I don't know how I missed this, but I didn't realize until I read it in one of our local weeklies that the Birmingham Public Library has a online digital archive, full of old photos and newspaper clippings! And not only that, they've been keeping a blog for the past two years!
I am such a slow dunce.
I love looking at old downtown photos (I even have a copy of the Heaviest Corner on Earth photo in one of my bookcases at home) and this site is a grand way to spend several hours lost in the past. There are the obligatory old buildings, and then there's stuff such as the amazing Rucker Agee map collection and a retrospective of Birmingham's early streetcar system.
And an interesting aside--even with the newfound clamor to get streetcars again installed in major cities, there is some resistance. Oddly enough, this also seemed to have been a problem at the changing of the 19th to the 20th Century, but the delights of inexpensive public transport were trumpeted in a way that boosters of today might want to consider, seeing as how it appears temptations of a carnal nature have always been a particularly effective marketing technique.
Also, from the "Y'Learn Something New Every Day" File, I was looking through the section on the Alabama Theater, and came across this clipping, detailing a bombing at the theater the evening of December 26, 1932. Now I've lived here all my life, and have heard lots of stories about the Alabama, and thought I had a pretty good grip on various sad chapters of the town's past, but this is one thing I have never heard about. And not only THAT, but this was the SECOND time the theater had been bombed according to the article, the first happing on October 15, 1932. No indication is given what the motive might have been, and there are no other clippings online to look at, but it's certainly an odd thing. Given the time, it makes you wonder if it was some kind of labor dispute or the work of Red anarchists or a beef with the owner or something, but I suppose that's something to find out about.
Boy, history is interesting.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at January 18, 2007 12:42 PMGlad you found BPL's digital collections! Look for more images and newspaper articles to be added in the near future.
Posted by: Melinda Shelton at January 19, 2007 07:13 PMThank YOU for dropping by, Melinda. All of you over there do a great job and we appreciate your hard work.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at January 20, 2007 04:55 PM