Tag Archives: Birmingham Botanical Gardens

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…

Birmingham Historical Society, BOOK, Book Sale, Book Signing, family history, Hoover, lecture, Meetings, Membership, Neighborhoods, Publications, Research, Shades Crest Road, shades mountain

New Fall Events Added to Calendar~

School is starting and fall is just around the corner. We’ve added a few new events to the calendar that should be interesting. Please mark your calendars.

September 19, 6:30 p.m., Bluff Park: Then & Now, hosted by the Hoover Historical Society at the Hoover Public Library, 200 Municipal Drive.

October 1, 4:00 p.m., 100 Years Publication Celebration, 2827 Highland Avenue.

October 3, Members’ Books to be mailed to those not receiving them at the reception. Please let us know if your book does not arrive.

October 29, 3:00 p.m. Christine Putman & Big Jim Folsom, Talk & Book Signing with Folsom’s grandson Jamie Putman, 2827 Highland Avenue.

Birmingham Historical Society, BOOK, Book Sale, Book Signing, Cake & Pie Contest, family history, Favorite Pie & Cake Contest, lecture, Meetings, Membership

Cake Walk! February 27th after annual meeting

Drop off cakes prior to Birmingham Historical Society annual meeting on February 27th. Taste testing will follow meeting! Be sure to include a card with your name and description. More information here.

Annual meeting, Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham Historical Society, BOOK, Book Sale, Book Signing, Cake & Pie Contest, Deep South Dynasty, family history, Favorite Pie & Cake Contest, lecture, Meetings, Membership, Research, University of Alabama

Annual Meeting featuring The Bankheads of Alabama

Everyone is welcome at the Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society on February 27th at 7:00PM at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Copies of the book, “Deep South Dynasty” published by University of Alabama Press will be available for sale and signed by Professor of History, Kari Frederickson. A popular annual cake walk follows the meeting.

Annual meeting, Birmingham Landmarks, Medical Care, Slossfield, Thomas Boulware, Trustees

ANNUAL MEETING – Monday, February 28th, 7:00PM, BBG Auditorium

Featuring Early Healthcare, Obstetrics, and Midwifery for the underprivileged and poorly served in Birmingham in the 1940s.

A Local Landmark
A Legendary Leader
Slossfield & Dr. Boulware, Jr.
A Pioneering Obstetric Leader

The Slossfield and the Slossfield Maternity Center, center and center left, view looking toward North Birmingham across the slag dump, bottom right, of the Sloss- Sheffield Steel & Iron Company’s North Birmingham Furnaces. Sloss’ beehive coke ovens appear center right. Photograph, c. 1939, Birmingham, Alabama Public Library Archives.
INSET PHOTOGRAPH TOP: Sloss Coke Ovens and Housing. Oil, c. 1939, Rosalie Pettus Price. Collection Birmingham Historical Society.
INSET PHOTOGRAPH BOTTOM: Sloss Furnaces and Slag Pile along Village Creek, Oil, Sterling Worthen, Collection Marjorie L. White.

Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Exhibition, Frederick Law Olmsted, Olmsted Brothers, Parks & Recreation, Research, Warren Manning

The Life and Legacy of the Olmsted Family by Laurence Cotton, Historian

Celebrating Olmsted: BRINGING NATURE TO THE CITY AND CREATING BREATHING SPACE FOR DEMOCRACY

As part of a series of nation-wide, year-long events celebrating the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted and the Olmsted family of landscape architects, historian Laurence Cotton presented a lecture detailing their impact at The Birmingham Botanical Gardens on February 16th.

Consulting producer on the PBS film, Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing America, Cotton had not only visited, but was often intimately familiar with many of the Olmsted projects he discussed. His slides traveled the audience across America, giving the history, motivation, and importance of each of the parks and green spaces. Many are well-known and include:

  • Niagra Falls
  • The Biltmore Estate
  • Central Park in NYC
  • Yosemite
  • The Capitol Grounds and The Washington Mall
  • The Great White City – Chicago
  • Boston’s Emerald Necklace
  • Prospect Park in Brooklyn

Cotton emphasized the social importance of the Olmsted legacy. The green spaces and parks were designed to be available to all walks of life, to enhance the health and well-being of visitors, to encourage social engagement across economic & cultural divides, to provide forestry and landscape experiments, and to stand the test of time. As he stated, Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons were true artists of the landscape, while working on a vast scale, in FOUR dimensions, with the fourth being time…to allow their design visions to mature over decades.

However, their public spaces were not always green, as Cotton illustrated by Olmsted’s plan for the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. There, Olmsted’s step design again encouraged democracy and provided an open forum for public engagement.

As another example, their design for Niagra Falls restored and enhanced the beauty that was already there. Before and after images were startling.

Niagra gorge circa 1901

Cotton ended his travel log in Birmingham, drawing upon the resources written by The Birmingham Historical Society and Marjorie White, with a special recommendation for Shades Creek, Flowing Through Time. Related artifacts assembled by The Southern History Department of The Birmingham Public Library, were part of a special exhibit and reception following the lecture. Books by The Birmingham Historical Society on Olmsted were available, and a reading list assembled by Laurence Cotton is available HERE.