And Bring
Your Fiddle! The Fiddler in Alabama Community Life. Anatomical Manikins
and Diagnostic Dolls. Joseph Glover Baldwin: Antebellum Wit. Read
article excerpts below.

And
Bring Your Fiddle: The Fiddler in Alabama Community Life
By Joyce Cauthen
In rural parts of Alabama, where there were no paved roads or electricity, local
communities looked to themselves for entertainment. Part of this tradition was
the fiddler, who performed to anxious audiences with his own style and finesse.Joyce
Cauthen tells the stories of these colorful musicians as they performed at everything
from fiddler conventions to political activities to birthday parties across the
state. Fiddling was never the property of one social class, personality type,
or geographical area, and Cauthen profiles fiddlers who were old, young, black,
white, rich, poor, but who all had an impact on Alabama’s musical history.
Alabama
Collections: Anatomical Manikins and Diagnostic Dolls
By Mary Claire Britt Owen
Within Reynolds Historical Library at the University of Alabama at Birmingham
lies a collection of intricately carved ivory figurines known as anatomical manikins.
These detailed dolls were used during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
as instructional tools for students of anatomy. Although European craftsman in
Italy, France, and Germany made some of the dolls, very little is known about
the origin or the intended use of the manikin.Mary Owen introduces readers to
these manikins and to another type of doll in the library’s collection:
Chinese diagnostic dolls or “Doctor’s Ladies.” In Chinese culture,
modesty prevented a woman from talking about her body. With the doll, a lady
could mark on the body her place of discomfort. Although both anatomic manikins
and diagnostic dolls are very rare today, the figurines offer insight into historic
methods of teaching medicine and give current physicians a glimpse at the past.
Joseph
Glover Baldwin: Antebellum Wit
By
Eugene Current-Garcia
Joseph Glover Baldwin secured his place in Alabama literary history when his
book, The Flush Times of Mississippi and Alabama: A Series of Sketches, was
published in 1853. Through Baldwin’s literary humor, he satirized the old
southwestern frontier with exaggerations of characters and actions. Although
his true passion was writing, Baldwin trained in both journalism and law and
made his living as a lawyer. Lawyers were a hot commodity in the booming southern
frontier, dealing with bank robberies, land disputes, and other assorted felonies,
and Baldwin soon reaped the benefits of his profession. Eugene Current-Garcia
explores Baldwin’s literary triumphs and failures, as well as his friendships
with Alabama’s two other great wits: Johnson James Hooper and John Gorman
Barr. Baldwin longed to be remembered as a social historian and a political theorist,
but his dreams were cut short when he died suddenly in 1864. Despite his abrupt
end, Baldwin left Alabama with the legacy of humor and the ability to laugh at
itself.
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