The Department of History is pleased to announce a new advanced concentration in Legal History — specifically designed to give undergraduates a competitive edge when applying to elite law schools and/or policy oriented graduate programs. Participating students will acquire first-hand legal research experience while exploring key precedents and the evolution of jurisprudence over time. Students are also provided with personalized application coaching, experiential learning opportunities, and one-on-one personal statement workshops. History is widely regarded in the legal community as among […]
Category: News
Crimson Historical Review Now Accepting Submissions
The Crimson Historical Review, the University of Alabama’s nationally acclaimed undergraduate history research journal, is accepting submissions for the Fall, 2020 issue. See http://crimsonhistorical.ua.edu for previous issues and instructions on submission. History Majors and Minors interested in working on the CHR staff should contact Jackson Foster, the Chief Editor, at jcfoster6@crimson.ua.edu.
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Dr. John Giggie to Participate in David Mathews Center’s Civic Institute, August 21
The Mathews Center will host its annual Civic Institute on August 21st, 2020. The event will be held entirely online. The theme of this year’s event is Common Bonds: Collective Purpose and Civic Resilience in Uncertain Times. Dr. David Mathews, President and C.E.O. of the Kettering Foundation, will deliver a (pre-recorded) keynote address drawing on his experiences at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare—where he served as Secretary during the Swine Flu outbreak of 1976. Mathews is an alum of The […]
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Why the Debate Over Building Names Matters
Associate Professors Dr. John Giggie and Dr. James Mixson co-authored an opinion piece for al.com that explores the significance of building names, the legacies those names carry, and what they say about our often flawed understanding of the past. “When W.E.B. Dubois, the great Black intellectual and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, surveyed the southern frenzy to memorialize the Confederacy in the late 1920s, he shook his head in disbelief. He feared the power […]
UA Professor and Graduates Publish Volume Honoring Emeritus History Professor George C. Rable
Louisiana State University Press recently published American Discord: The Republic and Its People during the Civil War Era, an edited volume honoring the career of UA emeritus history professor George C. Rable. Edited by UA history professor Dr. Lesley J. Gordon and UA history alumni Drs. Megan Bever and Laura Mammina, the collection features essays written by thirteen of Rable’s Ph.D. students, as well as other prominent scholars, including a forward by Gary W. Gallagher. The wide-ranging collection mirrors Rable’s […]
The University of Alabama Hosts Virtual Vigil for Black Lives Lost to Racialized Violence
On Thursday, June 4, 2020 The University of Alabama hosted a virtual vigil to honor and remember black lives lost to racialized violence in the United States.
Rable Protégés Discuss the “Rable Method.”
Glenn David Brasher and G. Ward Hubbs, both noted protégés of Professor George Rable, recently published a piece on the “Rable Method” for the Civil War Monitor. Few scholars have produced as many groundbreaking works as Civil War historian George C. Rable. Since his retirement from teaching in 2016, a group of his former doctoral students have worked on a festschrift to honor their mentor, culminating now with the release of American Discord; The Republic and Its People in the Civil […]
Department Endorses AHA Statement on George Floyd’s Death & its Place in the Nation’s Violent History
The Department of History at the University of Alabama endorses the below statement from the American Historical Association on the killing of George Floyd and his death’s place in the violent history of the United States. The AHA has issued a statement urging a reckoning with the United States’ deplorable record of violence against African Americans, a record that stretches back centuries. The killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers stands within this sordid national tradition […]
Summersell Chair Sponsors two Visits in February
Dr. Lesley Gordon, Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History, welcomed two visitors to The University of Alabama Department of History during the month of February. Matthew Christopher Hulbert (Ph.D., UGA, 2015) is an Assistant Professor of History at Hampden-Sydney College. Dr. Hulbert delivered his lecture “Irregular Recollections: Civil War and Guerrilla Memory in the Missouri-Kansas Borderlands” to a crowd of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students. Based on his award-winning book, The Ghosts of Guerrilla Memory: How Civil War Bushwhackers […]
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Department Moves all Instruction Online in Response to COVID-19 Emergency
The department has joined the rest of The University of Alabama (and most of the nation) in moving all instruction online in response to ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic. In early March, university administration informed faculty and staff to prepare for alternative instruction methods if necessary and ordered a review of our academic continuity plans. The department responded rapidly. Undergraduate Director Dr. Margaret Peacock organized a Zoom and online pedagogy roundtable training session with Dr. John Ratliff, the department’s instructor in UA […]
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In Memoriam: Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins, 1934-2020
Dr. Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins, the Department of History’s pioneering first female professor, passed away at her Tuscaloosa home on Easter Sunday. A memorial service will be held at Christ Episcopal Church at a later date, once social distancing restrictions are lifted. A private burial will take place at Greenwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. Wiggins is preceded in death by her parents, Robert Nelson Woolfolk, Jr. and Dixie Gilliland Woolfolk, and her husband, Peyton Norvell Wiggins. She is survived by […]
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Spring 2020 Edition of Historically Speaking Published Electronically
Last week the Department of History published its Spring 2020 edition of Historically Speaking completely electronically. Though we’ve always made an electronic edition available online, we’ve focused our spring efforts on a print edition for Honor’s Day, traditionally. The ongoing COVID-19 National Emergency forced us to change those plans, like it has so much else in our daily lives. Nevertheless, the department and the university continue to move forward and we’re delighted to share the accomplishments of our students, alumni, […]
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Graduate Students Help Catalog Materials at the Lillian E. Smith Center
During the past weekend, History M.A. students Emma Pepperman and Margaret Schultz joined Dr. Julia Brock at the Lillian E. Smith Center in Clayton, Georgia, to create a catalog of the material culture that is housed within the Center. The site was the former Laurel Falls Girls Camp, begun by the family of writer and activist Lillian Smith in 1920 and directed by Smith herself until 1949, when the camp closed. Smith penned her novel Strange Fruit (1944) and memoir Killers of […]
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Dr. Kristopher Teters to Speak on “An Army of Liberation: How Western Union Officers Carried out and Felt about Emancipation during the Civil War”
Please join us on February 27, at Noon, to welcome Dr. Kristopher Teters for his lunch talk, “An Army of Liberation: How Western Union Officers Carried out and Felt about Emancipation during the Civil War.” Dr. Kristopher Teters earned his Ph.D. in 2012 at The University of Alabama, working with Dr. George Rable. The focus of his work is the Civil War era. His book, Practical Liberators, which came out in 2018, looks at the Union army and emancipation in the Western […]
Matthew Hulbert Visits Department
Dr. Matthew Hulbert, assistant professor of history at Hampden-Sydney College, visited the department on Friday, February 7, to discuss his book, The Ghosts of Guerrilla Memory: How Civil War Bushwhackers Became Gunslingers in the American West (UGA 2016). Hulbert’s wide-ranging talk covered noted American characters of the period, from Billy the Kid to Jesse James, but his focus was on the irregular wartime experiences of the common person. For those on the Missouri-Kansas border guerrilla violence became normalized, while front-line fighting […]