PBA Galleries

Approximately 45 items. Housed together plastic in a three-ring binder.

Materials relating to the political activities and writings of descendants of President John Tyler through his eldest son Robert Tyler, who married Priscilla Cooper, and whose daughter Priscilla C. Tyler married Albert T. Goodwyn. The Tylers and the Goodwyns were old Southern families, from South Carolina, Virginia, and Alabama, long involved in the political, economic and social life of the South, and were owners of slaves and plantations. Provenance: Descended in the family.

• In a c.1925 draft of a letter or speech, likely by Robert T. Goodwyn II, he writes, "Of course I am for Governor Kilby for Senator. He is a Democrat of courage and conviction... In Mr. Black's political philosophy it appears that 'Every little movement has a meaning all its own'. He gaffed the Alabama democracy in 1928, when such gaffing was a popular sport. He gaffed the Ku Klux Klan, his political sponsor, when that kind of gaffing began to be cheered; and then in 1932 less than a month ago he gaffed the Prohibitionists of Alabama after taking their vote in the May primary. I am afraid he may later do some more gaffing..."
• In a c.1940 draft of election rules for the Democratic primary, it is stated that “the following persons, and none others, shall be eligible to be candidates for nomination or election in said Primary Election, namely: Qualified white electors…”

• In a 1928 political essay. Robert T. Goodwyn writes, “The white people of this great state now enjoy peace and tranquility. They have enjoyed it for more than fifty years. With many hundreds of thousands of negroes in our midst we have lived in security and happiness. No cloud of racial discord even as large [as] a yellow jacket’s shadow has appeared upon our Alabama sky since the Democratic Party drove out of power in 1876 the corrupt gangs which fattened upon the people of our great state under Republican control. The negroes have been contented. The white people have been contented… Now, my friends, here in Alabama; here, where we can still trace red scars from Republican butcher blades, they seek to arouse race prejudice against the Democratic nominee with foul deceptions and gross defamations… They are dressing up the Alabama Republican Party in snow white garments and seeking to put it in charge of the white man’s temple of hope in Alabama. They tell us to forget the Republican orgies of reconstruction days…”
• In a 1939 2½-page typed story, Tyler Goodwyn begins “Tobe was a round shining faced darky about fifty years old. He had been married to Sue for thirty years and had sixteen children by her… Tobe was one of the best natured darkies, I ever knew…”