Since the 1920s the Birmingham Public Library has collected material documenting the lives and careers of Birmingham authors and journalists and the activities of Birmingham literary organizations.

Akers, Arthur K.

Typescripts, 1929 and 1934

(AR 1887)

Arthur K. Akers was a Birmingham resident and writer who published more than 30 short stories in various magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post and Redbook. This collection contains typescripts with some handwritten notes for two Akers stories, “Business and Domestic Entanglements” and “Recovery, Here We Come” (published in Redbook, March 1934). These are comic stories typical of the era, employing characters that are caricatures of African American Southerners and exaggerated black dialect.

Size: 1 box

Alabama Press Association

Scrapbook, 1939-1940

(AR 1294)

The Editors and Publishers Association of the State of Alabama was established n 1872 in Montgomery. The group, which changed its name to the Alabama Press Association in 1891, was organized to support and to improve newspapers in Alabama and to promote tourism and trade in the state. This oversize scrapbook contains mostly newspaper clippings from over fifty Alabama newspapers in 1939 and 1940 compiled by APA Field Manager Doyle Buckles. The clippings cover the activities of the association including participation in National Newspaper Week, the selection of Buckles to be the field manager, plans for the 70th annual convention, and details of a state-wide tour of Alabama editors that resulted in a media campaign calling Alabama the "nation's number one economic opportunity" (rather than its number one economic problem). Buckles regularly sent memos to APA members suggesting ways to increase advertising revenue and circulation and offering suggestions for ad copy and layout. These memos and examples of when the suggestions were used in newspapers are in the second half of the scrapbook. Some correspondence between Buckles and newspaper editors is included. The scrapbook also contains a few brochures published by the Alabama Power Company and the Alabama State Chamber of Commerce promoting industrial development and tourism in the state.

Size: 1 volume

Alabama Writers’ Conclave

Records and Publications, 1923-1975

(AR 1396)

The Alabama Writer's Conclave was founded in 1923 at Alabama College in Montevallo as a women's club, but it quickly opened the membership to include men and "all people in Alabama interested in writing." By 1930 the Conclave was composed of Alabama historians, playwrights, fiction writers, poets, and newspaper writers. The purpose of the conclave is to promote fellowship, to provide an opportunity for improvement of craft, and to support Alabama writers. The Conclave meets for four days every summer, usually at the University of Montevallo, although the conference has been held at Samford University and, during the years of the Second World War, at the Birmingham Public Library. In 1931 the Alabama State Legislature created the honorary office of Poet Laureate of Alabama. Poet laureates are designated by the Alabama Writer's Conclave. The collection is largely comprised of Conclave programs from 1923 to 1975 with some missing. Also included are a brief history of the AWC and other literary clubs in Alabama, the constitution and by-laws of the AWC, a roster of members, and a bulletin from 1962.

Size: 1 box

Armes Family

Papers, 1904-1958

(AR 1199)

Correspondence, financial records, writings and an unidentified diary. The bulk of the material relates to Edmund Campion Armes, brother of author and historian Ethel Armes (The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama), and includes records from Armes’ years as an agent for Jemison-Seibels Insurance Company and as a major in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

Size: 1 box

Bethea, Jack

Papers, 1927 and undated

(AR 1756)

Jack Bethea was a Birmingham novelist and editor of the Birmingham Post newspaper. Bethea was born in Birmingham in 1892. He worked as a reporter for the Birmingham Age-Herald and as city editor for the Birmingham Ledger before joining the Post when the paper was established in 1921. Bethea was the author of four novels: Bed Rock (1924), The Deep Seam (1925), Honor Bound (1926) and Silver Fleece (1927). Much of his fiction was set in the industrial communities around Birmingham. Bethea committed suicide by hanging himself in a Birmingham hotel room in 1928. This collection contains a partial typescript for Bed Rock and a more complete typescript for Deep Seam. Both typescripts show the author’s handwritten corrections.

Size: 1 box

Birmingham Writer’s Club

Programs, 1915-1937

(AR 1397)

In September 1906, thirteen women organized the Birmingham Writers' Club, open to women who were either newspaper women or had written for publication in some form. The objectives of the club were to promote fellowship among writers and to encourage literary work. After three years the club became inactive. It was reorganized in 1915 and met regularly until at least 1937. This collection contains programs for 1915/16, 1923/24 - 1927/28, 1929/30-1936/37. Each program provides a membership list and a meeting schedule for the upcoming year. Schedules include locations, speakers, and topics for each meeting.

Size: 1 box

Brooks, Charles

Birmingham News Editorial Cartoons, 1959-1985

(AR 1602)

Charles Brooks served as editorial cartoonist for the Birmingham News from 1948 until his retirement in 1985. Born in Andalusia, Alabama, Brooks enrolled at Birmingham-Southern College in 1939, applying $200 won in an art contest toward his tuition. He studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts with Chicago Daily News cartoonist Vaughn Shoemaker, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. In 1948 he returned to Alabama and was hired by the Birmingham News as the paper’s first editorial cartoonist. Brooks served as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (1969-1970) and president of the Birmingham Press Club (1968-1969). He continues to edit Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, an annual publication. His cartoons have been included in more than 50 books, including encyclopedias and textbooks and exhibited at the Birmingham Public Library, the White House, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Smithsonian Institution. This collection contains original pencil and ink drawings of cartoons, most on 11 inch by 7 inch drawing paper. A chronological guide and a subject guide to the cartoons are available in the Archives.

Size: 3,800 cartoons

Childers, James Saxon

Papers, 1918-1965

(AR 1120)

Writer and publisher James Saxon Childers was born in Norwood, Alabama in 1899. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1920 and attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. From 1925 to 1942 he was a professor of literature and creative writing at Birmingham-Southern College as well as a columnist and book reviewer for the Birmingham News. In 1942 Childers married Maurine White and soon left Birmingham to serve as an Air Force intelligence officer in World War II. Upon his return from the war he and Maurine lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1947-1951) and Atlanta, Georgia. He was an editor at the Atlanta Journal (1951-1957); a lecturer for the U.S. Department of State in the Far and Middle East (1958-1959); and president of Tupper and Love book publishers after 1959. Childers authored more than twenty books including A Novel About a White Man and a Black Man in the Deep South (Farrar and Rinehart, 1936), the biography Erskine Ramsay, His Life and Achievements (Cartwright and Ewing, 1942), the travel book Sailing South American Skies (Farrar and Rinehart, 1936), and The Nation on the Flying Trapeze: The United States as the People of the East See Us (David McKay Company, 1960). James Saxon Childers died in Atlanta in 1965. The papers include family photographs, college memorabilia, articles by and about Childers and articles of interest to him, personal and business correspondence, financial records, copies of most of the books authored by Childers, galley and page proofs for The Nation on the Flying Trapeeze, and ephemera from Childers’ travels abroad. The correspondence includes letters from Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry S. Truman, and Flannery O’Connor.

Size: 7 boxes

City Paper Company

Records, 1897-1935

(AR 109)

City Paper Company was founded in 1897 by German immigrants E. Lesser and Louis Braun. From 1895 to 1913, City Paper published Birmingham's longest lived German language newspaper The Birmingham Courier. This collection includes probate court records establishing City Paper, minutes of the board meetings, stock certificates, some correspondence, and other documents from the company's early years.

Size: 1 reel microfilm

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