Pause for a moment before a gallery of fading portraits, and you will sense the beginnings of Alabama's troubled history--homespun pioneers gripped by "Alabama fever," chained and manacled black people quietly awaiting a slave trader's order to move on, newly rich planters and iron barons holding tightly to the reins of power. You will also be caught in the tangled web of the South's past.

Virginia Van Der Veer Hamilton wrote several notable books on Alabama history as well as several text books.