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American Funeral Vehicles 1883-2003: An Illustrated History

The most complete, in-depth book on hearses and funeral cars ever! Beginning with horse drawn, highly ornate hearses up to today's motorized vehicles, this book takes you through the complete history of 20th Century hearses. Follow the overall style development from the early carved-panel columned and draped designs, through the limousine-styled Funeral Coach and side-loaders, through the sleek designs that have led to today's hearses.Photos and History on Henney, Eureka, A.J. Miller, Superior, and history of other large and small hearse-builders like Barnette, Economy, Memphian, etc., and the growth and decline of many of these companies. Over 300 high quality photos combined with in-depth text present the most complete history and evolution of motorized hearses ever. A must have book for all automotive enthusiasts.Includes an index of all the important past and present hearse and conversion builders in North America.

Frederick Arthur Bridgman

Frederick Arthur Bridgman (November 10, 1847 – January 13, 1928) was an American artist, born in Tuskegee, Alabama.

An American Southerner, born in Tuskeegee, Alabama, the son of a physician, Bridgman would become one of the United States' most well-known and well-regarded painters and become known as one of the world's most talented "Orientalist" painters.

He began as a draughtsman in New York City, for the American Bank Note Company in 1864-1865, and studied art in the same years at the Brooklyn Art Association and at the National Academy of Design; but he went to Paris in 1866 and became a pupil of Jean-Leon Gerome. Paris then became his headquarters. A trip to Egypt in 1873-1874 resulted in pictures of the East that attracted immediate attention, and his large and important composition, The Funeral Procession of a Mummy on the Nile, in the Paris Salon (1877), bought by James Gordon Bennett, brought him the Cross of the Legion of Honor. Other paintings by him were An American Circus in Normandy, Procession of the Bull Apis (now in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and a Rumanian Lady (in the Temple collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

In 1867, Bridgman entered the studio of the noted academic painter Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904), where he was deeply influenced by Gerome's precise draftsmanship, smooth finishes, and concern for Middle-Eastern themes. (Bridgman would even become known as "the American Gerome.") No mere imitator, however, Bridgman would later adopt a more naturalistic aesthetic, emphasizing bright colors and painterly brushwork.

Bridgman made his first trip to North Africa between 1872 and 1874, dividing his time between Algeria and Egypt. There he executed approximately three hundred sketches, which became the source material for several later oil paintings. Additional visits to the region throughout the 1870s and 1880s allowed him to amass a collection of costumes, architectural pieces, and objets d'art, which often appear in his paintings. (Amusingly, John Singer Sargent noted that Bridgman's overstuffed studio, along with the Eiffel Tower, were Paris's must-see attractions.) Though Bridgman maintained a lifelong connection to France, his popularity in America never waned. Indeed, in 1890, the artist had a one-man show of over 400 pictures in New York's 5th Avenue galleries. When the show moved to Chicago's Art Institute, it contained only 300 works - testimony to the high number of sales Bridgman had made.

One of Bridgman's most recognized Orientalist images, "A Street Scene in Algeria", is exceptional for its biographical and historical significance. Many of its details can be considered "signature" motifs of the artist, and its subject, a pointed record of travel. In keeping with Bridgman's tendency in the 1880s to focus on intimate domestic subjects, two seated male figures are given pride of place in the center of the composition, gesticulating while they chat.

Recently, works by the painter have sold at auction in the price range of $250,000 USD to $350,000 USD.

FAIN, Mr. Joe Billy, a native and lifelong resident of Wetumpka, Alabama, WWII Veteran receiving three battle stars, including the Battle of the Bulge, passed away Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at the age of 86. Funeral services will be held Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 11:00 AM at First Presbyterian Church with Rev. Jonathan Yarboro and Dr. Jay Wolf officiating. Interment will follow at the Wetumpka City Cemetery with Gassett Funeral Home of Wetumpka directing. Mr. Fain is survived by his wife of 10 years, Mae Irvin Fain; son, Ed (Wanda) Fain; three daughters, Doris F. (Wayne) Keene, Libby Fain, and Fredna F. (Jake) Watkins; five grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife of 52 years, Winifred Perkins Fain and his parents, Edward C. Fain and Lula D. Murrell Fain. Pallbearers will be Scott Fain, Chris Fain, Dennis Fain, John Mark Vandiver, Jake Watkins, and Wayne Keene. Honorary pallbearers are Curtis Barrett, Sam Bass, Charles Kelley, Jerry Finney, and Bob Ivey. Mr. Fain was an educator and coach in Elmore and Montgomery Counties for over thirty years. He was a lifelong advocate of conservation and the environment, having received the W. Kelly Mosley Environmental Award for his instrumental work in the preservation of the Coosa River. He was an avid fisherman, hunter, and sportsman having allegiance to Auburn University. Mr. Fain is a past-president of the Elmore County Historical Society and was an active member of First Presbyterian Church for over fifty years. Flowers will be accepted or memorial contributions may be made to the American Heart Association, National Center, 7272 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, TX 75231 or to one's favorite charity. The family will receive friends from 10:00 AM until 11:00 AM Saturday at First Presbyterian Church.

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1836-1919) now ranks as the strongest American woman poet of the nineteenth century after Emily Dickinson. Published heavily in all the period's most prestigious journals, Piatt was widely celebrated by her peers as a gifted stylist in the genteel tradition. This selected edition reveals Piatt's other side, a side that contemporary critics found more problematic: ironic, experimental, pushing the limits of Victorian language and the sentimental female persona. Spanning more than half a century, this collection reveals the " borderland temper" of Piatt's mind and art. As an expatriate southerner, Piatt voices guilt at her own past as the daughter of slave-holders and raw anguish at the waste of war; as an eleven-year "exile" in Ireland, she expresses her dismay at the indifference of the wealthy to the daily suffering of the poor. Her poetry, whether speaking of children, motherhood, marriage, or illicit love affairs, uses conventional language and forms but in ways that greatly broadened the range of what women's poetry could say. Going beyond and even contradicting the genteel aesthetic, Piatt's poetry moves toward an innovative kind of dramatic realism built on dialogue, an approach more familiar to modern readers, acquainted with Faulknerian polyvocal texts, than to her contemporaries, who were as ill at ease with complexity as they were with irony. This astutely edited selection of Piatt's mature work - much of it never before collected - explains why her "deviant poetics" caused her peers such discomfort and why they offer such fertile ground for study today. Illustrated with engravings from "Harper's Weekly" and "Harper's Bazaar", both periodicals in which Piatt's work appeared, "Palace-Burner" marks the reemergence of one of the most interesting writers in American literary history.