Everyone is welcome at the Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society on February 27th at 7:00PM at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Copies of the book, “Deep South Dynasty” published by University of Alabama Press will be available for sale and signed by Professor of History, Kari Frederickson. A popular annual cake walk follows the meeting.
The Birmingham Historical Society’s Annual Meeting for 2023 has been scheduled for February 27, 2023 at 7 p.m. at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. (Free and open to the public)
Our speaker will be Kari Frederickson, professor of Southern History at the University of Alabama, speaking on The Bankheads of Alabama and autographing her recently published book Deep South Dynasty: The Bankheads of Alabama.
“Deep South Dynasty: The Bankheads of Alabama is a deeply researched epic family biography that reflects the complicated and evolving world inhabited by three generations of the extremely accomplished—if problematic—Bankhead family of northwest Alabama. Kari Frederickson’s expertly crafted account traces the careers of five members of the family—John Hollis Bankhead; his sons, John Hollis Bankhead Jr. and William Brockman Bankhead; his daughter, Marie Bankhead Owen; and his granddaughter, Tallulah Brockman Bankhead.”
Note that the Heritage Cake & Pie Competition will happily return to the BHS annual meeting February 27 at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. More info to come in early ’23. If you’re not familiar with this popular annual event, please click HERE!
Celebrating Olmsted: BRINGING NATURE TO THE CITY AND CREATING BREATHING SPACE FOR DEMOCRACY
As part of a series of nation-wide, year-long events celebrating the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted and the Olmsted family of landscape architects, historian Laurence Cotton presented a lecture detailing their impact at The Birmingham Botanical Gardens on February 16th.
Consulting producer on the PBS film, Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America, Cotton had not only visited, but was often intimately familiar with many of the Olmsted projects he discussed. His slides traveled the audience across America, giving the history, motivation, and importance of each of the parks and green spaces. Many are well-known and include:
Cotton emphasized the social importance of the Olmsted legacy. The green spaces and parks were designed to be available to all walks of life, to enhance the health and well-being of visitors, to encourage social engagement across economic & cultural divides, to provide forestry and landscape experiments, and to stand the test of time. As he stated, Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons were true artists of the landscape, while working on a vast scale, in FOUR dimensions, with the fourth being time…to allow their design visions to mature over decades.
However, their public spaces were not always green, as Cotton illustrated by Olmsted’s plan for the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. There, Olmsted’s step design again encouraged democracy and provided an open forum for public engagement.
As another example, their design for Niagra Falls restored and enhanced the beauty that was already there. Before and after images were startling.
Cotton ended his travel log in Birmingham, drawing upon the resources written by The Birmingham Historical Society and Marjorie White, with a special recommendation for Shades Creek, Flowing Through Time. Related artifacts assembled by The Southern History Department of The Birmingham Public Library, were part of a special exhibit and reception following the lecture. Books by The Birmingham Historical Society on Olmsted were available, and a reading list assembled by Laurence Cotton is available HERE.
The evening lecture at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens entitled, Celebrating Olmsted with Historian Laurence Cotton, on February 16th, filled overnight. In an effort to accommodate all those with an interest in attending, an additional lecture has been added at 10AM. Registration opens to the public at 5PM on Wednesday, January 19th.
