Faunsdale Plantation

Papers, 1805-1975

(AR 765)

In 1843 Thomas A. Harrison, a native of Virginia, traveled to Alabama accompanied by a party of slaves, and purchased the property in Marengo County that became Faunsdale Plantation. Harrison later sent for his new wife, Louisa Collins Harrison, a native of North Carolina. In 1844 the Harrisons had their only child, Louise Collins Harrison. Thomas A. Harrison died in 1857. Louisa managed Faunsdale and her late husband's estate until 1863 when she married William A. Stickney, a priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church and a native of Alabama. Stickney served in several parishes and ministered to the slaves and later freedmen at Faunsdale. Louisa died in 1896, William in 1907. The plantation remains in the family today. The collection contains extensive correspondence, diaries, photographs, financial records, slave records (including births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and harvest records) and other material documenting several generations of the family.

Size: 56 boxes

Freedom Quilting Bee

Office Files, 1966-1979

(AR 255)

The Freedom Quilting Bee was a cooperative begun in 1966 by a group of African American women in Wilcox County, Alabama. The cooperative produced quilts and other items that were sold in various stores nationwide and by direct mail. This collection includes correspondence and financial records.

Size: 2 boxes

Funeral Programs

Collection

(AR 1912)

The Archives collects funeral programs from Birmingham area families. These programs are an excellent source for biographical information, family histories and photographs.

Size: 500+ programs

Gee’s Bend Project

Papers and Photographs

(AR 398)

Situated within a deep bend of the Alabama River in Wilcox County, the African American community of Gee’s Bend remained unchanged and relatively free of outside influence for decades. Hoping to document this community’s history and way of life, in 1980 the Birmingham Public Library commissioned Alabama writer Kathryn Tucker Windham and photographer John Reese to interview and photograph residents of the Bend. In 1994 the library produced Looking Back at Gee’s Bend using photos selected by Reese. This collection contains photographs, oral history interviews and a narrative history of the community written by Windham.

Size: 21 boxes

Hanson, Bette Lee

Oral History Tapes and Photographic Slides

(AR 929)

The interviews in this collection were conducted by Bette Hanson. The interview subjects are Vera Foster, whose husband Dr. Luther Foster served as President of Tuskegee Institute beginning in 1941; Ida Kohlmeyer, a prominent New Orleans painter; and Dorah Sterne,a Birmingham resident and social activist.

Size: 1 box

Jackson, Emory O.

Letters to Anne Rutledge, 1940-1975

(AR 1460)

Anne Rutledge was a student of Jackson's at Westfield High School. They remained friends and corresponded with each other for 35 years. Rutledge earned degrees from Alabama State University, Tuskegee, and Alabama A&M and made her career as a teacher, including 19 years as a history and political science professor at A&M. She retired in 1986 and lives in Huntsville, Alabama. Rutledge has published several books of poetry including Double the Pleasure in 1988. These letters from Jackson address a variety of issues including Jackson's career and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and Rutledge's career as an artist and a teacher. The collection also includes a poem by Jackson called "I am the Negro Press" and a newspaper clipping on Rutledge.

Size: 1 box

Jackson, Emory O.

Papers, 1965-1975

(AR 70)

Emory Overton Jackson was born in Buena Vista, Georgia in 1908. His family moved to Birmingham in 1919, and Jackson attended Industrial High School (now Parker High School). After graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1932, Jackson taught at Carver High School in Dothan, Alabama, and at Westfield in Jefferson County. He served in World War II, and became the managing editor of the Birmingham World, Alabama's largest and oldest African-American newspaper, in 1941. He remained editor for the rest of his life. Jackson promoted voter registration, equal job opportunities and education for African Americans, and served on many boards and agencies, including Birmingham's Industrial Development Board. He was one of the founders of the Alabama Conference of NAACP Branches, and he served on the board of directors for the Fourth Avenue YMCA and the Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity. Jackson died in Birmingham on September 10, 1975. The bulk of this collection is made up of material related to Emory Jackson's death. The collection also includes some personal correspondence, awards, honors, citations, membership cards, college and fraternity material, photographs, and editorials from the Birmingham World. Significantly more material relating to Jackson is found in the collection Birmingham World Office Files (AR 1102).

Size: 3 boxes

J. Cunniff Public Relations

Records Relating to A.G. Gaston, 1979-1983 and undated

(AR 1426)

A.G. Gaston was a prominent African American businessman in Birmingham. Born in Demopolis, Alabama in 1892, the family relocated to Birmingham in 1905. Gaston served in the military during World War I and then worked in the mines of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. As a budding entrepreneur, Gaston sold lunches to fellow miners and then began offering burial insurance. His business holdings came to include the Smith and Gaston Funeral Home, Booker T. Washington Insurance Company and the Gaston Motel. Gaston was one of the business leaders who negotiated the end to civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham in 1963. This collection contains material relating to Gaston’s business activities and smaller amounts of material relating to his family. The bulk of the material relates to his radio station WENN.

Size: 2 boxes

Jefferson County, Ala. Board of Equalization

Appraisal Files, 1939-1977

(AR 270)

The Board of Equalization is the agency that appraises property in Jefferson County, Alabama for purposes of taxation. Established in 1938, the BOE maintains files on each piece of taxable property in the county. The appraisal files contain basic information on structures (such as whether the structure is wood frame or brick, the type of roofing, heating, plumbing, number of rooms, size of structure) and the accessed value of the property for various years (but not every year). The files usually include an exterior photograph of the façade of the structure and sometimes date the structure. The structures appraised include residences, commercial and industrial buildings, schools, and churches. Some files include references for deeds and mortgages. Structures built before 1938 are included if they were still standing at the time of the Board of Equalization's first appraisal (generally 1938 to 1940). Structures built after the mid 1970s are not included in these files. The files do not include interior photographs, floor plans or other architectural drawings, names of architects, or detailed information on owners or occupants of a structure. In some cases files for demolished structures were discarded by the Board of Equalization before these files were transferred to the Archives Department in 1981. The collection includes several thousand photographs showing African American homes, businesses, schools and churches.

Size: 1,500 boxes

Jefferson County, Ala. Judge of Probate

Marriage Licenses Record, Negro, 1882-1938

(AR 18)

This index, compiled by the Works Progress Administration, lists African American marriages in Jefferson County for the period 1882 to 1938. Marriages are indexed by the name of the bride and groom.

Size: 5 boxes

Lowe, J. L.

Photographs Documenting Birmingham’s Black Jazz Heritage

(AR 842)

This collection, compiled by Birmingham musician and educator J. L. Lowe, contains photographs of individuals, musical groups and some school groups. The collection also includes one interview and newspaper clippings.

Size: 120 photographs

Lowe, Sammy

Autobiography

(AR 1137)

This collection contains a rough draft of an autobiography written by Jazz musician Sammy Lowe.

Size: 1 box

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