The Divinity of Light statue has graced the peak of the Alabama Power Company Headquarters in Downtown Birmingham since 1926. Nicknamed “Miss Electra,” she’s sculpted in bronze and stands 23 feet tall. She dons a gilded coat of gold leaf and nothing else. Bolts of lightning emanate from the top of her head as each hand bears a sheaf of bolts like arrows ready to strike. She’s bold, she’s powerful, she’s a symbol of progress and the subject of (spicy) folklore. Get to know Birmingham’s very own goddess, Miss Electra.
How the Golden Goddess Found Her Home
Today, the Alabama Power Company provides power to over 1.5 million Alabama residents, businesses, and organizations. But back in the early 1900s, the company was eager to bring modern advancements in electricity to the state. To mark this new chapter in Alabama’s history and strengthen its corporate identity, the Alabama Power Company built an iconic headquarters in the heart of Downtown Birmingham. The Birmingham-based architectural firm Warren, Knight & Davis won the contract for the building and got to work.
A New Birmingham Skyscraper for a New Alabama Era
Striving to be on the cutting edge of the times, the architecture firm’s designs were a departure from Birmingham’s existing skyscrapers. “Warren, Knight & Davis drew from the new Art Deco architectural style, which was becoming popular throughout the country,” explains Joey Blackwell, the multimedia communications specialist at Alabama Power Company. “This style made use of ‘geometrically determined patterns’ and vertical lines. The shape of the new building would narrow as it rose through a series of step-backs, ending in a sloped roof.”
Jim Noles, an author and professor at Auburn University, tells us that the building’s design also celebrated the area’s natural resources, including limestone, marble, brick, tile, and steel.
In her written history of the Alabama Power Company, Developed for the Service of Alabama, the late Leah Rawls Atkins quoted the company’s former president, Thomas W. Martin, as saying, “[I]n line with the Company’s policy on all of its construction work, the materials, labor, and supplies for the new building are being obtained within the State of Alabama as far as is economically possible to do so.” Jim adds, “Thomas Martin was a native Alabamian and an enthusiastic booster of Alabama’s economy and industry.”
The 217-foot tall, 16-story skyscraper was completed in 1924 and immediately received international acclaim, including praise from a London newspaper that hailed it as one of the “three most beautiful public buildings in the world,” as Jim wrote in his book, Alabama Power Company. The building was honored at the Southern Architecture and Industrial Arts Exposition in 1929 with a gold medal and first prize for ‘Best Commercial Building.’ The Art Deco skyscraper stood alone as the shining beacon for the power company until its expansion in the 1980s.
The Golden Goddess Atop the Grand Skyscraper
While the Art Deco building design already made its headquarters stand out, the Alabama Power Company wanted a grand emblem to identify it as its own. The original design included a large electric sign bearing the company’s name, but conversations arose over the desirability of this idea.
“William T. Warren, one of the architects of the new building, believed that a beautiful statue would be more in keeping with the Art Deco design of the building,” Joey explains. “He argued to the board of directors that a ‘statue would be a thing of beauty to be looked at and enjoyed over and over again and that it would stand for the ideals of a great company.’ The board unanimously agreed.”
Joey says that in addition to drawing from Greek, Renaissance, and Mezzo-American Art forms, Art Deco also celebrated the classic nude form. “The use of these artistic forms identifies the building as the earliest example of Art Deco design in Birmingham and one of the earliest in the United States,” he tells us.
The Tale of the Electra-Vulcan Love Affair
Shortly after Miss Electra’s debut, The Birmingham Post published a serialized narrative feature by acclaimed journalist E.T. Leech (writing under his satirist pseudonym, Dr. B.U.L. Conner) detailing the love story of Birmingham’s famous Vulcan statue and Miss Electra, the glimmering new girl on the block. Back then, Vulcan lived at the Alabama State Fairgrounds, the current home of the Birmingham CrossPlex.
The lore (as told by BhamWiki) goes that “The Man” and “The Maid” came to life every night between midnight and 2 a.m. and struck up a romance. The tales even included explanations of the potholes that littered 18th Street as evidence of the affair — the footprints of an impassioned god. Yet even though Vulcan towered over Electra (his 56-foot tall physique more than doubled her 23-foot frame), he could never tame her. The god of fire and forge wanted his dame to become a ‘demure housewife,’ and Miss Electra shone far too brightly for such a fate.
Today, Vulcan and Electra stand straight across the Magic City from each other. Vulcan looks out toward Electra from his post atop Red Mountain, but Miss Electra turns away, facing northeast instead of southward in Vulcan’s direction.
Miss Electra’s Enduring Power
“Just as it was designed to signify over a century ago, the APC headquarters building and its decorated exterior is a symbol of progress,” Joey says. Leah Rawls Atkins quoted architectural historian Robert Gamble in her book, stating, “The setbacks and angular profiles of the power company building achieved a dramatic silhouette, by which the architects of the 1920s sought to catch the spirit of the modern age.” Miss Electra stands as a bold proclamation of that spirit and one that lives on in Birmingham and throughout Alabama to this day.
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