Category Archives: Annual Gathering

Annual Gathering, Annual meeting, Architecture, Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Birmingham pioneers, civil rights, Historic Preservation, Parks & Recreation, Planning, Engineering, and Permits, Rickwood Field

Rickwood Field – Did You Know?

Birmingham Historical Society co-sponsored the 1993 documentation known as HABS AL-897 to establish Rickwood Field as America’s oldest ballpark.

The project’s 28 photos, 22 drawings, and a 58-page historical report, at the Library of Congress, are now available worldwide.

To commemorate their involvement, the Birmingham Historical Society created a poster (illustrated below) documenting the Society’s role in helping launch the Rickwood Revival of the 1990s.

The Society brought Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), a federal program that documents historic architecture in the United States, to Birmingham to conduct the field work necessary to establish the national significance of the ball park, not only architecturally but also as the home of the Black Barons launching baseball stars including Mules Suttles, Satchel Paige, and Willie Mays.

Up until then, the newly formed Friends of Rickwood assumed that they were the oldest park without documentation, despite other contenders, because Comiskey Park in Chicago had just been demolished.

The Friends took the HABS drawings and made them into promotional renderings to kick off their long-term campaign to preserve and enliven the park. It’s a remarkable success story…about which we will hear more at the Annual Meeting February 24th at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. It’s FREE and open to the public. Please join us!

What is HABS?

Purpose: 

  • To create a public archive of American architecture
  • To establish standard practices for surveying and listing historic sites
  • To help restore and rehabilitate historic properties
  • To inform new designs based on historical precedents

History: 

  • Established in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • Originally a make-work program for unemployed architects, draftsmen, and photographers
  • Became a permanent program of the National Park Service in 1934
  • Formally authorized by Congress in 1935
  • Documentation: Measured drawings, Large-format black and white photographs, Written histories, and Supplemental materials. 

Significance:

  • HABS documentation is part of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.
  • HABS is the nation’s oldest federal preservation program
  • HABS documentation is often a key part of preservation efforts  
Annual Gathering, Annual meeting, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham Civil Rights, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Birmingham pioneers, BOOK, Book Sale, Book Signing, Cake & Pie Contest, Cake Contest, Meetings, Membership, Parks & Recreation, Publications, Rickwood Field

The 83rd Annual Meeting Featuring America’s Oldest Ball Field – Rickwood

ALL ARE WELCOME at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society at 7PM on Monday, February 24th at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

The meeting will feature guest speaker, Gerald Watkins, Director of the Friends of Rickwood, and a lifetime baseball enthusiast! His talk, Rickwood: Then & Now, will tell the story of America’s oldest grandstand and ballpark. The Friends’ fundraising campaign, spearheaded by Terry Slaughter, Tom Cosby, and Coke Mathews, enabled the park to be restored, expanded, and subsequently brought Alabama’s first Major League Baseball game to Birmingham. Books about Rickwood will be available for sale, and chocolate cake entries from the annual cake contest will be judged and available after the meeting for sampling!

Baseball fans, society supporters and members, and Alabama historians, don’t miss this meeting!

Annual Gathering, Annual meeting, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham Historical Society, Cake Contest, Favorite Pie & Cake Contest, lecture, Meetings, Membership

The Great Chocolate Cake Contest

The 83rd Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society is at 7PM on Monday, February 24th at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and will feature guest speaker Gerald Watkins, Director of the Friends of Rickwood Field.

CALLING ALL CAKES

For The Great Chocolate Cake Contest

THE RULES: Bake your cake and bring the form above,

along with the recipe, and your cake for judging, to the

Birmingham Botanical Gardens Auditorium

between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. on February 24.

JUDGING CATEGORIES: Most Chocolatey Cake Creation + Best

Overall Cake + Best Visual Presentation + Best Flavor Profile +

Most Pleasing Texture + Best Memory Statement

Annual Gathering, Birmingham Historical Society, Heritage Society

The Legacy of Margaret Livingston

Last evening’s well-attended and highly deserved tribute to Margaret Livingston featured guest speakers Paul Zahl, the former deacon of The Cathedral Church of the Advent and Margaret’s pastor, and Gail Andrews, the former Director of the Birmingham Museum of Art.

Both speakers emphasized Margaret’s remarkable energy, unwavering enthusiasm, keen intelligence, genuine warmth, and fervent dedication to the museum. Gail highlighted her significant contributions to increasing attendance, enhancing educational programs, and enriching the museum’s collections.

Birmingham Historical Society Director, Marjorie White, points out features relevant to Margaret Livingston’s life that the artist Larry Rivers included in the painting commissioned by the museum.

Margaret Gresham Livingston by Larry Rivers, 1987. Oil on canvas mounted on foamcore, 97 x 60 x 5.5 in the Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art; Museum purchase 1987.32,
Audio recording of BHS Director Marjorie White’s remarks on the Larry Rivers painting (recorded by Margaret Meadows Livingston)
Paul Zahl with Marjorie White

Paul Zahl led the evening with a “Bidding Prayer” which he explained, rather than a euology, summarizes aspects of the person’s life, excerpted below:

“We give thanks to Thee for Margaret’s brilliant intelligence married to warmth, sincere openness, and also determination. We thank Thee for her generous and open heart. I thank Thee for her interior life, her unity even now with Thee….in Thy everlasting arms forever.”

-Reverend Paul Zahl

Audio recording of Paul Zahl, former Dean of the Cathedral Church of the Advent, paying tribute to Margaret Gresham Livingston (recorded by Mary Meadows Livingston)

While the evening was originally planned to celebrate her 100th birthday, sadly she didn’t live to receive the accolades that she received.

The evening began with cocktails in the sculpture garden of the Birmingham Museum of Art, followed by a seated dinner. Margaret’s family was in attendance, along with museum benefactors, friends, and BHS Heritage Society members.

Margaret’s children & grandchildren in attendance with her portrait by Larry Rivers. (Left to right, Paul Weiner, Mary Margaret Livingston Hindman, Dr. Elizabeth Livingston, Kathy Livingston Rutledge, Katie Nelson, Dr. Sarah Weiner, Jim Livingston, Jr.)

The museum’s commissioned choice of artist Larry Rivers reflected Margaret’s wish that the museum expand its collection of traditional art to include popular contemporary and ‘pop art’ among other styles.

Bottom left, former Birmimgham Museum of Art Director, Gail Andrews (photos by BHS volunteer, Katie Tipton)
Audio Recording of former Birmingham Museum of Art Director, Gail Andrews on Margaret Livingston’s contribution to the museum (recorded by Margaret Meadows Livingston)
The evening started with cocktails in the sculpture garden of the Birmingham Museum of Art followed by a seated dinner in the main lobby area.

Thank you Margaret Gresham Livingston for your life, your passion, your legacy, and your contribution to a better quality of life in Birmingham.

Annual Gathering, Annual meeting, BOOK, Book Sale, Cake & Pie Contest, Cake Contest, family history, Favorite Pie & Cake Contest, Food History

Fruity Wonders on Display!

The 82nd Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society featured an array of ‘Fruity Wonders‘ cakes from participants as young as 14, as well as entries by four different members of the same family who love to bake. Yum! Thank you to all who participated. Winners in multiple categories were announced at the meeting.

Always a popular annual event, this year’s entries included one cake which gave a nod to the speaker’s topic on Ancient Life in Alabama and was crawling with dinosaurs instead of fruit. The young baker explained that the dinosaurs were eating the fruit layer because it came into being during the age of dinosaurs! A special thanks to Trustee Carolanne Roberts who organized this event.

photo by Louise McPhillips
Annual Gathering, Annual meeting, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham Historical Society, BOOK, Book Sale, Book Signing, Cake & Pie Contest, Favorite Pie & Cake Contest, Meetings, Membership, Publications, Trustees

500 Million Years of Alabama History at our 82nd Annual Meeting

Please join us on Monday, February 26 at 7 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens for the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society. President Wayne Hester will preside. 

Recorded history is said to have begun with the drafting of the Sumerian cuneiform tablets, approximately 5,000 years ago. Beginning in the 19th century, the study of fossils has evolved to tell a significantly longer span of earth’s history:  500 million years, i.e. “Deep Time.” Per our speaker Bill Deutsch: “Alabama has been part of this unfolding story  since the modern science of Paleontology began, and fossil richness will keep it center stage.”

 Deutsch will take us on a mesmerizing “Walk Through Deep Time”, unfurling Alabama’s rich fossil legacy and its connections to our history, geology, and world-class biodiversity.  (Add to your FB calendar HERE)

Following Dr. Deutsch’s talk, Carolanne Roberts will announce the winners of the Fruity Wonders Cake Competition, praising our members’ creations and sharing comments from our esteemed judges.

Then, we invite you to get a copy of Ancient Life in Alabama, to chat with Bill Deutsch,  sample  cake, and pay 2024 Society dues. Copies of Deutsch’s book will be available for sale for $30 cash, check, or charge.

About the Author

Dr. William (“Bill”) Deutsch is a Research Fellow Emeritus in the Auburn University School of Fisheries, Agriculture, and Aquatic Sciences. The New York native holds degrees in Biology, Anthropology and Zoology, and Aquatic Ecology, the later a PhD from Auburn. During his 26 years as an aquatic ecologist in Alabama, With a longstanding interest in fossils, Deutsch participated in fossils hunting expeditions across the nation He has taught, lectured, and written widely about the natural wonders of our state, especially its rivers and its fossilsand what they can tell us about the present and times long past.

“Since moving to Alabama nearly 40 years ago, I’ve learned about its rich variety of fossils. Rock outcrops are fanned out in a relatively discernible pattern, with bands of fossils representing each geological era. The story of more than 500 million years of life is here, just under our feet. Tropical seas teemed with sharks, mosasaurs, and reef life. Coal-forming swamps ringed coastlines with huge dragonflies and millipedes, slithering amphibians, and towering horsetail plants. Dinosaurs of several types were here along with toothed birds, legged whales, rhinoceroses, mastodons, and giant sloths—the highest fossil diversity of any state east of the Mississippi River! In Alabama? Who knew? How and when did this happen?”

–-Bill Deutsch, “Preface,” Ancient Life in Alabama : The Fossils, The Finders & Why It Matters, July 2022.

“Fruit came with the flowering plants in the Mesozoic age [145 to  66 million years ago]. Late dinosaurs probably imbibed.” Bill Deutsch. 

CALLING ALL CAKES

For the Fruity Wonders Cake Contest

THE RULES: Bake your cake and bring the form and your cake for judging to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Auditorium between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. on February 26. 

JUDGING CATEGORIES: Most Colorful + Best Creative Use of Fruit + Best Visual Presentation +Best Flavor Profiles + Best Memory Statement + Best Overall

Annual Gathering, Annual meeting, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham Historical Society, Cake & Pie Contest, Favorite Pie & Cake Contest, Food History

Fruity Wonders Cake Contest

The annual Birmingham Historical Society meeting next year will be February 26th, 2024, at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. As always, it will include a popular cake contest (and tasting!) after the featured speaker. Judges select multiple winners with 2024 categories listed below. Memorable family recipes are always a big hit with the judges! The meeting is FREE and open to the public. So start thinking of your best recipes that are filled with fruit! Need inspiration? Lots of ideas below…

Annual Gathering, Architecture, Birmingham Historical Society, Heritage Society, Historic Preservation, Membership

Reminder: Heritage Society Gathering

Heritage Society members, thank you for your support! Don’t forget that this Sunday, May 7th at 5:00 PM is the annual gathering. You should have received an invitation via USPS and this is an RSVP event. Any last minute responses should be directed to BHS Director Marjorie White.

Drawing for invitation by BHS Heritage Society member, Louise McPhillips

Missed this event but want to join for next year? More information is available HERE. See you Sunday!

Annual Gathering, Annual meeting, Architecture, Birmingham Historical Society, family history, Heritage Society, Historic Preservation, Meetings, Membership

Heritage Society Gathering May 7th, 2023

One of the society’s most anticipated events is the annual spring gathering at one of Birmingham’s beautiful historic homes. This year we will be hosted May 7th, Sunday evening, at 5PM at the Northington-Murray House. You must be a Heritage Society member to attend. But we’d love for you to join us! Here’s how…