For over 50 years, Marjorie White has been sharing her research and discoveries about her adopted city of Birmingham. Her story as told in Birmingham Lifestyle Magazine is one of dedication, curiosity, exploration, and documentation. She knows this city well, and shares her enthusiasm in her latest publication, Birmingham by the Book.
Currently available locally (and mailed) from Birmingham Historical Society offices on Highland Avenue, at Thank You Books in Crestwood, and Shoppe in Forest Park, and at Amazon.com. Use the QR code to buy via PayPal or click HERE
If you want to share Birmingham with out-of-towners, this is a comprehensive, well-illustrated, but easy to read overview. And locals may just find out something new about Birmingham! Check it out! And read more about Marjorie’s story below…
Birmingham by the Book: A Guide to the Magic City is FREE to all new members! The heavily illustrated 8 x 10 guide is divided into chapters with photos, maps, and descriptions including:
MUST SEES
Sites to Explore
Before Birmingham
The City Center
Coal, Iron and Steel Communities
West End
East End
South Highlands
Red Mountain
Over the Mountain
Shades Mountain
A typical page is pictured below. Quickly access places to go and things to do with a particular emphasis on the history of the sites. Locals may discover a new appreciation for their city that they only thought they knew well. Tourists will find an easy-to-follow overview divided into regions with notable sites in each region. Use this guide so that you don’t miss important architectural or historical features. And JOIN US, as we continue to document Birmingham’s history and educate the public with annual publications per the words of Marjorie White, BHS Director, below.
Why is the nonprofit mission so critical and needed in the Birmingham community?
Nonprofits tread where others will not. Case in point: Fifty years ago, when I was first elected as an officer of the Birmingham Historical Society that I continue to serve as chairman of the board and director, the general understanding was that Birmingham had no history. (History happened before or during antebellum times and Birmingham was not even here then), and that the city had no built heritage to preserve. Over the intervening years, the Society has researched and published more than 70 books, drafted National Register of Historic Places and National Landmark nominations, conducted educational programs for adults and school groups and worked to create awareness and stewardship of the significant heritage of our post-bellum industrial city, greatly spearheading its conservation and preservation. This year, we look forward to releasing and sharing our definitive guide to Birmingham that once and for all dispels the notion that there is nothing to see or do in the Magic City.
Birmingham Historical Society is a privately funded membership organization. The Society benefits from the philanthropy of others: their donations of money, time and skills. As is true for similar groups across the United States, the Society has no full-time staff and operates with an exceptionally strong volunteer base. Many individuals have made decades long contributions.
We look forward to continuing their service, recruiting other volunteers, and to building our endowment to support future staffed positions, fulfilling our mission to research, publish. and educate our community about its history and heritage.
In the July issue of Birmingham Lifestyle Magazine celebrating exploration, Birmingham natives are reminded that there is much to explore in their own hometown. The monthly magazine “is a community-focused magazine that aims to connect the residents to the people, places and things that make our city special…highlighting the most positive aspects of living here.” BHS is delighted that they often choose to include Birmingham’s history as well.
Birmingham Historical Society will soon release a guidebook with not only visitor landmarks, but also the history behind each one, and the significant forces that led to their establishment. To be titled ‘Birmingham by the Book”, it’s scheduled to be released on February 23, 2026 at the annual meeting, open to the public, at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Stay tuned for more information.
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.
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
Over fifteen years ago, back in 2007, the Birmingham Historical Society filed a nomination for Birmingham’s Bethel Baptist and 16th Street Baptist, along with Dexter Avenue Baptist in Montgomery to be included among the UNESCO “World Heritage Civil Rights Movement Sites”. At the time, the World Heritage Society was researching sites throughout the world of non-violent movements in the twentieth century that confronted and dismantled racial segregation. The sites in Alabama were considered along with campaigns & sites fighting colonialism in India, across Africa, and elsewhere in the world alongside the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. On Thursday, August 10th, 2023, the World Heritage Society team will be visiting Bethel Baptist to make a final determination on the Alabama sites.
CRITERION (iv) Significance in Human History: “To be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage (s) in human history.”
CRITERION (vi) Heritage Associated with Events of Universal Significance: “To be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria).”
GSU World Heritage Initiative
Glenn Eskew, who has ties to Birmingham, is the historian who headed up the George State initiative to review all possible sites in the United States. Over 300 sites were considered and over half were visited. The Civil Rights Movement nomination in addition to those in Alabama includes 10 additional sites across the country. The complete nomination can be read HERE
Ultimately, the 13 sites were considered for final selection because “the location and setting for each of the component sites remains relatively intact, thereby enabling each to retain its cultural value. All of the components of the potential Serial Nomination of U.S. Civil Rights Movement Sites express a spirituality and feeling of being as in a sacred space. All have evolved into shrines where the public goes to comprehend how nonviolent protests removed racial barriers to achieve tangible racial integration and intangible associated values of freedom and racial equality.”
A series of Birmingham lectures as part of the National Historic Preservation Month includes one on “How to Conduct Historic Building Research and How to Obtain a Historical Marker” THIS TUESDAY AT NOON.
Presented by the City of Birmingham’s Department of Planning, Engineering, and Permits, hear directly from the city authorities what you need to know to comply to historic requirements.
The lecture will be in the Birmingham Public Library – Arrington Auditorium, 2100 Park Place. Learn how to use sources in the public library and the county courthouse to research historic homes and buildings…and how to get a historical marker to recognize them. Should be an interesting lecture! Please plan to attend.
Tuesday, May 9: “The National Register of Historic Places.” Boutwell Auditorium.
Tuesday, May 16: “How to Conduct Historic Building Research & How to Obtain a Historical Marker.” Birmingham Public Library, Arrington Auditorium (Enter through main library, 3rd floor skywalk)
Tuesday, May 23: “Historic Preservation Tax Incentives.” Boutwell Auditorium.
Tuesday, May 30: “Birmingham’s New Adaptive Reuse Incentive for Historic Buildings.” Birmingham Public Library, Arrington Auditorium (Enter through main library, 3rd floor skywalk)
Click here for a printable schedule of events for Historic Preservation Month.
Curious about whether your home fits the classic description of a particular architectural style? This was the focus of the BHS book, A Guide to Architectural Styles, featuring Birmingham Homes. Line drawings are accompanied by details to look for when determining architectural characteristics. Forty-five popular Birmingham styles include the Bungalow, Cottage, Ranch, Split-Level, Classical Revival, Shotgun, Tudor, Prairie, and Craftsman. An example of the ever popular Craftsman Style home is pictured below:
The last printed copy of The Birmingham News has now come and gone, but does anyone remember the special section, True Tales, published every Saturday from February 1991 to April 1992? A project of the Birmingham Historical Society, these stories were assembled in a book entitled True Tales of Birmingham and published in 1992. Here are a few pages…
While most of us know a cake walk to be a joyful celebration where the best bakers have an opportunity to show off their skills, it wasn’t always that way! In fact, the cake walk had its origins in Afro-American history:
The cakewalk was a pre-Civil War dance originally performed by slaves on plantation grounds. The uniquely American dance was first known as the “prize walk”; the prize was an elaborately decorated cake. Hence, “prize walk” is the original source for the phrases “takes the cake” and “cakewalk.”
From NPR: The Extraordinary Story of Why a Cakewalk Wasn’t Always Easy
Webster’s Dictionary defines it as “a black American entertainment having a cake as prize for the most accomplished steps and figures in walking; a stage dance developed from walking steps and figures typically involving a high prance with backward tilt; an easy task.”
The Cakewalk seems to have begun in the days of slavery, when black folks strutted along in a fanciful manner in imitation of formal white dancing. Supposedly the name comes from the custom of the master awarding a cake to the couple who put on the best performance. The dance came back around in the twentieth century when white folks started to imitate the black version.
From Mary Miley’s Roaring Twenties, “Just What is a Cake Walk”?
