Tag Archives: BOOKS

Birmingham Historical Society, Capital Campaign, Endowment

Why contribute to The Annual Fund?

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEMBERSHIP DUES
We are extremely grateful for the contributions made through membership dues, which currently sustain the general operating budget—including the new office, meetings, newsletters, exhibits, lectures, book signings, and minimal part-time staff as necessary—however, long-term sustainability will ultimately rely on The Annual Fund.

MEMBER VRS NON MEMBER GIFTS
We encourage all members to consider contributions to the Annual Fund; however, please note that membership is not a prerequisite for those who wish to support solely the enduring sustainability of the Birmingham Historical Society.

ANNUAL FUND
The Annual Fund is intended to bolster our long-term objectives, which, in the coming years, will facilitate the establishment of a paid director’s position (currently held by a volunteer), in addition to creating a dedicated fund for publishing. Our current campaign goal is $3.2 million (to endow the position of a future director) for which we have received contributions over the years totaling $2.4 million as of July 2024.

PUBLICATION FUND
To date, foundation funding has served as the primary source of support for our publications, supplemented by bulk sales to corporate entities and groups. The Society has released over 70 publications since 1977 many of which are available HERE and some are available FREE as downloads for educational purposes. A dedicated fund will assure that the Society can continue to release future publications.

Thank you for your generous support! Here’s a form and contact information.

Donations may be specifically designated for the Publication Endowment or The Annual Fund. While any contribution is appreciated, we graciously suggest a gift ranging from $25 to $100. The most typical gift to the endowment is $100. Thank you for your support.

To pay with credit card or via PayPal, click here. Thank you!

BIRMINGHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS 1977-2026

  • 2026. Birmingham by the Book: A Guide to the Magic City
  • 2025. Building Birmingham’s Industrial Base
  • 2024. It’s Nice to Live in Birmingham (edited reprint of 1960 Birmingham News publication)
  • 2023. 100 Years by Anne Roberts Gayler
  • 2022. Birmingham’s Dynamite Hill
  • 2021.  Birmingham: The City Beautiful, Compliments of G. Ward
  • 2020. The Birmingham District: An Industrial History and Guide (reprint of 1981 edition)
  • 2019. Pretty Posies, Powerful Healing: An Herbal Primer
  • 2019. Shades Creek: Flowing Through Time
  • 2018. Warren H. Manning’s City Plan for Birmingham, reprint of 1919 plan
  • 2016. Birmingham, 1915, reprint
  • 2016. For Science and Humanity: Building Southern Research
  • 2015. Bob Moody’s Birmingham: A City in Watercolor
  • 2014. Mountain Brook-A Historic American Landscape
  • 2013. MINUTES-Central Committee of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
  • 2012. The Jemison Magazine: Birmingham and Mountain Brook, 1926-1930, reprint of the magazines
  • 2011. The Jemison Magazine and The Selling of Birmingham, 1910-1914, reprint of the magazines
  • 2010. Digging Out of the Great Depression: Federal Programs At Work In and About the Birmingham Area
  • 2009. Mountain Brook Village: Then & Now
  • 2008. D.O. Whilldin: Alabama Architect
  • 2007. Hand Down Unharmed: Olmsted Files on Birmingham Parks: 1910-1925
  • 2006. The Olmsted Vision: Parks for Birmingham
  • 2005. A Park System for Birmingham, Olmsted Brothers, 1925, Reprint.
  • 2004. Art of the New South: Women Artists of Birmingham, 1890-1950
  • 2003. A Guide to Architectural Styles Featuring Birmingham Homes
  • 2001. Aspiration: Birmingham’s Historic Houses of Worship
  • 2001. A Pizella Affair: Portraits of the Comer Family
  • 1999. Walking Tours of Birmingham Churches Conducted from 1990-1999
  • 1999. Vive Vulcan! Activities for Schools
  • 1998. In Celebration of the Restoration of Alabama Power Company’s 1925 Tower
  • 1998. Low Virtues: The Value of Human Scale Architecture to Birmingham Urbanism
  • 1998. A Walk to Freedom-The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, 1956-1964
  • 1997. Birmingham Bound-An Atlas of the South’s Premier Industrial Region
  • 1996. Birmingham View: Through the Years in Photographs
  • 1995. Birmingham’s Vulcan, reprint 1938 booklet
  • 1995. Vulcan & His Times-A Tell all about Birmingham’s Most Famous Landmark
  • 1994. The Birmingham Industrial Heritage District Map
  • 1992. True Tales of Birmingham
  • 1991. Mountain Brook Estates, reprint of a 1926 publication
  • 1991. Judge Clarence Allgood: His Brother’s Keeper
  • 1990. Cinderella Stories, Transformations of Historic Birmingham Buildings
  • 1989. Designs on Birmingham: A Landscape History of a Southern City and its Suburbs
  • 1989. Buildings Against Cities: The Struggle to Make Places
  • 1988. House Detective: A Guide to Researching Birmingham Buildings
  • 1986. Image of the City, by Grady Clay
  • 1985. Go To Town, Birmingham: A Public Forum on a Vital City Center
  • 1984. Old Birmingham-New Architecture: Student Projects for a Historic Downtown Context
  • 1983. Five Points Heritage Hike and Patch
  • 1982. Town Within A City: The Five Points South Neighborhood, 1880-1930
  • 1981. The Birmingham District: An Industrial History and Guide
  • 1980. Birmingham Heritage Hike Guide and Patch
  • 1978. The Ghost in the Sloss Furnaces
  • 1978. Downtown Discovery Tour
  • 1978. Downtown Birmingham: Architectural and Historical Walking Tour Guide
  • 1977-1987. The Journal of the Birmingham Historical Society, 14 issues

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

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, family history, Genealogy, Publications, Research, Tall Tales, TRUE TALES, True Tales of Birmingham

Who were Birmingham’s early pioneers?

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…

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.

Book Sale

Flash Sale! Coming Soon!

FLASH SALE of Birmingham Historical Society titles; $10-$20 per book. Great gifts for holiday giving (or gifting to yourself). Titles range from Bob Moody’s Birmingham (watercolors) and Shades Creek-Flowing through Time; Tall Tales (of Birmingham) and Pretty Posies-Powerful Healing; Digging Out of the Great Depression, Art of the New South AND MANY MORE.

Details: Saturday, November 16, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Little Hardware, 2117 Cahaba Road, Mountain Brook. Payment by check, cash, or credit card

Book Sale

Flash Sale Coming Soon!

FLASH SALE of Birmingham Historical Society titles; $10-$20 per book. Great gifts for holiday giving (or gifting to yourself). Titles range from Bob Moody’s Birmingham (watercolors) and Shades Creek-Flowing through Time; Tall Tales (of Birmingham) and Pretty Posies-Powerful Healing; Digging Out of the Great Depressions, Art of the New South AND MANY MORE. Details: Saturday, November 16, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Little Hardware, 2117 Cahaba Road, Mountain Brook. Payment by check or cash.