Skip to content
university of alabama press logo
  • Home
  • Books
    • Column
      • New Books
      • Browse All
      • Recent Press Catalogs
      • All Authors
      • Series
      • Subjects
    • Column
      • Imprints
        • Fiction Collective Two
        • Fire Ant
        • Deep South Books
      • Journals
        • Theatre History Studies
        • Theatre Symposium
  • About Us
    • Column
      • Contact Us
      • History of the Press
      • Partners
      • Career Opportunities
  • Resources
    • Column
      • For Educators
      • For Media
      • For Booksellers
      • Rights and Permissions
      • Mailing List Signup
    • Column
      • For Authors
        • Submission Guidelines
        • Manuscript Guidelines
        • Contact An Acquisitions Editor
  • News
    • Column
      • Events
      • Author Appearances
      • UAP Exhibits
      • Blog

Books

    Authors

      Journals

        On The Site

          • Home
          • Alabama Governors
          Alabama Governors

          Alabama Governors

          A Political History of the State

          Edited by Samuel L. Webb and Margaret E. Armbrester

          Foreword by Albert P. Brewer

          Contributions by Margaret E. Armbrester, Samuel L. Webb, David E. Alsobrook, Leah Rawls Atkins, Hugh C. Bailey, Jonathan Bass, Michael Breedlove, Kit Carson Carter, Harriet E. Amos Doss, Daniel Dupre, Glenn T. Eskew, Glenn Feldman, Michael W. Fitzgerald, Wayne Flynt, Carl Grafton, Gordon E. Harvey, Harvey H. Jackson, John Mayfield, Mary Jane McDaniel, Henry Mel McKiven, Anne Permaloff, Michael Perman, Paul M. Pruitt Jr., Marlene Hunt Rikard, William Warren Rogers, William Warren Rogers, Randy B. Rosenburg, William H. Stewart, J. Mills Thornton, Robert David Ward, Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins, Lee Allen and D. Alan Harris

          384 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 1.40 in, 59 color figures - 6 maps - 1 table

          • Hardcover
          • 9780817318437
          • Published: August 2014

          $49.95

          BUY
          • eBook
          • 9780817387754
          • Published: September 2014

          $49.95

          BUY

          Other Retailers:

          • Indiebound
          • Bookshop
          • Description
          • Contents
          • Authors
          An entirely revised and updated edition of the best-selling 2001 original
           
          This collection of biographical essays, written by thirty-four noted historians and political scientists, chronicles the times, careers, challenges, leadership, and legacies of the fifty-seven men and one woman who have served as the state's highest elected official. The book is organized chronologically into six sections that cover Alabama’s years as a US territory and its early statehood, the 1840s through the Civil War and Reconstruction, the late nineteenth-century Bourbon era, twentieth-century progressive and wartime governors, the Civil Rights era and George Wallace’s period of influence, and recent chief executives in the post-Wallace era.
           
          The political careers of these fifty-eight individuals reflect the story of Alabama itself. Taken together, these essays provide a unified history of the state, with its recurring themes of race, federal-state relations, tensions between north and south Alabama, economic development, taxation, and education.
           
          Alabama Governors expertly delineates the decisions and challenges of the chief executives, their policy initiatives, their accomplishments and failures, and the lasting impact of their terms. The book also includes the true and sometimes scandalous anecdotes that pepper Alabama’s storied history. Several of the state's early governors fought duels; one killed his wife's lover. A Reconstruction era-governor barricaded himself in his office and refused to give it up when voters failed to reelect him. A twentieth-century governor, an alumnus of Yale, served as an officer in the Ku Klux Klan.
           
          This entirely updated and revised edition includes enlarged and enhanced images of each governor. Published as Alabama prepares for its sixty-fourth gubernatorial election, Alabama Governors is certain to become a valuable resource for teachers, students, librarians, journalists, and anyone interested in the colorful history of Alabama politics.
           
          Contents
          Foreword by Governor Albert P. Brewer
          Acknowledgments
          Second Edition Acknowledgments
          Political Maps of Alabama
          Introduction
          Part I. Territorial Period and Early Statehood, 1798–1847
          Territorial Governors of the Alabama Area, 1798–1819 / Kit Carson Carter III
          William Wyatt Bibb and Thomas Bibb / Daniel S. Dupre
          Israel Pickens / Daniel S. Dupre
          John Murphy / Hugh C. Bailey
          Gabriel Moore / Harriet E. A. Doss
          Samuel B. Moore / Mary Jane McDaniel
          John Gayle / Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins
          Clement Comer Clay / J. Mills Thornton III
          Hugh McVay / Mary Jane McDaniel
          Arthur P. Bagby / Mary Jane McDaniel
          Benjamin Fitzpatrick / J. Mills Thornton III
          Joshua L. Martin / Hugh C. Bailey
          Part II. Crises, Civil War, and Reconstruction, 1847–1874
          Reuben Chapman / John R. Mayfield
          Henry W. Collier / Leah Rawls Atkins
          John A. Winston / William L. Barney
          Andrew B. Moore / Leah Rawls Atkins
          John Gill Shorter / Henry M. McKiven
          Thomas H. Watts / Henry M. McKiven
          Lewis E. Parsons / Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins
          Robert M. Patton / William Warren Rogers Jr.
          Wager Swayne / Michael W. Fitzgerald
          William Hugh Smith / Michael W. Fitzgerald
          Robert B. Lindsay / Michael W. Fitzgerald
          David P. Lewis / Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins
          Part III. The Bourbon Era, 1874–1900
          George S. Houston / William Warren Rogers
          Rufus W. Cobb / Robert David Ward
          Edward A. O’Neal / Mary Jane McDaniel
          Thomas Seay / Robert David Ward
          Thomas G. Jones / Paul McWhorter Pruitt Jr.
          William C. Oates / Paul McWhorter Pruitt Jr.
          Joseph F. Johnston / Michael Perman Jr.
          Part IV . The Progressive Era through World War II, 1900–1947
          William J. Samford / Marlene Hunt Rikard
          William D. Jelks / David E. Alsobrook
          Russell M. Cunningham / Marlene Hunt Rikard
          Braxton Bragg Comer / David Alan Harris
          Emmet O’Neal / R. B. Rosenburg
          Charles Henderson / Lee N. Allen
          Thomas E. Kilby / Michael A. Breedlove
          William W. Brandon / Lee N. Allen
          Bibb Graves / Wayne Flynt
          Benjamin M. Miller / Glenn A. Feldman 209
          Frank M. Dixon / Glenn A. Feldman
          Chauncey M. Spark / Harvey H. Jackson III
          Part V. Post–World War II to 1999
          James E. Folsom / Carl Grafton and Anne Permaloff
          Gordon Persons / S. Jonathan Bass
          John Patterson / Anne Permaloff and Carl Grafton
          George C. Wallace / Glenn T. Eskew
          Lurleen B. Wallace / Glenn T. Eskew
          Albert P. Brewer / Gordon E. Harvey
          Jere Beasley Sr. / Margaret E. Armbrester and Samuel L. Webb
          Forrest “Fob” James Jr. / William H. Stewart
          Guy Hunt / William H. Stewart
          James E. Folsom Jr. / William H. Stewart
          Part VI . The Twenty-First Century
          Don Siegelman / Samuel L. Webb and Margaret E.Armbrester
          Robert “Bob” Renfroe Riley / S. Jonathan Bass
          Robert Julian Bentley / Margaret E. Armbrester
          Appendix A: Governors of Alabama
          Appendix B: Provenance of Governors’ Portraits
          Select Bibliography
          Contributors
          Index

          Samuel L. Webb is associate professor emeritus of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and author of Two-Party Politics in the One-Party South.

          Margaret E. Armbrester is retired assistant professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and author of Samuel Ullman and “Youth”: The Life, the Legacy

          Related Books

          The Archaeology of Protestant Landscapes
          John McKinley and the Antebellum Supreme Court
          The Emperor’s Last Campaign
          Clotilda
          Lincoln’s Trident
          Hard Aground
          Pulpits of the Lost Cause
          Atomic Environments
          Staging America
          The Failure of Our Fathers

          Connect

          • column
            • Ordering Information
              • Rights and Permissions
              • Desk/Exam Copy Policy
          • column
            • Contact Us
              • Contact An Acquisitions Editor
          • column
            • University of Alabama
              • Mission and History

          © 2023 University of Alabama Press. All Rights Reserved.

          Powered by Supadu