Book Description

Glass provides a frank tour de force review of Jefferson County, Alabama during the turbulent first half of the 20th Century as seen through the eyes of the coroners, law enforcement officials and news media of that time. Material for this book was compiled over a period of 40 years.Glass's determination to assemble it into a cohesive final product was driven by my desire to avoid the fate of the non-fictional character depicted by Joseph Mitchell in his story titled "Joe Gould's Secret. This book includes portions of a number of transposed verbatim official record entries. These include the actual, uncorrected content to include misspellings and grammatical errors contained in the original documents. This foreknowledge precludes the repetitive use of the Latin term for "thus it was originally written," abbreviated as "sic," to indicate these errors. Interview records and newspaper accounts have been edited to reduce their length by not including statements or material which were considered to be redundant or which did not directly relate to the matter presented. The term "Magic City" in the title of this book is employed as a metaphor for the entirety of Jefferson County and not just for the city of Birmingham. A number of incidents which are presented occurred in Bessemer---"The Marvel City," as well as in the adjacent, then bustling West Jefferson County area commonly known as the "Cut-Off." The period which is covered extends from the late 1890s to a point just prior to the start of the World War II. The use of selected Blues music verses, which I believe serve as relevant introductions to subject matter contained in certain chapters, is predicated on the statement that: "The Blues are about the most elemental stuff in our lives---love, sex, betrayal---and our deepest longings."3 Similar, and even more extensive historical information, can be found within the coroner's records of most cities in this country and every jurisdiction has its own tales to tell. However, this is a partial story of this particular town, the "Magic City," in the early 20th century as portrayed through documented incidents and certain statistics. Although much of the material in these pages is about death, the actual subject is life.