Linn-Henley Gallery Exhibitions
A special part of your visit to Vulcan Park and Museum is the Linn-Henley Gallery, a space where we host changing exhibits that enhance your experience at Vulcan. Linn-Henley Gallery is included in your admission to Vulcan Park and Museum. Adults $6 (plus tax); Seniors $5 (plus tax); Children 5 – 12 $4 (plus tax); under 4 free.
On View Now
A PLACE OF OUR OWN:
The Fourth Avenue District, Civil Rights, and the Rise of Birmingham’s Black Middle Class
On View April 12 – September 30, 2013
Birmingham, Ala. - Public Library Archives
Birmingham was founded in 1871, at a time when black and white businesses existed side by side. As Jim Crow laws took effect in the early 1900s, a separate black business district emerged as a haven for local African-American entrepreneurs. The Fourth Avenue District became home to the enterprises of A. G. Gaston and William Pettiford, the architecture of Wallace Rayfield and a wealth of businesses, entertainment venues and cultural institutions that united blacks from across the city. A Place of Our Own illustrates how the Fourth Avenue District grew into the cultural center of Birmingham’s African American community through oral histories, photographs and artifacts.
Click here to view videos from the A Place of Our Own oral history collection.
In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 Birmingham Civil Rights Movement. To find out more about this poignant time in the city's history and other events marking this anniversary, visit www.50yearsforward.com.
Birmingham Business Resource Center
Foundation Capital
Carol Clarke and Family
SouthPace Properties
Stonegate Realty
Franks Global Media
Upcoming Exhibitions
Vulcan Keepsakes: Iron Man Memorabilia from the Birmingham Community
On View October 7, 2013 - August 17, 2014
Since his display at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, Vulcan has inspired an untold numbers of souvenirs. There have been Vulcan watch fobs, statuettes, paperweights, postcards and posters. Some items are inexplicable; recently a Midwesterner contacted Vulcan Park and Museum about a zinc donkey figurine whose saddle is imprinted with the statue’s image.
Through such items, we see Vulcan as he appeared at the World’s Fair in 1904. We see Vulcan on his sandstone pedestal in the late 1930s, as he first looked in his new home atop Red Mountain. Eventually the neon torch – infamous to some, simply famous to others – appears. Memorabilia featuring the statue’s space-age pedestal and park in the 1970s, and as a meticulously restored civic icon in the early 2000s, round out Vulcan’s epic story.
Vulcan-inspired keepsakes tell another story, of a nation’s love affair with the iron giant on Red Mountain. Vulcan tchotchkes are scattered across the country for at least a couple of reasons. First and foremost, people love Vulcan, for his classical grandeur, the technical mastery of sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, and maybe because, in an age of mass production, Vulcan is utterly unique.
2014 marks 110 years since Birmingham’s colossal icon was cast from local iron to become the world’s largest cast-iron statue. To celebrate his amazing journey and history, Vulcan Park and Museum will present Vulcan Keepsakes: Iron Man Memorabilia from the Birmingham Community. The exhibition, running October 7, 2013 through August 17, 2014, will feature Vulcan souvenirs loaned to us by the local community as well as oral histories from citizens with unique stories to share. Vulcan’s 110-year history resides within quirky, curious keepsakes and the local people who witnessed significant moments from his past.
If you hold an interesting item you would like us to consider for the exhibition, please contact Lindsay Elliott at lelliott@visitvulcan.com, 205.933.1409 x. 29. You can also bring your items and stories to Share Your History Day at Vulcan Center Museum on the first Wednesday of each month from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. and we will review Vulcan keepsakes for possible display.
