Guide to the Frances Beverly Papers, 1923-1947

Descriptive Summary
Creator: Frances Beverly, 1865-1954
Title: Frances Beverly Papers
Dates: 1923-1947
Quantity: 1.5 Cubic Feet
Abstract: Handwritten and typed loose manuscripts and notebooks containing articles on Mobile's history, legends, streets, and prominent families.
Accession: 94-09-279

Biographical Note
Frances (Baugh) Beverly was born in 1865 to a prominent literary family. Her grandfather was the dramatic critic for the Mobile Register in the 1840s. She was also related to William Bartram who wrote several books about his southern travels and Alabama's flora. Frances Beverly was a reporter for the Louisville Courier Journal and later wrote essays, poems, and stories on Mobile's past for the Works Progress Administration. Using her collection of WPA manuscripts, Beverly set out to publish "The Story of Old Mobile" in 1947 at the age of 82. She apparently self-published at least part of her work before her death on September 4, 1954, in Mobile.

Scope and Content
Consists of typed and handwritten manuscripts of Beverly's writings. The collection includes essays, short stories, poems, and brief biographical sketches that have been divided into subject files. The original Beverly Collection was microfilmed in the early 1990s by the Historic Mobile Development Commission. That microfilm is also available. Beverly's journals, which contain handwritten versions of most of her typed manuscripts, also makes up a part of the collection.

Arrangement
The Collection has been divided into sixteen subject files: 1) African Americans; 2) Biographies; 3) Businesses; 4) Churches/Religion; 5) Education; 6) Fashion; 7) Homes/Architecture; 8) Hospitals/Medicine; 9) Letters/Correspondence; 10) Mobile Miscellaneous; 11) Music; 12) Native Americans; 13) Poems; 14) Short Stories; 15) Special Events and Places; 16) Transportation/Streets. Box 2 contains Beverly's notebooks.

Access Restrictions
This material is open to research

Use Restrictions
None

Preferred Citation
Frances Beverly Papers, The Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL.

Guide prepared by:  Scotty Kirkland

Guide last updated:  2011/10/26

File 1

1) The Colored YMCA and Community Center
2) Newspapers Owned and Edited By Negroes
3) The Slave Block
4) The Slave Market

File 2

1) Adrienne: A Descendent of One of Napoleon's Generals
2) Bienville
3) Philip Blondel
4) Burwell Boykin
5) Fredrick G. Bromberg
6) Mrs. Mia Kirby Buck: The Vagabond Grandmother
7) Mr. Bushnell -- Religionist
8) William Marsh Campbell
9) Madison Case
10) Gustave Chaudron
11) Francis Clark
12) William Gaylord Clark
13) James Copeland: Mobile's First Gangster
14) Richard Crawford
15) De Lusser
16) Joaquin De Orsorno
17) Silas Dinsmore
18) Willie Mae Discher
19) Alfred B. DuMont
20) Henry Farrow

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1) Samuel H. Garrow: Mayor of Mobile and First to Make Cotton Seed Oil in 1836
2) Warren R. Gerow: A Noted Artist of Carnival
3) Archibald Gracie
4) Rev. S. Hart: The First Ordained Minister to Receive a License in Mobile
5) Harry T. Hartwell
6) Frederick Hays: Mobile Artist
7) Dr. Raphael Hidalgo
8) Jasper Hunter: Attorney at Law
9) John H. Huntley
10) Iberville
11) Joseph Jefferson: Dean of the American Stage
12) Hilton Howell Jones
13) Ephraim Kirby
14) Norma B. Krassin: Pianist & Composer
15) John Law: Gambler and Financial Wizard
16) Victor W. Marechal
17) Constantine McKenna: The Priest Who Liked to Move
18) Mary E. McLean
19) Montberault
20) Adolph Moses

21) Cayetano Perez
22) J.H. Pillichody
23) Amile Rives
24) Margaret Ruffin: Mobile's Noted Novelist
25) Francis Seymour
26) Matt Scott Sloan
27) Five Generations of Smiths
28) Jacob Tannenbaum
29) Hannis Taylor
30) The Toulmin Family
31) Vauban: The Wizard of War
32) Amy Watkins
33) Jones Mitchell Withers

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1) The Aluminum Plant at Mobile
2) The Banks of Mobile
3) The Battle House
4) Beauty Culture: Mobile Barber Shops
5) The Cawthon Hotel
6) The Curb Market
7) Drove Wells
8) Gas Wells
9) The Little Theatre
10) The Mobile Chamber of Commerce
11) Mobile Markets
12) Mobile Time Service
13) Mobile Phone Service
14) Mobile Theatre
15) Mobile's Most Lucrative Business: Gambling

16) The National Gypsum Company
17) Rice's Store
18) Mrs. Fisch's Toy Store
19) Naval Stores
20) The Light House
21) The Mobile Cotton Exchange
22) A Newspaper tale
23) Oil Terminals
24) The Old Register Building
25) The Parlors in Mobile in the 1870s
26) Society Editors
27) Southern Hotel
28) Southern Kraft Paper Mill
29) The Story Behind the Story of First National Bank
30) The Story of Steel as it Concerns Mobile
31) The Style of Advertising Used in 1836
32) Water Works
33) The Waterman Steamship Line

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1) All Saints Church
2) The Beginning of Churches in Mobile
3) A Brief History of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Mobile. Alabama
4) The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
5) The Church Home (Episcopal)
6) The Central Home
7) Christ Church and the Emma Jones Society
8) The Dauphin Way Baptist Church
9) A Foot-Washing Baptist Church
10) How the First Baptist Church Came into Being

File 8

11) The Jewish People of Mobile
12) The Old Bee Hive
13) The Origin of the Presbyterian Churches of Mobile
14) The Priests who have Served Mobile for Nearly Two Centuries
15) Rev. Joseph Holt Ingraham
16) The Saint Francis Street Methodist Church
17) Saint Mary's Episcopal Church
18) Saint Paul's Church: Springhill
19) The Springhill Avenue Baptist Church
20) The Story of Big Zion Church
21) The Story of the Protestant Churches
22) Trinity Church

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1) Barton Academy
2) The Closing of School in Mobile
3) Educational Advantages in Mobile: Beginning in 1711 and Going Through its
Different Periods
4) Irving Institute
5) Libraries Which have Served Mobile Readers
6) The McGill Institute
7) The Medical College of Mobile
8) The Mobile Association for the Blind
9) Schools in Mobile and Vicinity, 1711-1829
10) Southernland: The Raphael Semmes Memorial School for Boys
11) Spring Hill College
12) The Zimmer Memorial

1) Bathing Suits, 1890-1946
2) Brass-Toed Shoes
3) Buying a Hat Fifty Years Ago
4) Copper-Toed Shoes
5) Ear Rings
6) The Evolution of Drawers
7) Good Manners
8) Hat Bands
9) Letter-Writing in the Years Gone By
10) Marijuana
11) Morning Coffee
12) Old Time Bed Stead
13) Peacock Feathers
14) A Peculiar Fashion
15) Shoes of the Civil War Days
16) Superstitious of Dress
17) When a Girl Married in 1860
18) Wrappers

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1) Abba Temple: Home of Jonathon Emanuel
2) Another Home of Henry Stickney
3) An Antique Bed
4) Archelaus Taylor: 107 South Cedar Street
5) Arlington
6) The Austill Home
7) Briarwood
8) The Bromlee Home: Spring Hill Avenue
9) The Bunker House: Monroe Street
10) The Calvert Home
11) The Collins Home
12) A Duncan Phyffe Table
13) The Dade Property
14) The Daves House: Dauphin Street
15) Duncan Place: Government Street
16) The Finch Home
17) The Five Suffolks
18) The Florence Crittendon Home
19) The Forsyth Home
20) A Fortune in Empty Rooms

File 12

21) The Fournier Home
22) The Goldsby House
23) The Half Way House
24) The Home of Benjamin Marshall: Spring Hill
25) The Home of C.G. Richards
26) The Home of Charles Torey
27) The Home of Jessie Carter: St. Louis Street
28) The Home of Mr. Gabe Jacobson
29) Home of General Hagan: 206 Church Street
30) The Home of Gustavus Horton
31) Home of Elizabeth Henderson
32) Home of the Krebs Family
33) Homes of Moses Foote and Col. Jack Deas
34) Home of Douglas Homed
36) The House of Paschal Laurouil
37) Home of Henry Skaats
38) Home of George W. Tarleton
39) Home of Capt. Ben Vincent
40) Home of Abram J. Weiss
41) The Iron Deer in Washington Square
42) Iron lace
43) Kirkbride Home: Theatre Street
44) Kerosene Lamps
45) Light House Service
46) The Log Cabin
47) Lowenstein House

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48) Mobile's Antebellum Homes
49) Mobile's Federal Buildings, 1748-1937
50) Monroe Street
51) Number 7 Lawrence Street
52) Oakleigh
53) An Old Creole House
54) Old Homes in Mobile
55) Old Kennedy Home
56) Old Moffett Home
57) O'Donnell Home
58) Ottenstien Home
59) The Palmer Pillans Home
60) The Portier Home
61) The Protestant Orphanage, 1839
62) Quaint Examples of Architecture in Mobile
63) A Quaint Old Antique Piano
64) Rare Antiques in Mobile Homes
65) Reingard House: The House of Two Cities
66) Rufus Green Home
67) Ryder Home
68) Sand Island Light House
69) The Sheltering Arms
70) Southern Hotel
71) Spiro Home: Church and Franklin
72) The Staylor House
73) Stewart Home
74) Tarleto Home
75) Temperance Home
76) Trundle Beds
77) The Two Houses
78) A Very Rare Music Box
79) William Broun Homes
80) Waring Home

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1) The City Hospital
2) Dentist's Row: Dauphin, Between St. Emanuel and Conception Streets
3) The Little Red House on the Hill
4) Marine Hospital
5) A Medical Enigma: Dr. Joseph Matthews
6) The Mobile Infirmary
7) The Preventorium
8) Providence Infirmary
9) The Story of Yellow Jack: A Regular Visitor Who Came to Mobile for Two
Hundred Years (Yellow Fever)

1) "My Dear Mr. Paul…" December 29, 1923
2) Dorrance and Company Publishers, July 17, 1933
3) Works Progress Administration of Alabama, January 14, 1938
4) National Daughters of the American Revolution, February 21, 1939
5) Fulton Lewis, Jr. April 21, 1944.
6) Mobile Press-Register, September 3, 1946
7) National Protective Insurance Company, May 15, 1947
8) Contest editor, Woman's Home Companion, n.d.
9) "My Dear Molly Bawn…" n.d.
10) "…ever accuse them of having the slight…" n.d.
11) "Dear Dorothy Dix…" n.d.
12) "The Story in the Press Register…" n.d.
13) Frank Gordy, n.d.

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1) "After the Civil War…"
2) Alcohol, Inc.
3) The American City of Mobile
4) Among Queer Mobile Customs
5) The Arson Ladies
6) Auto Inspection Law
7) The Battle of Ackia
8) The Bee Industry in Mobile
9) The Bernoudy Tract
10) Bingo, Bridge and Bank Night
11) Boy Scouts
12) The Boy's Industrial Home
13) The Can't Get Away Club
14) Charity
15) City Government
16) The City Guard House
17) The City of Mobile
18) The City of Mobile (Longer version)
19) A City Ordinance: Carrying Concealed Weapons
20) Cleaning Carpets
21) The Coffee Saloon
22) Copeland's Hideout
23) Customs House
24) Dog Ordinance
25) Economy in Mobile
26) Egg Nog: One of Mobile's Oldest Specialties
27) Fashions, Like Sin, Originated in the Garden of Eden
28) Figs
29) Firemen
30) Forts

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31) Fort Gaines
32) Fort Louis De La Mobile
33) Fort Powell
34) Fort Saint Stevens
35) Fort Stoddart
36) Frascati
37) Federal Departments
38) Front Gates
39) A Funny Kitchen Custom
40) Good Manners in Mobile
41) The Gunboat Morgan (Battle of Mobile Bay)
42) A Healthy Custom
43) Horse Racing
44) Hot Tamales
45) The House With Bad Vibrations
46) How the Borrowing Habit Originated in Mobile
47) How Mobile Delivered Milk in 1880
48) How Mobile Got its Name
49) How Mobile Kept Cool for Generations
50) How Mobile Women Dressed in 1870
51) The Humane Society (SPCA)
52) The Hunley: The First Submarine
53) Ice and Ice Houses
54) In the Days When Duels Were Fashionable
55) Iron Frying Pans
56) It Depends on Who Violates the City Ordinances
57) It Was Not an Accident: It Was Murder
58) Just Two
59) Kleptomania
60) The Ladies Memorial Society

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61) Land Grants
62) The Laurent Tract
63) The Little Red House on the Hill
64) Magazine Point
65) Magnolia Cemetery
66) The Manly Art of Dueling
67) The McVoy Tract
68) Mint Julep: Mobile's Hospitality
69) The Mobile Cadets
70) Mobile Cookery
71) A Mobile Custom
72) Mobile Fire Department
73) A Mobile Girl in an English Prison
74) Mobile Harbor
75) Mobile in 1839
76) Mobile Kitchens
77) Mobile: The Mother of Mystics (Mardi Gras)
78) Mobile Mothers
79) Mobile's Azaleas, 1754-1939
80) Mobile's Beginnings as a City
81) Mobile's Jails
82) Mobile's Most Cold-Blooded Murder
83) Mobile's Most Horrible Tragedy
84) Mobile's Sixth Flag (The Republic of Alabama)
85) Mobile Cooking
86) Mobile Morning Coffee
87) Mobile Panics
88) Morning: A Queer Custom
89) The National Cemetery: "The Bivouac of the Dead"
90) Odd Customs Which Characterized Mobile for a Century

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91) An Odd Triangle
92) Official Federal Family of 1842
93) One of the Oldest Bath Tubs in the United States
94) Open House
95) Ordinances on Record at City Hall
96) Oranges
97) The Padded Room
98) Paper Money and its Uselessness
99) Playing in Your Own Backyard in Mobile
100) The Police Department of Mobile
101) Private Libraries
102) The Sabine River
103) The Search and Seizure System
104) The St. Louis Tract
105) Smart Sayings by Mobile Children
106) The Strikers Independent Society
107) Things Not Generally Known
108) Tonsorial Fashions in Mobile
109) Tracts
110) Tub Night in Mobile

File 20

111) Unwanted Babies
112) A Vivid Personality
113) What the Klan Can Do
114) When Cotton Was King
115) Whiskers with Variations
116) Witty Sayings
117) What Mobile Was Like in 1870
118) Wisteria

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File 21

1) Music in Mobile
2) The Story of Musical Mobile

File 22

1) Geronimo: The Noted Apache Chief
2) The Muscogee Indians
3) The Red Man in Mobile's History
4) Red Shoe, Choctaw Chief

Poems

File 23

1) Backward Turn Backward
2) Bellingrath Garden
3) I Am On My Way to Jesus
4) November Days
5) Old Man Depression
6) One Little Boy and a Pot of Paint
7) Preface
8) Reminiscences form Midnight Services in Christ Church
9) Memories of My Friend, Rosine P. Cox
10) Separation
11) Tale of the Ten Little Boches
12) Tony -- Surface Painter
13) The Trio

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File 24

1) A Boarding House, Like Charity, Covers a Lot of Sins
2) A Bunch of Divorces
3) A Case of Too Many Laws
4) A Lady of Royalty
5) A Skeleton in the Bungalow
6) Adolph and Rudolph: A Tragedy on Capitals
7) After Thirty Years
8) Amaryllis and the Nurse
9) An Unanswered Question
10) As Ugly As Seven Sins
11) The Beautiful Woman and the Federal Court
12) "Brother John"
13) A Bullet Stopped Wedding Bells
14) Christmas All the World Over
15) The Closet Under the Stairs
16) Colonel Huntingdon's Granddaughter
17) The Color Line Was There
18) A Dancer in the 1850's
19) Died of a Broken Heart
20) A Disastrous Second Marriage
21) Eleven Flights Up
22) Father and Son
23) Five Little Black Faces
24) For the Contest in American Magazine
25) The Frailty of the Clergy
26) Gambling Pays
27) God Took a Rib and Made Woman
28) He Was Allergic to Cards
29) Here is Christine
30) His Name Was Terry

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File 25

31) Husbands are Easy to Get
32) I Have Reformed
33) "The Irish Are So Ordinary"
34) John Wyeth and John Livingston
35) The Judges Daughter
36) Like a Pebble in a Stream
37) Loyalty
38) Lucy Was a Wise Woman
39) The Man from Kentucky
40) Margaret Ruthven
41) May and December
42) Medical Magnetism
43) Mercedes and Melanie
44) A Minister's Story
45) Mobilians are Suckers
46) Money and Marriage
47) Murders Without Motives
48) A Mystery Story
49) Nora Grey: Receptionist
50) Nobody Ever Tried to Hide This Skeleton
51) Not Even Thirty At the End?
52) The Odd Job Lady
53) Omar Khayyam: A New Cheese
54) On A Gun Powder Keg
55) "On the top of a hill in the thicket…"
56) One Man's Family
57) The Other Man's Daughter--and Your Own
58) Poor Devil
59) The Prince Murat
60) Psychology or Hypnotism?

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File 26

61) Recompense
62) School Fairies
63) The Secret of the Shopping Bag
64) She Waited Thirty Years for a Divorce
65) The Sins of the Fathers
66) Skeletons by the Dozen
67) Skeletons Cannot Pay Bills
68) A Slave to Love
69) A Spirit Necklace
70) The Story of a Noted Southern Journalist
71) That Anderson Girl
72) This Marriage Was a Failure
73) A Triangle
74) A Truant Wife
75) True Heroism

File 27

76) Twenty-Five and Fifty
77) "Two Sisters…"
78) The Veiled Lady
79) We Will Call Him Anthony Lowery
80) A Weeping Angel Guards His Grave
81) What Ann Singleton Brought Home From France
82) What Money Can Do
83) What the Christmas Tree Told Me
84) Where Does This Skeleton Belong?
85) A Whole Family of Skeletons

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File 28

1) Barber Shops
2) Bellingrath Gardens
3) Fires
4) Fort Charlotte
5) Fort Morgan
6) Garrow's Bend
7) How Spring Hill Originated
8) Number 5 Lawrence Street
9) Montosa
10) Spanish Fort
11) The State Docks

Transportation/Streets

File 29

1) Alabama, Tennessee, and Northern Railroad
2) Animals Seen on the Streets of Mobile in 1870
3) The Bay Shell Road
4) Bloodgood Row: Monroe Street
5) Burke's Corner
6) Cedar Street
7) Church Street
8) Conception Street: The Habitat of Bienville's Aristocrats
9) Conti Street
10) Dauphin and Hallett
11) Dentists Row: Dauphin between St. Emanuel and Conception Streets.
12) Franklin Street
13) Church Street Homes of Prominent Mobilians
14) Government Street
15) Jackson Street
16) Joachim Street
17) Lawrence Street
18) Marine Street
19) Mobile Streets
20) Monroe Street
21) Names of the Streets of Mobile Which Have Changed
22) Northwest Conception and Church Streets
23) Northwest Corner of St. Francis and Joachim Streets
24) Orange Grove
25) The Quarantine Station
26) Royal Street
27) Shanty Row
28) St. Francis Street
29) St. Louis Street
30) South Hamilton Street

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File 30

31) The Spanish Trail
32) Street Railways
33) The Streets of Mobile: What They Were and What They Are
34) The Streets of Mobile
35) Theatre Street
36) Warren Street
37) Ward's Drug Store: Conception and Dauphin Streets
38) Washington Avenue
39) Water Street
40) Widow's Row

Box 2

Beverly Notebooks