Description: As Elizabeth Johnston walked among the convicts in an Alabama prison mining camp, she was stunned to see teenage boys working alongside hardened criminals. As a result of that disturbing experience, she vowed to remove youngsters from such wretched conditions by establishing a home for wayward boys. With the support of women across the state, she persuaded the Alabama legislature to establish the Alabama Boys' Industrial School in 1900. After several difficult years, Johnston and her all-female board made a once-in-a-lifetime decision by hiring a young couple from Tennessee, David and Katherine Weakley, as superintendent and matron. United by their Christian faith, their love for the boys, and some basic principles on how the boys should be molded into men, Johnston and the Weakleys labored together for decades to make the school one of the nation's premier institutions of its kind. A Home for Wayward Boys is the inspiring story of the school, its leaders, and the youngsters who lived there. The book's audience is not limited to those professionally interested in the social sciences and cultural history, but also to social workers, youth leaders, teachers, and parents--in fact, to anyone interested in the transforming power of love.
Brief description: WAYNE FLYNT is a southern historian and educator who retired after teaching for decades at Auburn University, where he directed more than sixty graduate programs. He has lectured at Sichuan University in China, at Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the universities of Newcastle, Oxford, Cambridge, and Sussex in Great Britain, at the Franklin Roosevelt Center in The Netherlands, and at the University of Vienna. He is the author of fourteen books dealing with Southern politics, history, white poverty, and culture (religion, art, music, literature). His numerous awards include the Rembert Patrick Award for Florida History, the Lillian Smith Prize for Nonfiction from the Southern Regional Council, the Alabama Library Association Award for non-fiction (three times), the C. Vann Woodward/John Hope Franklin Prize by the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Award for Excellence in Writing, a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize (1989), and the Alabama Governor's Award for the Arts.
Review Quotes: Jerry Armor perfectly describes the origins of Elizabeth Johnston's undying passion for 'wayward boys.' This book ensures that we do not forget Alabama's first lobbyist for needy children and her lifetime commitment to them.--Sue Bell Cobb "author of There Must Be a Witness: Stories of Abuse, Advocacy, and the Fight to Put Children First"