In late June 1919, a young Army lieutenant from Camden, Alabama witnessed the signing of the agreement that ended World War I, an agreement he had helped draft as a member of the American Commission to Negotiate the Peace.
When he eventually made it back to the United States – after nearly causing the State…
In this edition of his recurring column, Dr. Marty Olliff delves into some of the early aerial photographs of Dothan, Alabama.
We credit Aesop with the axiom, “familiarity breeds contempt” (meaning apathy). In our world of airplane travel and cell phones, Google Earth, readily-available satellite views, and ubiquitous drone imagery and film, we are likely to become somewhat inured about aerial photographs.
All these things are contemporary, so an aerial view of a place we know…
In this edition of his column, Dr. Marty Olliff delves into the history of one of the men who helped TROY come into existence.
Feb. 26, 2021, marks the 134th anniversary of Troy University’s original predecessor, the State Normal School at Troy. This didn’t happen with a simple petition, as Troy’s former president Edward Shackelford notes in his 1937 history, The First Fifty Years of the State Teachers College at Troy, Alabama, but with lobbying committees and an enabling…
Dr. Marty Olliff's latest column focuses on a singing tradition that hit the Wiregrass in 1949.
In Southern folklife the singing convention has a long and illustrious history. Always commercial ventures, they changed in scale as communication, printing, and travel technology expanded their market. A new acquisition in the Wiregrass Archives, the Souvenir Edition, Tenth Annual Frank Stamps – Houston Co. Fair Singing Convention program (available for 50 cents), bears witness…
