Judson College’s Bowling Library will host a pair of traveling exhibits featuring images of historical postcards from the Wade Hall Collection (Troy University Archives) November 3-30. The Wade Hall Postcards: Historical Scenes of Alabama exhibit panels feature vintage postcard images of Alabama cities, towns, and historical buildings. The exhibition supports the 2017 theme of the Alabama Bicentennial Commission: “Discovering Our Places”.
Judson will host Ruth Elder, cataloging librarian at Troy University, for a presentation on the exhibition and collection November 9 at 11:00am. in the Bowling Library on the Judson College campus. The presentation and exhibition are free and open to the public.
Many postcards from the Wade Hall collection are featured in Greetings from Alabama: A Pictorial History in Vintage Postcards, a book published by New South Books earlier this year. Elder was the lead researcher for the book, which features roughly 400 postcards from the late 1800s to the mid-20th century, collectively offering a fascinating picture of the state.
Dr. Wade Hall was a native of Union Springs, Ala., and an alumnus of Troy State Teachers College. Hall earned graduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Alabama and the University of Illinois. He taught English at the University of Florida, Kentucky Southern College, and Bellarmine University. Though he spent much of his life outside of Alabama, he remembered his home state in his writing (Conecuh People: Words of Life from the Alabama Black Belt) and in his collection of over 25,000 vintage postcards from across the U.S. His collection of Alabama postcards provides a glimpse of the state and its historic places from the late 18th- and early 19th centuries. Upon his death in 2015, Hall bequeathed his postcards to the joint collections of The University of Alabama Libraries and Troy University Archives.
The Wade Hall Postcard Traveling Exhibitions are a collaborative project of the Troy University Libraries, the Troy University Department of Art and Design, and the Alabama Humanities Foundation. Display panels for the traveling exhibit were designed by Jerry Johnson of the Troy University Department of Art and Design. A web-based interactive exhibit of the historic collection may be found at http://trojan.troy.edu/library/wadehall/.
For more information about the exhibition’s appearance at Judson College, contact Eleanor Drake at (334) 683-5184. The Vault, the Judson College bookstore in downtown Marion, will have copies of Greetings from Alabama for sale. Call Maggie McConnell at (334) 683-4814 for purchasing information.
PHOTO: Guests visit the opening reception of the Wade Hall Postcards traveling exhibitions at Troy University February 9, 2017. Photo by Jonah Enfinger.