Norman Floyd McGowin Jr. was born into a prosperous family whose W. T. Smith Lumber Company dominated the small town of Chapman in Butler County in south Alabama. Family members achieved distinction in business, politics, the arts, and society. Floyd grew up, as he put it, during "periods of our region's and country's history that have encompassed momentous social, political, economic, and technological change. More took place in the last two-thirds of the 20th century along these lines than probably during any comparable period. My life has been full and interesting, and I have been privileged to know a lot of people and be involved in situations that illustrate change in both the physical aspects of life as well as the values that affect it." Thus while in that "era of my life between active employment and impotent geezerhood, where I see things with more clarity and truth than previously," he decided to write a memoir so that his grandson Peter and other young people "might better understand what is different and what is the same with regard to the past." His story unfolds in three parts: family, early education, and surroundings; Yale University and the Marine Corps; and his years in business. "It is my hope that this book will pay adequate tribute to those people and times that have formed mine," he wrote.

Green Gold is a thorough and valuable compilation of information on Alabama’s timber and forest products industry, the largest manufacturing industry in the sta Alabama has the third-largest commercial forest in the nation, after only Georgia and Oregon. Fully two-thirds of the state’s land supports the growth of over fifteen billion trees on twenty-two million acres, which explains why Alabama looks entirely green from space. Green Gold presents the story of human use of and impact on Alabama’s forests from pioneer days to the present, as James E. Fickle chronicles the history of the industry from unbridled greed and exploitation through virtual abandonment to revival, restoration, and enlightened stewardship. As the state’s largest manufacturing industry, forest products have traditionally included naval stores such as tar, pitch, and turpentine, especially in the southern longleaf stands; sawmill lumber, both hardwood and pine; and pulp and paper milling. Green Gold documents all aspects of the industry, including the advent of “scientific forestry” and the development of reforestation practices with sustained yields. Also addressed are the historical impacts of Native Americans and of early settlers who used axes, saws, and water- and steam-powered sawmills to clear and utilize forests. Along with an account of railroad logging and the big mills of the lumber bonanza days of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the book also chronicles the arrival of professional foresters to the state, who began to deal with the devastating legacy of “cut out and get out” logging and to fight the perennial curse of woods arson. Finally, Green Gold examines the rise of the tree farm movement, the rebirth of large-scale lumbering, the advent of modern environmental concerns, and the movement toward the “Fourth Forest” in Alabama.

Without rancor or blame, and even with occasional humor, The Pecan Orchard offers a window into the inequities between blacks and whites in a small southern town still emerging from Jim Crow attitudes.

The first and only historical account of the John Patterson administration