Coeducation
in Alabama. Star Quilts of Nineteenth-century Alabama. The Killing
of Father Coyle. Confederate Military Maps. INDEX -- Issues 21-30. Read
article excerpts below.

Coeducation
in Alabama: “In Accord with Nature”
By Leah Rawls Atkins
A century ago, Alabama women finally won admission to the state’s universities.
At the time many feared that coeducation would never work. They claimed that
academic knowledge was unnecessary in the life of a southern woman and that a
college education would only make women “inferior housekeepers.” Others
claimed it would distract male students, lower the standards of the institution,
and ruin male camaraderie. Leah Rawls Atkins details the progressive leadership
of William LeRoy Broun, president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College
at Auburn, and the “relentless persistence” of Julia Tutwiler that
turned coeducation into a reality. In September 1892, the A. & M. College
opened its doors to its first three female students, and a year later two young
women were admitted to the University of Alabama. Although it took decades for
women to become fully integrated into campus life, they now represent almost
half of the student bodies at both Auburn University and the University of Alabama.
Star
Quilts of Nineteenth Century Alabama
By Mary Elizabeth Johnson Huff
Ever since Sara Sedgewick Everett, wife of the governor of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony stitched one of the first quilts in North America in 1704, thousands
of quilts have been completed for reasons ranging from necessity to artistic
expression and in all manner of shapes, sizes, and patterns. The star pattern,
in particular, has dominated the work of American quiltmakers for nearly three
centuries, largely because of its adaptability and the design’s use of
various-sized scrap pieces of fabric. And it is through this versatile pattern
that Alabama women have found means of expressing their own lively concepts of
color and design. As quiltmaking flourished across Alabama, local quiltmakers
made their share of star quilts in patterns ranging from Feathered Stars to the
Star of Bethlehem.
The
Killing of Father Coyle: Private Tragedy, Public Shame
By Paul M. Pruitt, Jr.
Anti-Catholic fanaticism, a thriving Ku Klux Klan, and the murder of a Catholic
priest brought Birmingham into the nation’s spotlight in 1921. Father James
E. Coyle, pastor of St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Birmingham, was reading
and greeting passersby on his front porch on the evening of August 11, 1921.
One of the people he greeted was Edwin Stephenson, a Methodist parson and supporter
of the Ku Klux Klan who viewed the Catholic Church as a treasonous organization.
Stephenson fired three rounds from his pistol and shot the priest in the head.
By 8 o’clock that evening, Father Coyle was dead. The priest’s death
and the ensuing trial added fuel to the hot political and cultural battles that
were already marking this period in Birmingham’s history.
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