Tag Archives: 1890’s

Old School Trick Photography

This post was written several weeks ago by Alissa Helms. She has since moved on from Digital Services, but we wanted to share one of her finds from the Perkins family photos. While she was digitizing the tail end of … Continue reading

A (Leap) Day in the Life: February 29

It’s been a while since we did a survey of Acumen‘s contents by taking a look at just one day. There have been fewer February 29ths than other days of the year, but, as with any other snapshot view, items from that date reveal a … Continue reading

The Mystic Order of the Nonsense Club

Among the Corolla yearbooks digitized and available in Acumen are the first ten volumes, covering 1893-1902. This was an eventful decade at UA: the last ten years of the campus run under military order and the first ten years as a co-ed … Continue reading

A Day in the Life: June 1

Here’s a slice of life from June 1st over the last 170 some-odd years, representing a cross-section of materials from the digital archive — from the serious to the silly, the magical to the mundane.

Goodbye, Corolla, Goodbye: 1890s-1900s

Last week, the Crimson White broke the news to campus that a longstanding publication, the school’s yearbook, is being discontinued. The decision makes sense, financially, but with the loss of the Corolla, we will cease to have an amazing ongoing record … Continue reading

Fighting Yellow Jack in Cuba

Have you ever heard of yellow fever? If you haven’t, give some of the credit to Dr. William Crawford Gorgas. In the early 20th century, following up on the work of Drs. Carlos Finlay and Walter Reed and others, he employed numerous sanitation … Continue reading

A Day in the Life: August 25

Archives give us a chance to look at the world in a lot of different ways, through lenses big and small. Today, we take a cross section of life on this date, August 25, across the decades. From 1840 to … Continue reading

Hidden Gem: 1892 Baptist hymnal

I recently stumbled upon an interesting item in the Manly Family papers manuscript collection: a hymn book from 120 years ago, with selections chosen by Basil Manly, Jr., a Baptist minister and educator. The book was published in the year … Continue reading

Covered Bridges of Alabama and Georgia

While they’re not extinct yet, covered bridges are getting rarer and rarer. Here’s a look into our rural southern past, courtesy of our Digital Collections. Most of these images are from the Roland McMillan Harper photo collection, but you can … Continue reading

The Zip Code’s 50th Anniversary

It’s hard to believe, but the zip code, that five-digit number that helps your mail get to the right place, has been around for just fifty years. The Zone Improvement Plan was, however, built on the foundation of earlier attempts … Continue reading