1.
Folklore
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Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group
2.
Ghost story
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A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters belief in them. The ghost may appear of its own accord or be summoned by magic, linked to the ghost is the idea of hauntings, where a supernatural entity is tied to a place, object or person. Colloquially, the term ghost story can refer to any kind of scary story, in a narrower sense, the ghost story has been developed as a short story format, within genre fiction. It is a form of fiction and specifically of weird fiction. While ghost stories are often meant to be scary, they have been written to serve all sorts of purposes. Ghosts often appear in the narrative as sentinels or prophets of things to come, belief in ghosts is found in all cultures around the world, and thus ghost stories may be passed down orally or in written form. A widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they are composed of a misty, airy, belief in ghosts is found in all cultures around the world, and thus ghost stories may be passed down orally or in written form. The campfire story, a form of storytelling, often involves recounting ghost stories. Some of the stories are old, with varying versions across multiple cultures. Many schools and educational institutions encourage ghost storytelling as part of literature, in 1929, five key features of the English ghost story were identified in Some Remarks on Ghost Stories by M. R. James. The play Mostellaria, by the Roman playwright Plautus, is the earliest known work to feature a haunted dwelling, another early account of a haunted place comes from an account by Pliny the Younger. Pliny describes the haunting of a house in Athens by a ghost bound in chains, ghosts often appeared in the tragedies of the Roman writer Seneca, who would later influence the revival of tragedy on the Renaissance stage, particularly Thomas Kyd and Shakespeare. The One Thousand and One Nights, sometimes known as Arabian Nights, contains a number of ghost stories, often involving jinn, ghouls, in particular, the tale of Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad revolves around a house haunted by jinns. Other medieval Arabic literature, such as the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, the 11th century Japanese work The Tale of Genji contains ghost stories, and includes characters being possessed by spirits. In the mid-16th century, the works of Seneca were rediscovered by Italian humanists, senecas influence is particularly evident in Thomas Kyds The Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeares Hamlet, both of which share a revenge theme, a corpse-strewn climax, and ghosts among the cast. The ghosts in Richard III also resemble the Senecan model, while the ghost in Hamlet plays a complex role. The shade of Hamlets murdered father in Hamlet has become one of the more recognizable ghosts in English literature, in another of Shakespeare’s works, Macbeth, the murdered Banquo returns as a ghost to the dismay of the title character. In English Renaissance theatre, ghosts were often depicted in the garb of the living, armour, being out-of-date by the time of the Renaissance, gave the stage ghost a sense of antiquity
3.
Alabama
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Alabama is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Alabama is the 30th-most extensive and the 24th-most populous of the U. S. states. At nearly 1,500 miles, Alabama has one of the nations longest navigable inland waterways, Alabama is nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, after the state bird. Alabama is also known as the Heart of Dixie and the Cotton State, the state tree is the longleaf pine, and the state flower is the camellia. The largest city by population is Birmingham, which has long been the most industrialized city, the oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana. From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many states in the southern U. S. suffered economic hardship, like other southern states, Alabama legislators disenfranchised African Americans and many poor whites at the turn of the century. Following World War II, Alabama grew as the economy changed from one primarily based on agriculture to one with diversified interests. The state economy in the 21st century is based on management, automotive, finance, manufacturing, aerospace, mineral extraction, healthcare, education, retail, in the Alabama language, the word for a person of Alabama lineage is Albaamo. The word Alabama is believed to have come from the Alabama language, the words spelling varies significantly among historical sources. As early as 1702, the French called the tribe the Alibamon, other spellings of the name have included Alibamu, Alabamo, Albama, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou, Alabamu, Allibamou. Sources disagree on the words meaning, some scholars suggest the word comes from the Choctaw alba and amo. The meaning may have been clearers of the thicket or herb gatherers, the state has numerous place names of Native American origin. However, there are no correspondingly similar words in the Alabama language, an 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed it meant Here We Rest. This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek, experts in the Muskogean languages have not found any evidence to support such a translation. Indigenous peoples of varying cultures lived in the area for thousands of years before the advent of European colonization, trade with the northeastern tribes by the Ohio River began during the Burial Mound Period and continued until European contact. The agrarian Mississippian culture covered most of the state from 1000 to 1600 AD, with one of its major centers built at what is now the Moundville Archaeological Site in Moundville, Alabama. This is the second-largest complex of the classic Middle Mississippian era, after Cahokia in present-day Illinois, Analysis of artifacts from archaeological excavations at Moundville were the basis of scholars formulating the characteristics of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Contrary to popular belief, the SECC appears to have no links to Mesoamerican culture
4.
Southern United States
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The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
5.
Ghost
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In folklore, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear to the living. Descriptions of ghosts vary widely from a presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic. The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a person is known as necromancy. The belief in the existence of an afterlife, as well as manifestations of the spirits of the dead is widespread, certain religious practices—funeral rites, exorcisms, and some practices of spiritualism and ritual magic—are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead. Ghosts are generally described as solitary, human-like essences, though stories of ghostly armies and they are believed to haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life. Ghosts exist as a concept only, despite centuries of investigation, the English word ghost continues Old English gást, from a hypothetical Common Germanic *gaistaz. It is common to West Germanic, but lacking in North Germanic, the pre-Germanic form was *ghoisdo-s, apparently from a root denoting fury, anger reflected in Old Norse geisa to rage. The Germanic word is recorded as only, but likely continues a neuter s-stem. The original meaning of the Germanic word would thus have been a principle of the mind, in particular capable of excitation. In Germanic paganism, Germanic Mercury, and the later Odin, was at the time the conductor of the dead. It could also denote any good or evil spirit, such as angels and demons, also from the Old English period, the word could denote the spirit of God, viz. the Holy Ghost. The now-prevailing sense of the soul of a person, spoken of as appearing in a visible form only emerges in Middle English. The synonym spook is a Dutch loanword, akin to Low German spôk, alternative words in modern usage include spectre, the Scottish wraith, phantom and apparition. The term shade in classical mythology translates Greek σκιά, or Latin umbra, haint is a synonym for ghost used in regional English of the southern United States, and the haint tale is a common feature of southern oral and literary tradition. The term poltergeist is a German word, literally a noisy ghost, wraith is a Scots word for ghost, spectre, or apparition. It appeared in Scottish Romanticist literature, and acquired the general or figurative sense of portent or omen. In 18th- to 19th-century Scottish literature, it applied to aquatic spirits. The word has no commonly accepted etymology, the OED notes of obscure origin only, an association with the verb writhe was the etymology favored by J. R. R. Tolkien
6.
Selma, Alabama
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Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 20,756 as of the 2010 census and it had been a trading center and market town during the years of King Cotton in the South. It was also an important armaments manufacturing and iron shipbuilding center during the Civil War, the undermanned Confederate forces were defeated during the Battle of Selma. Before settlement by European peoples, the area of present-day Selma had been inhabited for thousands of years by varying cultures of indigenous peoples, the Europeans encountered the historic Native American people known as the Muscogee, who had been in the area for hundreds of years. French explorers and colonists were the first Europeans to explore this area, in 1732, they recorded the site of present-day Selma as Écor Bienville. Later Anglo-Americans called it the Moores Bluff settlement, the city was planned and named as Selma by William R. King, a politician and planter from North Carolina who was a future Vice President of the United States. The name, meaning seat or throne, came from the Ossianic poem The Songs of Selma. During the Civil War, Selma was one of the Souths main military manufacturing centers, producing tons of supplies and munitions, the Selma iron works and foundry was considered the second-most important source of weaponry for the South, after the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia. This strategic concentration of manufacturing capabilities eventually made Selma a target of Union raids into Alabama late in the Civil War, because of its military importance, Selma had been fortified by three miles of earthworks that ran in a semicircle around the city. They were anchored on the north and south by the Alabama River, the works had been built two years earlier, and while neglected for the most part since, were still formidable. They were 8 feet to 12 feet high,15 feet thick at the base, in front of this was a 5 feet high picket fence of heavy posts planted in the ground and sharpened at the top. At prominent positions, earthen forts were built with artillery in position to cover the ground over which an assault would have to be made, the North had learned of the importance of Selma to the Confederate military, and Federal military planned to take the city. On March 30,1865, Union General James H. Wilson detached Gen. John T. Croxtons brigade to destroy all Confederate property at Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Wilsons forces captured a Confederate courier, who was found to be carrying dispatches from Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest describing his scattered forces, Wilson sent a brigade to destroy the bridge across the Cahaba River at Centreville, which cut off most of Forrests reinforcements from reaching the area. He began a fight with Forrests forces that did not end until after the fall of Selma. On the afternoon of April 1, after skirmishing all morning, Wilsons advanced guard ran into Forrests line of battle at Ebenezer Church, Forrest had hoped to bring his entire force to bear on Wilson. The outnumbered and outgunned Confederates fought for more than an hour as reinforcements of Union cavalry and artillery were deployed, Forrest was wounded by a saber-wielding Union captain, whom he shot and killed with his revolver. Finally, a Union cavalry charge broke the Confederate militia, causing Forrest to be flanked on his right, early the next morning, Forrest reached Selma, he advised Gen. Richard Taylor, departmental commander, to leave the city
7.
Kenworthy Hall
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Kenworthy Hall, also known as the Carlisle-Martin House and Carlisle Hall, is a plantation house located on the north side of Alabama Highway 14, two miles west of the Marion courthouse square. It was built from 1858 to 1860 and is one of the best preserved examples of Richard Upjohns distinctive asymmetrical Italian villa style and it is the only surviving residential example of Upjohns Italian villa style that was especially designed to suit the Southern climate and the plantation lifestyle. It has a massive tower, windows of variable size and shape with brownstone trim. The building was designed and constructed for Edward Kenworthy Carlisle as his family residence. It, along some of its surrounding ancillary structures, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2004. The house and a purported ghost are featured as a story in Kathryn Tucker Windhams 13 Alabama Ghosts. Edward Kenworthy Carlisle was born in 1810 near Augusta, Georgia and he migrated with his mother, Susan Curry Carlisle, to Perry County, Alabama as a young man. His mother had family members who were established cotton planters in the area and he married Lucinda Wilson Walthall in 1841. Carlisle eventually became a landholder and also established himself as a cotton factor. In 1858 he decided to build an estate indicative of his familys Black Belt social standing, Carlisle had difficulty in finding labor skilled enough for such an ambitious house, but he finally found a master mason, Philip Bond, in November 1858 and work then commenced. Bond estimated that the brickwork would be completed by June 1859, the family had moved into the house by 1860. The American Civil War arrived in 1861 and Carlisle continued to have success in his business ventures. One of his cotton trading firms, Carlisle and Humphries, actually saw profits increase during the Union blockade and his fortunes abruptly changed after the war, however, and his taxable property was valued at less than $20,000. The Kenworthy Hall property itself was valued at only $9000 in 1867 and he entered into a business relationship in nearby Selma with his son, Edward Carlisle, Jr. and his son-in-law, Alexander Jones. They went on to found the City National Bank in 1871, Carlisle then died in 1873, leaving the property to his wife, Lucinda, who divided her time between it and a home in Selma. She increasingly used Kenworthy as a residence only and gave it to her only surviving child, Augusta Carlisle Jones. Lucinda died in 1912 and in 1914 Augusta sold the property, the property went through a series of owners after that and went into a general decline. The house lost both of the original porches during this period, the house had various times that it stood vacant
8.
Cahaba, Alabama
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Cahaba, also spelled Cahawba, was the first permanent state capital of Alabama from 1820 to 1825. It is now a ghost town and state historic site, the site is located in Dallas County, southwest of Selma. Cahawba was listed on the 1860-1880 U. S. Censuses, although it remained incorporated until as late as 1989, it did not show up on the census rolls after 1880. Cahaba had its beginnings as a town site at the confluence of the Alabama. At the old capital of St. Stephens, a commission was formed on 13 February 1818 to select the site for Alabamas state capital. Cahaba was the chosen and was approved on 21 November 1818. Due to the capital being nothing more than wilderness, Alabamas constitutional convention was forced to find temporary accommodations in Huntsville until a statehouse could be built. Governor William Wyatt Bibb reported in October 1819 that the town had been laid out, the town was planned on a grid system with streets running north and south named for trees and those running east and west named for famous men. The new statehouse was a brick structure, measuring 40 feet wide by 58 feet long. By 1820 Cahaba had become a state capital. Cahabas low elevation at the confluence of two rivers gave it a reputation for flooding and having an unhealthy atmosphere. A major flood struck the town in 1825, causing a portion of the statehouse to collapse, people who were opposed to the capitals location at Cahaba used this as an argument for moving the capital to Tuscaloosa, which was approved by the legislature in January 1826. The town would remain the county seat of Dallas County for several more decades, the town eventually recovered from losing the capital and reestablished itself as a social and commercial center. Cahaba, centered in the fertile Black Belt, became a distribution point for cotton shipped down the Alabama River to the port of Mobile. The addition of a line in 1859 triggered a building boom in the town of Cahaba. On the eve of the American Civil War, more than 3,000 people called Cahaba home, during the Civil War, the Confederate government seized Cahabas railroad and reappropriated the iron rails to extend another nearby railroad of military importance. A large cotton warehouse on the riverbank along Arch Street was stockaded for use as a prison, in February 1865 another flood inundated the town, causing much additional hardship for the roughly 3000 Union soldiers held in the prison, and for the towns citizens. Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Union General James H. Wilson discussed an exchange of prisoners, captured during the Battle of Selma, in 1866, the county seat was moved to nearby Selma, with businesses and families following
9.
Gaineswood
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Gaineswood is a plantation house in Demopolis, Alabama, United States. The house was completed on the eve of the American Civil War after a period of almost twenty years. It is the grandest plantation house built in Marengo County and is one of the most significant remaining examples of Greek Revival architecture in Alabama. The house and grounds are operated by the Alabama Historical Commission as a historic house museum. Gaineswood was designed and built by General Nathan Bryan Whitfield, beginning in 1843 as a log dwelling. Whitfield was a planter who had moved from North Carolina to Marengo County. In 1842 Whitfield bought the 480-acre property from George Strother Gaines, the grounds had been the site of a notable historic event while owned by George Gaines. When Gaines was serving as the US Indian Agent, he is said to have met with the famous chief Pushmataha, of the Choctaw Nation and they were negotiating the terms of the treaty that would lead to the Choctaw removal to Indian Territory. The tree became known as the Pushmataha Oak, Whitfield first named the estate Marlmont in 1843, he renamed it Gaineswood in 1856 in honor of Gaines. Gen. Whitfield sold the house to his son, Dr. Bryan Watkins Whitfield, the second generation of Whitfields maintained Gaineswood as a residence. Mary Foscue Whitfield inherited the nearby Foscue-Whitfield House in 1861 upon her fathers death, in 1923 the Whitfield family sold Gaineswood. After years of use as a residence, Gaineswood was purchased in 1966 by the state of Alabama from Dr. J. D. McLeod. Gaineswood was completed in its current Greek Revival form in 1861 and it is considered to be Alabamas finest neoclassical house and one of Americas most unusual neoclassical mansions. Gaineswood is one of the few Greek Revival homes in the United States that uses all three of the ancient Greek architectural orders, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, built when tastes were shifting to the Italianate style, it features a partially asymmetrical layout. Whitfield is known to have designed most of the house from pattern books by James Stuart, Minard Lafever, Nicholas Revett, much of the work on the house was executed by highly skilled artisan slaves. The exterior has a decorative stucco over brick treatment, intended to simulate ashlar blocks, the exterior features the use of eighteen fluted Doric columns and fourteen plain square pillars to support the three porches, the main portico, and the porte-cochère. The assorted porches surround most of three sides of the structure, parterre gardens off of the main north portico and south porch are surrounded by low masonry and wood balustrades and feature period-appropriate plantings and marble statuary. A rooftop observation ring with a vasiform balustrade surmounts the house and was used for observing the estate, the estate has three surviving outbuildings, a cooks house, a garden pavilion with eight fluted Corinthian columns, and a monumental gatehouse that date to the antebellum period
10.
Mobile, Alabama
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Mobile is the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. Alabamas only saltwater port, Mobile is located at the head of the Mobile Bay, Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile metropolitan area. This region of 412,992 residents is composed solely of Mobile County, Mobile is the largest city in the Mobile-Daphne−Fairhope CSA, with a total population of 604,726, the second largest in the state. As of 2011, the population within a 60-mile radius of Mobile is 1,262,907, Mobile began as the first capital of colonial French Louisiana in 1702. During its first 100 years, Mobile was a colony of France, then Britain, Mobile first became a part of the United States of America in 1813, with the annexation of West Florida under President James Madison. In 1861 Alabama joined the Confederate States of America, which surrendered in 1865, Mobile is known for having the oldest organized Carnival celebrations in the United States. The festival began to be celebrated in the first decade of the 18th century by its first French Catholic colonial settlers. Mobile was host to the first formally organized Carnival mystic society, known elsewhere as a krewe, to celebrate with a parade in the United States, in 2005 the first integrated mystic society had a parade for Mardi Gras. The city gained its name from the Mobile tribe that the French colonists encountered living in the area of Mobile Bay. The Mobile tribe, along with the Tohomé, obtained permission from the colonists, about seven years after the founding of the Mobile settlement, to settle near the fort. It was founded by French Canadian brothers Pierre Le Moyne dIberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobiles Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20,1703, by Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, the parish was the first French Catholic parish established on the Gulf Coast of the United States. In 1704 the ship Pélican delivered 23 French women to the colony, though most of the Pélican girls recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and died. This early period was also the occasion of the importation of the first African slaves, the population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708, yet descending to 178 persons two years later due to disease. A new earth-and-palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time, by 1712, when Antoine Crozat was appointed to take over administration of the colony, its population had reached 400 persons. The capital of La Louisiane was moved in 1720 to Biloxi, leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new fort with a stone foundation began and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon. In 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years War, by this treaty, France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain
11.
Sturdivant Hall
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Sturdivant Hall, also known as the Watts-Parkman-Gillman Home, is a historic Greek Revival mansion and house museum in Selma, Alabama, United States. Completed in 1856, it was designed by Thomas Helm Lee for Colonel Edward T. Watts and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 18,1973, due to its architectural significance. Edward Vason Jones, known for his work on the interiors at the White House during the 1960s and 70s. Construction of what is now known as Sturdivant Hall began in 1852, following completion, Edward Watts and his family lived in the house until 1864, when the house was sold and the family moved to Texas. The house was purchased from Watts by John McGee Parkman, a local banker, following the end of the American Civil War, Parkman was made president of the First National Bank of Selma. The bank engaged in speculation and accumulated huge losses. The military governor of Alabama, Wager Swayne, had his Reconstruction authorities take possession of the bank and he was imprisoned at the county jail at Cahaba. Assisted by his friends, Parkman attempted to escape from the prison on May 23,1867, the house was sold at auction for $12,500 in January 1870 to Emile Gillman, a prominent Selma merchant. The Gillman family owned the house until 1957, when it was sold to the City of Selma for $75,000. A large share of the money for buying the house came through a $50,000 bequest from the estate of Robert Daniel Sturdivant, the mansion was turned into a house museum after the purchase and named in honor of Sturdivant. The property continues to be maintained into the present day by the City of Selma, Dallas County, the house is a two-story brick structure, stuccoed to give the appearance of ashlar. The front facade features a monumentally scaled hexastyle portico utilizing 30-foot -tall Corinthian columns, the front portico is accessed from the second floor by a cantilevered balcony with an intricate cast-iron railing. Identical front doorways on both feature elaborate Greek Revival door surrounds with full Corinthian columns to each side of the door. The side elevations of the feature a small cantilevered balcony on one side. Both make use of elaborate cast-iron structural and decorative elements, the rear elevation is dominated by a monumental distyle in antis portico with two Doric columns. A kitchen, smokehouse and two-story servants quarters are set at angles to the rear portico. A low pyramidal hipped roof covers the main block of the house, as well as the front and it is crowned by a small cupola. The interiors of Sturdivant Hall reflect the taste for opulence in the United States during the 1850s
12.
Ouija
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It uses a small heart-shaped piece of wood or plastic called a planchette. Participants place their fingers on the planchette, and it is moved about the board to spell out words, Ouija is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. but is often used generically to refer to any talking board. Some Christian denominations have warned against using Ouija boards, holding that they can lead to demonic possession, Paranormal and supernatural beliefs associated with Ouija have been harshly criticized by the scientific community, since they are characterized as pseudoscience. The action of the board can be explained by unconscious movements of those controlling the pointer. One of the first mentions of the writing method used in the Ouija board is found in China around 1100 AD. The method was known as fuji, planchette writing, several entire scriptures of the Daozang are supposedly works of automatic planchette writing. According to one author, similar methods of spirit writing have been practiced in ancient India, Greece, Rome. As a part of the spiritualist movement, mediums began to employ various means for communication with the dead, following the American Civil War in the United States, mediums did significant business in presumably allowing survivors to contact lost relatives. Businessman Elijah Bond had the idea to patent a planchette sold with a board on which the alphabet was printed, the patentees filed on May 28,1890 for patent protection and thus are credited with the invention of the Ouija board. Issue date on the patent was February 10,1891, Bond was an attorney and was an inventor of other objects in addition to this device. An employee of Elijah Bond, William Fuld, took over the talking board production, in 1901, Fuld started production of his own boards under the name Ouija. Charles Kennard claimed he learned the name Ouija from using the board, when Fuld took over production of the boards, he popularized the more widely accepted etymology, that the name came from a combination of the French and German words for yes. The Fuld name would become synonymous with the Ouija board, as Fuld reinvented its history, the strange talk about the boards from Fulds competitors flooded the market, and all these boards enjoyed a heyday from the 1920s through the 1960s. Fuld sued many companies over the Ouija name and concept right up until his death in 1927, in 1966, Fulds estate sold the entire business to Parker Brothers, which was sold to Hasbro in 1991, and which continues to hold all trademarks and patents. About ten brands of talking boards are sold today under various names, the Ouija phenomenon is considered by the scientific community to be the result of the ideomotor response. Michael Faraday first described this effect in 1853, while investigating table-turning, various studies have been produced, recreating the effects of the Ouija board in the lab and showing that, under laboratory conditions, the subjects were moving the planchette involuntarily. A2012 study found that when answering yes or no questions, ouija use was more accurate than guesswork. Skeptics have described Ouija board users as operators, some critics noted that the messages ostensibly spelled out by spirits were similar to whatever was going through the minds of the subjects
