class visits L & N Railroad Station

This class got a real treat today. We did a tour of the downtown area to learn more about how Tuscaloosa fits into the story of emerging urban life. Lo and behold, the doors were opened at the old Louisville & Nashville Railroad station, which opened in 1912. Bill Lloyd, the owner, was kind enough to give us a tour. He and his wife are renovating the station into a restaurant named 301, which opens in three weeks. It's so cool seeing a new food spot in the area and one with historic value, too. See a video of our visit on my Vimeo page (You Tube is cranky, today). And to see last year's class peeping into the windows of the L & N station, see their music video below. Finally, check out a chronology of railroads in Tuscaloosa in an earlier blog entry. Roll Tide!

wilmington: a case study

1919 Wilmington, Courtesy of Perry Casteneda Library

We had a great visit to the Gorgas House. Footage and photos will be shared later on this blog. The students also tackled Gunther Barth's opening pages and wrote short reflections on whether the emerging city he describes is a "happy" space. Next week, we turn to antebellum waterways with enslaved African American men front and center. We will use David Cecelski's study of watermen off the North Carolina coast to think about how an urbanizing United States often has water as part of the equation. And speaking of water, the students and I will also walk down to Manderson Landing to learn about a railway that once ran along this river. Dr. John Beeler will join us and lecture on railroads in an urbanizing Tuscaloosa. The students should come prepared to think about how nineteeth century transportation invites attention to race, gender and space. Among the questions worth answering are the following: 1) How did enslaved harbor pilots, oystermen and other boatmen politically and physically maneuver off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina and other Eastern Seaboard ports between 1800 and the Civil War; 2) How do we find meaning in African American men meaningfully participating in an urban space as members of the maritime world?; 3) What tensions do their experiences pose with other urban dwellers we have learned about thus far?; and 4) How does a momentous event like the Civil War and  movement inside a southern urban seaport figure into difficult conversations involving race, masculinity and power, or lack thereof?