Book of Birmingham
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The Book of Birmingham is a celebratory history of Birmingham published in time for the Semicentennial of Birmingham in 1921. The text is by former Birmingham City Commission member John R. Hornady with illustrations by W. Paul Pim. The cover illustration, pasted onto the green cloth, is a reproduction of "Three Bessemer Converters", an oil pastel by Roderick MacKenzie of the Tennessee Coal Iron and Railroad Company's Ensley Works.
The 376-page book was published by Dodd & Mead, a New York vanity press and included numerous photographic plates in addition to Pim's engraved illustrations.
Chapters
- In the Beginning
- When Everybody Voted
- The "Double-Cross" in the Seventies
- Courting the Bauble Fame
- Iron and Steel to the Rescue
- Roy Cohen's Negro Quarter
- Visions of Beauty
- The People at Play
- Grave and Gay in Politics
- Turning Ore into Ships
- Conserving the Human Element
- Iron for the Confederacy
- Popularizing the Water Wagon
- The Sway of King Cotton
- Blazing New Trails
- Reforming the Public Dollar
- Routing the Reluctant Germ
- Freaks of Fretful Nature
- The Teeth of a Child
- Aladdin's Lamp Surpassed
- Far-Flung Influences
- Whetting the Intellect
- A City of Ex-Executives
- The Snake-Charmer Eclipsed
- Combining Loans with Laughter