Fairhope’s founding father was E.B. Gaston, an Iowa populist newspaper editor
An experimental community intended to address the ills of income disparity during the Gilded Age, Fairhope, Alabama was founded by mid-westerners in 1894 on the shores of Mobile Bay. It attracted artists, eccentrics, and reformers including Marietta Johnson, who along with Maria Montessori, was a pioneer of non-traditional education.
The community’s founding organization and the school are both still there. But as the town has evolved into a nationally known resort and retirement community, it has struggled to reconcile its present with its past.
The colony’s ideals were at odds with Southern attitudes about race
Among a community of free thinkers was dancer Winifred Duncan, once arrested for nude canoeing in the bay
Produced for the University of Alabama Center for Public Television
