Yea, Alabama! A Peek into the Past of One of the Most Storied Universities in the Nation
Yea, Alabama! A Peek into the Past of One of the Most Storied Universities in the Nation

Author: David M. Battles

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2016-05-11

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 1443894311

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This Yea, Alabama historical series explores the narrative of the storied University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the United States, in a way not previously published. Years of research into primary documents, many only recently discovered or rediscovered, bring to the fore many new facts, new stories, new characters, new revelations, and new photos that offer the fullest picture of the University yet. This history of bringing higher education to what was just a few years earlier the American western frontier is filled with enthralling human interest stories that, just in volume one (1819–1871), include: • dramatic intergenerational rivalries (wilderness-influenced, wealthy young men challenging professors and presidents whom the students consider to be of a lower social class) that on more than one occasion force the University to close its doors and try again; • political power and intrigue that often bring the school to its knees; • town versus gown issues that sometimes explode onto the pages of history; • a fateful decision that brings the University into the crosshairs of the Union, ultimately resulting in the near total destruction of the institution; • the University’s multiyear post-bellum effort to reopen that witnesses major confrontations between the people of Alabama and the radical state government; • the never-before-told story of the University of Alabama, African Americans, and slavery.

Alabama's Frontiers and the Rise of the Old South
Alabama's Frontiers and the Rise of the Old South

Author: Daniel Dupre

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2017-11-30

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0253031532

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“A well-written, nicely comprehensive, and inclusive social history of Alabama before and immediately after statehood.”—H-AmIndian Alabama endured warfare, slave trading, squatting, and speculating on its path to becoming America’s twenty-second state, and Daniel S. Dupre brings its captivating frontier history to life in Alabama’s Frontiers and the Rise of the Old South. Dupre’s vivid narrative begins when Hernando de Soto first led hundreds of armed Europeans into the region during the fall of 1540. Although this early invasion was defeated, Spain, France, and England would each vie for control over the area’s natural resources, struggling to conquer it with the same intensity and ferocity that the Native Americans showed in defending their homeland. Although early frontiersmen and Native Americans eventually established an uneasy truce, the region spiraled back into war in the nineteenth century, as the newly formed American nation demanded more and more land for settlers. Dupre captures the riveting saga of the forgotten struggles and savagery in Alabama’s—and America’s—frontier days. “An introduction to the interaction of European powers, the United States, and Indian tribes in Alabama and the Southeast.”—Western Historical Quarterly

John McKinley and the Antebellum Supreme Court
John McKinley and the Antebellum Supreme Court

Author: Steven P. Brown

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2012-10-12

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0817317716

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Provides a penetrating analysis of US Supreme Court justice John McKinley Steven P. Brown rescues from obscurity John McKinley, one of the three Alabama justices, along with John Archibald Campbell and Hugo Black, who have served on the US Supreme Court. A native Kentuckian who moved in 1819 to northern Alabama as a land speculator and lawyer, McKinley was elected to the state legislature three times and became first a senator and then a representative in the US Congress before being elevated to the Supreme Court in 1837. He spent his first five years on the court presiding over the newly created Ninth Circuit, which covered Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. His was not only the newest circuit, encompassing a region that, because of its recent settlement, included a huge number of legal claims related to property, but it was also the largest, the furthest from Washington, DC, and by far the most difficult to traverse. While this is a thorough biography of McKinley’s life, it also details early Alabama state politics and provides one of the most exhaustive accounts available of the internal workings of the antebellum Supreme Court and the very real challenges that accompanied the now-abandoned practice of circuit riding. In providing the first in depth assessment of the life and Supreme Court career of Justice John McKinley, Brown has given us a compelling portrait of a man active in the leading financial, legal, and political circles of his day.