August 14, 1888

The agricultural railroad display “Alabama on Wheels” began its journey of more than 4,000 miles from Union Station in Montgomery. Designed by the Alabama Agriculture Commission to attract immigrant labor to the state, the rolling display featured several rail cars fitted with exhibits promoting “Alabama’s Matchless Resources” of agriculture, timber and minerals. The exhibit traveled through nine states and met a festive atmosphere and as many as 7,000 daily visitors at each of its stops. Despite the warm receptions, however, the promotion failed to dispel the image of Alabama as poor, violent and hostile to outsiders and attracted an insignificant number of immigrants to Alabama.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Reuben F. Kolb served as Alabama’s Commissioner of Agriculture from 1886-90. A prominent member of the Farmers’ Alliance, he ran for governor as a Populist unsuccessfully in 1892 and 1894. A successful farmer, Kolb was one of the early pioneers of peach production in Alabama during the 1880s. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History)

Alabama As It Is or, The Immigrants and Capitalists Guide Book to Alabama, by minister Benjamin F. Riley, was published in 1887 to promote and encourage Europeans and white northerners to migrate to and invest in Alabama during the Reconstruction period. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Home of the Burroughs family, Hale County, AL, 1936. The Burroughs were sharecroppers. (Photograph by Walker Evans, U.S. Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200