor, and endurance. Wayne Flynt has lived in Alabama most of his life, growing up in Birmingham, Dothan and Anniston. He holds degrees from Samford University (formerly Howard College) and Florida State University. Flynt is Professor Emeritus, having served as chairman of the History Department at Auburn University. He is the author of eleven books, including Alabama in the Twentieth Century and the Pulitzer Prize‐nominated Poor but Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites. He is co‐author of Alabama: A History of a Deep South State, which also was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He also serves as the editor‐in‐chief of the o nline Encyclopedia of Alabama. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353‐4726.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us as Harvey H. Jackson presents Modern Alabama. This presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. How do you define “Modern Alabama?” Is it just a slice of time – 1945 to the present – in which Alabama became something it wasn’t before? Will a comparison of then (pre-1945) and since, really define us as “modern?” Or should we be measured against some abstract concept of modernity, some scholarly checklist of what a state must and must not be and do to be “modern?” In his talk, Jackson will compare us to what we used to be, measure us against what “smart folks” say a state must be to be modern, and reach some sort of a conclusion about what we are today. Harvey H. (Hardy) Jackson, III grew up in Grove Hill, Alabama where he attended local public schools. He is a graduate of Marion Military Institute, Birmingham Southern College, the University of Alabama, and the University of Georgia. He has taught at colleges and universities in Florida and Georgia, and is currently Jacksonville State University Professor and Eminent Scholar in History. Jackson is the author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven books on various aspects of southern history. His most recent book, Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State, won the Alabama Historical Association C. J. Coley Award. He is also working on a history of the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico since World War II, tentatively entitled “The Rise and Decline of the ‘Redneck Riviera.’” This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353-4712.

The South’s New Racial Politics: Inside the Race Game of Southern History explores how blacks and whites in today’s South engage in the political process. Based on his own experiences and careful study, Glen Browder provides an analysis of biracial leadership in the modern-day South. Dr. Glen Browder is professor emeritus of American Democracy at Jacksonville State University in Alabama. He served as U.S. congressman, Alabama secretary of state, and Alabama legislator. This ‘Bonus’ ArchiTreats presentation was in addition to the regular series of third-Thursday free lectures presented by the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us as Odessa Woolfolk presents The Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. This presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Alabama, the ‘Cradle of the Confederacy,’ was the setting for many of the most nationally significant battles of the Civil Rights Movement. The events of that era were initiated by ordinary people with uncommon courage. This presentation will highlight the mass activism which occurred in local communities around the state, and the importance of leaders and footsoldiers. Odessa Woolfolk grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. She received a BA in history from Talladega College and a MA in Urban Studies from Occidental College in California and she was a National Urban Fellow at Yale University. Her professional career includes high school and college teaching, as well as public administration in New York and Washington, D.C. She served in various capacities at the University of Alabama for over 20 years. She is the Founding President and Chairman Emeritus of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353-4712.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us as Leah Rawls Atkins presents Shaking the Foundations: Alabama in the 1930s and 1940s. This presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The Great Depression and World War II were watershed years for the state of Alabama. From the poverty and despair of the most severe economic depression in American history, the state began to emerge from the hard times to prosper from the billion-dollar economic development that poured into Alabama to finance defense and, later, war industries and military bases. Alabama took a leadership role in preparing the nation for war and training and supplying troops. From air bases, such as Maxwell Field, to forts such as Fort McClellan, to military camps, such as Camp Rucker; to the steel mills of Birmingham and the Port of Mobile ship-building operations; to the men and women who volunteered; from the aluminum plants to the explosives plants, Alabama was a vital cog in the nation’s defense. The driving forces in these years shook the foundations of politics and society, forcing Alabama to face challenges in a new world. Dr. Leah Rawls Atkins retired in 1995 after a decade with Auburn University’s Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities, where she directed four major NEH-funded librarybased public programs: “The Civil War: Crossroads of Our Being,” “World War II: Home Front/ War Fronts,” “Reading Our Lives: Southern Autobiography,” and “Read Alabama!” She taught history at Auburn and at Samford University. She was the secretary of the Alabama Historical Association (AHA) and has served as president of both the AHA and the Association of Alabama Historians. She was on the founding board of the Friends of the Archives, and she presently serves on the board of the Archives and History Foundation and the Cahaba Foundation, which is devoted to preserving the site of Alabama’s first capital. She has authored and a co-authored many works including Alabama: The History of a Deep South State and a fourth-grade Alabama history textbook. Her centennial history of the Alabama Power Company won AHA’s Sulzby Award in 2006. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353-4712.

Reconstruction in Alabama examines the post Civil War period in Alabama and addresses the role of the new Alabama Republican Party in creating a new Alabama. This dramatic period witnessed many changes in Alabama, including the emergence of black officeholders, black schools and churches, universal public education, and enlarged rights for women. Born in Montgomery, Richard Bailey holds degrees from Alabama State University and the Atlanta University, and received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in American History from Kansas State University. He has traveled and studied in Europe and Africa through a joint fellowship from Cleveland (Ohio) State University, the University of Massachusetts, and the American Forum for International Travel and Study. His columns have appeared in newspapers across the state and he is the author of They Too Call Alabama Home: African American Profiles, 1800-1999 (1999). The fifth edition of his book Neither Carpetbaggers Nor Scalawags: Black Officeholders during the Reconstruction of Alabama, 1867-1878 is forthcoming in 2009. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353-4712.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us as Marlene Rikard presents The New South: A Social and Economic View. This presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Post-Reconstruction Alabama experienced major social and economic changes in the era known as the “New South,” a term coined by Henry Grady of the Atlanta Constitution. Emancipation of the slaves and falling cotton prices brought changes in agriculture for plantation owners, African Americans, and poor whites. Although farming remained the occupation of most Alabamians, industrialization became the mantra of new leaders who promised recovery and prosperity though the development of the state’s natural resources in mining and manufacturing. But prosperity proved elusive and change brought conflict in the form of strikes, segregation and Jim Crow laws, political turmoil, and battles over temperance, woman’s suffrage, regulation of public utilities, and convict leasing. The era changed Alabama forever. Dr. Marlene Hunt Rikard recently retired as Professor of History at Samford University. Following graduation from Auburn University, she began her work life as a graphic designer before returning to school for graduate work in history and teaching for thirty-five years. She was also Director of Samford’s London Programs for over a decade. She has served as president of the Southern Association of Women Historians, the Alabama Association of Historians, and the Alabama Historical Association. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information, call (334) 353-4712.

Join us for "Lee's Alabama Boys at the Battle of Chancellorsville" presented by Ben H. Severance on Thursday, July 17th, at 12 noon at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Civil War historians generally agree that the Battle of Chancellorsville was General Robert E. Lee's military masterpiece. Between May 1-4, 1863, Lee outmaneuvered and soundly defeated Union forces. Contributing greatly to this outcome was the performance of a dozen regiments of Alabama infantrymen. From spearheading Stonewall Jackson's famous flank attack on May 2, to repelling a powerful Union counterattack on May 3, Alabamians played a major role in the battle's most critical phases. For Lee's "Alabama Boys", Chancellorsville was one of their finest moments. At the conclusion of the program, Archives Chief Curator Bob Bradley will show and discuss the flag of the 5th Alabama Infantry. The flag was captured during the Battle of Chancellorsville by the 111th Pennsylvania Volunteers. The flag was returned to the State of Alabama on March 25, 1905. Ben H. Severance is an assistant professor of history at Auburn University Montgomery. He received his Ph.D. in 2002 from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville). In 2005, he published Tennessee Radical Army: the State Guard and Its Role in Reconstruction, 1867-1869. He is currently working on a photographic history of Alabamians during the Civil War. This ArchiTreats presentation is one in a series of monthly third-Thursday free lectures presented by the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information call (334) 353-4712 or go to www.archives.alabama.gov.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought will celebrate the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us for the first in the series at noon on Thursday, January 15 as John Hall presents The Land of Alabama, a talk on the physical geography and geology of Alabama. This presentation will be held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The varied landscape of the state is often taken for granted, but the state is the result of a half- billion years of changes. It has endured continental collision, the up-thrusting of a mountain range, deposition of a giant coastal plain—twice—and the recent massive erosion of its valleys. It has survived near-misses by glaciers, strikes by giant meteorites and its mountains being worn flat and thrust up again. Parts of it have been sea bottoms full of giant reptiles while dinosaurs roamed its hills and valleys. All this before the Indians arrived and made it theirs. This presentation will introduce the physical landscape of the state and set the stage for the talks to come in the rest of the 2009 ArchiTreats series. John Hall is presently Curator of the new Black Belt Museum at the University of West Alabama. He is the retired chief naturalist at the University of Alabama - Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa and is a well-known Alabama naturalist and teacher. He specializes in the connections of science and history in Alabama. He is well-known for his programs on botanist William Bartram and the Sylacauga meteorite. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought will celebrate the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us for the second presentation in the series at noon on Thursday, February 19 as Craig Sheldon presents The First Alabamians. This presentation will be held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. For the past 12,000 years, the land now known as Alabama has been occupied by a series of Indian cultures. Beginning in the Pliestocene, or Late Ice Age, these groups evolved from small hunting and gathering societies in numerous small tribes to powerful agricultural chiefdoms supporting the mostly highly developed American Indian cultures north of Mexico. Severely devastated by early 16th century Spanish expeditions, Indian cultures reconstructed themselves to become the historic Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee Indians. This presentation briefly outlines the six major archaeological periods of Alabama prehistory and early history with emphasis upon some of the pivotal cultural innovations such as pottery, architecture, trade, agriculture, and ceremonialism. Born in Fairhope, Alabama, Craig Sheldon was educated at the University of Alabama and the University of Oregon where he received a Ph.D. in Anthropology. His fields of interest include archaeology, ethnohistory and architecture of the southeastern United States and Mesoamerica, and subsistence technology. He has concentrated upon the culture, history, archaeology, and architecture of the historic Creeks of Alabama and Georgia. He has presented over 30 papers and written over 20 articles, reports, and books. He is a member of the Alabama Historical Commission and the Council for Alabama Archaeology. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. While many think of antebellum Alabama as a state of magnolias and cotton plantations, that picture tells only part of the story. This program will show how three groups – white yeomen farmers, planter elites, and enslaved African Americans – together created the “cotton state” in Alabama. It will begin with a description of the differences between life in the yeoman sections of the state – the hill counties and the Wiregrass – and life in the plantation areas – the Black Belt and the Tennessee Valley. Each of these groups contributed to and shaped Alabama society and antebellum politics. The program will examine some of the “hot” political topics of the time – the state bank, congressional districting, taxation, state aid for railroads, and secession from the Union. Montgomery - native J. Mills Thornton is a professor of history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Professor Thornton received his bachelor’s degree with high honors from Princeton University in 1966, and his doctorate from Yale University in 1974, joining the faculty of the University of Michigan in that year. His book, Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 1800-1860, published in 1978, received the Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association. His second book, Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma, published in 2002, received the Liberty Legacy Prize of the Organization of American Historians. During 2007-08, he served as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge in England. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Mountains, rivers, and beaches challenge golfers who play Alabama's extensive trail of championship golf courses designed by eminent American golf course architect Robert Trent Jones, Sr. Join us as James R. Hansen presents “The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.” This ArchiTreats: Food for Thought presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Hansen will use a handsomely illustrated slide presentation to examine the major architectural design principles built into the Trail. This array of courses built since the late 1980s at 11 sites across the state are part of a massive financial investment and economic development project sponsored by the Retirement Systems of Alabama. Hansen will discuss the Trail courses as reflections of Jones' personal philosophy, and review the extraordinary golf courses that are as demanding as they are picturesque. Hansen is Professor of History and director of the Honors College at Auburn University. An expert in aerospace history for the past 26 years, he has written books and articles about the history of science and technology. His most recent book, First Man (Simon & Schuster, 2005), the first and only authorized biography of Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, has won numerous awards. Although most of his scholarly work has dealt with aerospace history, Hansen has also made his mark on the field of golf course history. He is currently working on the authorized biography of Robert Trent Jones, as well as a book on golf in Alabama. This ArchiTreats presentation is one in a series of monthly third-Thursday free lectures presented by the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The public is invited to bring a sack lunch and enjoy a bit of Alabama history. Coffee and tea will be provided by the Friends of the Alabama Archives. For more information call (334) 353-4712 or go to www.archives.alabama.gov.

In Val L. McGee's new book, Selma: A Novel of the Civil War, hope is born of tragedy. Join us as McGee presents, "Alabama's Civil War: Researching and Writing Selma: A Novel of the Civil War." This ‘Bonus' ArchiTreats: Food for Thought presentation was held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The drama in Selma: A Novel of the Civil War is taken primarily from the pages of Alabama newspapers published in the early 1860s, available only through the reference room of the Alabama Archives. Selma also reflects research in more than 250 slave cases decided by the Alabama Supreme Court from 1819 to 1865 as published in the state Supreme Court's Alabama Reports. In this presentation McGee will share the historical research which informs almost every page of this novel and he will discuss the process of writing a historical novel. Reviewer Dr. Norwood Kerr noted that, "Selma is especially vivid in describing the pre-war ‘Queen City of the Black Belt.'... Moderate unionists, fire-eating secessionists, and free and enslaved blacks - Judge McGee gives voice to all with both precision and compassion." Val McGee is a past president of the Alabama Historical Association and the Friends of the Alabama Archives He is the author of Claybank Memories: A History of Dale County, Alabama; The Origins of Fort Rucker; and A Cross Above: A History of the First United Methodist Church of Ozark, Alabama. He served as an infantry officer at Camp Rucker and in Europe during World War II. An attorney by profession, he was an Alabama trial judge from 1981 to 1993. Selma is his first novel. This ‘Bonus' ArchiTreats is presented by the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Join us for the third presentation in the series as Kathryn Braund presents The Creek Indians in Alabama. Once the newly established state of Alabama extended sovereignty over the tribe, it effectively ended the existence of the Creek Nation in their traditional homeland. In her talk, Dr. Braund will explore the main themes in Creek Indian history, including trade and land, diversity and division, and change and continuity. Drawing on both the written record and historical artifacts, Dr. Braund will explore the complex story of Alabama when it was owned and ruled by the Creek Indians. Dr. Kathryn Braund is Professor of History at Auburn University and has authored or edited four books relating to the southeastern Indians. Her first book, Deerskins and Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685–1815, was the first to extensively examine the Creek deerskin trade, especially the impact of commercial hunting on all aspects of Indian society. She has also written on William Bartram, an eighteenth-century botanist whose published account of his southern Travels is an American literary classic, and on James Adair, a deerskin trader whose account of his life among the southeastern Indians was published in London in 1775. Dr. Braund has also published scholarly articles on the southeastern Indians during the American Revolution, Creek gender and work roles, and race relations and slavery among the Indians. She also has contributed to several encyclopedias and reference works. Currently, she is researching the Creek War of 1813-1814. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

ArchiTreats: Food for Thought celebrates the Year of Alabama History through a series of sequential lectures in Alabama history by leading experts in the field. Enjoy this installment that was presented on Thursday, May 21 with Robert B. Bradley presenting The Civil War in Alabama. The Civil War in Alabama focuses upon the events and activities which took place within the state from secession until the final days of the war. According to Bradley, many of the most significant events which took place in Alabama are frequently treated as local history when, in fact, they were part of a much larger picture. The formation of the Confederate government, the decision to fire on Ft. Sumter, the occupation of north Alabama, Streight's raid, Rousseau's raid, the Selma manufacturing complex, and the campaign for Mobile are just a few of the topics examined in this program. Robert (Bob) Bradley is currently the Chief Curator at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. From 1974-1986, he was a historian with the National Park Service, specializing in the management, preservation, and interpretation of 18th- to mid 20th-century fortifications and military sites. Of his several assignments, his position as Chief Historian at Fort Sumter National Monument in Charleston, South Carolina was his favorite. From 1986-1988 Bradley was Historic Sites Administrator for the Alabama Historical Commission. Since coming to the Archives in 1988 he has been responsible for the preservation, documentation, and conservation of the Department's collection of nearly a half-million artifacts. He is the author of Documenting the Civil War Period Flag Collection at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, which is available on the Department's web-site, and he has contributed to a wide variety of Civil War publications. He is also very active in Civil War battlefield preservation. This ArchiTreats presentation is made possible by the Friends of the Alabama Archives and a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.