The spring 2018 issue of Alabama Heritage magazine highlights the history of Skyline Farms, which was created in 1934 as a program of the Federal Emergency Relief Agency to provide purpose and a new life for Alabamians affected by the Great Depression.
Located in Jackson County, the remains of this vibrant community include a school, commissary (now a museum), colony office building, factory, warehouse, cotton gin and approximately one half of the original colony houses.
Stephen Goldfarb has a feature article titled “‘Lives Rich in Pathos and Humor’: The Art of Mary Wallace Kirk” about Alabama artist of that name — both a woman of her time and a woman ahead of her time — and depictions of her rural life.
In “Humphrey Osmond: Psychiatric Pioneer in Alabama,” Cynthia Carson Bisbee details how, for about 20 years, Alabama was home to one of the world’s foremost experts on understanding mental illness. Through his concern for patient care and emphasis on educating patients and their loved ones, Osmond’s legacy remains secure throughout Alabama and beyond.
“Auburn’s Marengo Jake, Nineteenth-Century Raconteur” by Kathryn M. Lawrence is about a series of imaginative stories published in 19th-century Alabama newspapers that introduced the world to an African-American character named Marengo Jake. The mystery lies behind the true identity of Jake, whose tales were told by Robert Wilton Burton, a Caucasian bookseller from Auburn.
Popular departments include Alabama Makers, Portraits & Landscapes, Southern Folkways, Behind the Image and Adventures in Genealogy.