Book Notes

Book Notes The Architectural Legacy of Wallace A. Rayfield: Pioneer Black Architect of Birmingham, Alabama. Edited by Allen R. Durough. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010. xxii, 147 pp. $32.95. ISBN 978-0-81731683 -9. Architect Wallace A. Rayfield, born in Georgia in 1873, taught at the Tuskegee Institute before establishing an architectural firm in Birmingham. He designed buildings throughout the South, concentrating on churches but also designing schools, buildings, and private homes. Perhaps his most famous structure is the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. The book offers drawings, floor plans, photos of buildings (some now demolished, some still standing), and other documents from a mostly forgotten career, discovered only recently in Durough’s barn. A Family Home: A History of the President’s Mansion at Auburn University. By Nell Richardson. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009. x, 169 pp. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8173-1617-4. Nell Richardson lived in the mansion while her husband Ed served as president of Auburn University. Here she presents a history of the house through sketches of the families who have called it home over the years, from the Duncans (1935–1947) to her own family (2004–2007). These brief histories are illuminated through the use of many photographs, some official and others of a more personal nature, donated by the families of former residents. Iron & Steel: A Guide to Birmingham Area Industrial Heritage Sites. By James R. Bennett and Karen R. Utz. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010. xv, 128 pp. $19.95. ISBN 978-0-8173-5611-8. Bennett, formerly of the Tannehill Foundation, and Utz, curator at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark, provide a concise but informative guide to thirteen industrial heritage sites in the Birmingham area. Most of the entries are short and are meant to tempt the reader into visiting the sites rather than giving detailed histories (Tannehill and Sloss merit longer entries, perhaps through the authors’ influence). Each entry includes pictures and brief driving directions to the site. T H E A L A B A M A R E V I E W 80 Nature Journal. By L. J. Davenport. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010. xv, 235 pp. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8173-5569-2. A useful tool for high school and college students as well as amateur nature enthusiasts , Nature Journal presents descriptions of Alabama animals and habitat. Doodlebugs, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Luna Moths, Fence Lizards, and many other small inhabitants of the state receive their due, descriptions of their life cycles appearing alongside anecdotes, folk sayings, and colorful pictures. Each entry ends with questions and even assignments for the reader and provides journal pages for penciled-in answers. Toward Freedom Land: The Long Struggle for Racial Equality in America. By Harvard Sitkoff. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2010. vii, 232 pp. $50.00. ISBN 978-0-8131-2583-1. Toward Freedom Land is a collection of five decades of Sitkoff’s essays on the history of race in America. The essays address the origins and evolution of the Civil Rights movement , including the effect of the Great Depression on African Americans, the relationship between blacks and the labor movement, and the influence of World War II on racial equality. Some were originally included in journals and other sources no longer in print, thus making the essays more easily available to modern readers. ...