TUSCUMBIA – The Maud Lindsay Study Club will host a historical marker dedication ceremony and reception honoring Maud Lindsay on Thursday, June 22, at 3:30 pm at the Helen Keller Public Library in Tuscumbia. The public is invited to attend.
The Maud Lindsay Study Club, established in 1925, purchased the historical marker to honor the club’s namesake. It has been erected in front of the Gov. Robert Burns Lindsay home on Main Street in Tuscumbia. The marker was funded by study club members and the Colbert County Historical Landmarks Foundation.
“As the Maud Lindsay Study Club nears its centennial year of existence, club members were discussing how to commemorate this special anniversary,” recalls Jackie Stutts, president of the study club. “Honoring and paying tribute to the memory of our namesake seemed appropriate. While the marker notes the lives of the past, it should give inspiration and courage to our generation and those who follow. May this marker keep alive the appreciation of unselfish service and remind everyone of a life well lived.”
Maud Lindsay, a native of Tuscumbia, was an internationally esteemed teacher and author who crossed
social barriers to establish Alabama’s first free kindergarten in the working class cotton mill district of east Florence. Although she had no formal higher education, she published 17 books and became an international speaker, lecturing on the art of storytelling and teaching. She declined an invitation from famed Italian educator Maria Montessori to teach in Italy, choosing to remain in her beloved Alabama. As an adult, Lindsay moved to Sheffield and for decades traveled across the river each day to serve as teacher and principal of a free kindergarten in Florence. “Miss Maud” was widely known for her children’s books, including the especially popular Mother Stories, and for her delightful storytelling on the Colbert County Courthouse steps.
“We are delighted to honor the life and legacy of Maud Lindsay, one of Alabama’s most famous teachers, with this historical marker,” said Lorie Johnson, president of the Colbert County Historical Landmarks Foundation. “Miss Maud was a world-renowned teacher and author who ignored social barriers erected against women and social classes to pursue her passion for early childhood education. She was a gifted teacher, author, and storyteller who made a difference in the lives of countless children and other educators and left a beautiful legacy of selfless service that still inspires us today.”
Born in Tuscumbia in 1874, Lindsay was the daughter of Gov. Robert Burns Lindsay, the only foreign-born governor of Alabama, who hailed from Scotland before relocating first to North Carolina, then to Tuscumbia. Gov. Lindsay was a teacher and lawyer who was elected to the state legislature several times before winning the governor’s race. Lindsay’s childhood friend, Helen Keller, once described her as “one of the truly progressive women of the Southland, an example of Alabama’s true wealth and greatness.” Lindsay was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 1995.
GOV. ROBERT BURNS LINDSAY
July 4, 1824 – February 13, 1902
A native of Lochmaben, Scotland, Robert Burns Lindsay was Alabama’s only foreign-born governor. He immigrated to North Carolina in 1844 and relocated to Tuscumbia in 1849, where he worked as a teacher and read law, obtaining admittance to the Alabama Bar in 1852. The following year, residents of Franklin County elected him to the Alabama House of Representatives. In 1854, Lindsay married Sarah Miller Winston, sister to John Anthony Winston, who served as governor from 1853 to 1857. The couple had nine children, four of whom survived to adulthood, among them educator and author Maud McKnight Lindsay (see other side). In 1857, Lindsay won election to the Alabama Senate. In 1861, he joined Col. Philip D. Roddey’s Fourth Alabama Cavalry, CSA. At war’s end, voters returned him to the Alabama Senate. In 1870, Lindsay became the first Democrat elected governor of Alabama since the end of the Civil War. His turbulent two-year term in office amidst Reconstruction was beset by economic and political difficulties, compounded by the failure of a state-supported railroad venture. Declining to run for reelection in 1872, Lindsay returned to Tuscumbia, where he continued a limited law practice, hampered by ill health, until his death.
Sponsored by the Maud Lindsay Study Club and the Colbert County Historical Landmarks Foundation.
ALABAMA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 2022
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MAUD MCKNIGHT LINDSAY
May 13, 1874 – May 30, 1941
Media Release/Lorie Johnson/president of the Colbert County Historical Landmarks Foundation
