Author Archives: kgmatheny

1867 Alabama Constitutional Convention

This week we are looking at an item in our digital collection that highlights African-American history, in honor of Black History Month. This item is a speech by Elisha Wolsey Peck, chairman of the Alabama Constitutional Convention of 1867. The … Continue reading

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Celebrate this Valentine’s Day with some love songs from our Wade Hall Sheet Music Collection!

XML is like…

For people who are looking at XML data for the first time it can be confusing to find a reference point that allows them to understand the role that values and tags can play in the structuring of their data. … Continue reading

Autherine Lucy

Last week, the beginning of Black History month coincided with an important date in the history of the University of Alabama. On February 3, 1956, Autherine Lucy of Birmingham became the first African-American to enroll at the University of Alabama, … Continue reading

Free webinars on basic digital preservation!

Last fall, I had the honor of being selected as one of 24 participants from across the country to be trained at the Library of Congress, in the inaugural Digital Preservation and Outreach Education (DPOE) Train-the-trainer initiative. Those to be … Continue reading

1930s Advertising

The second in a an ongoing series of vintage advertising, today’s post features ads from the 1930s.    

Robert F. Kennedy’s Visit to UA

Did you know that Robert F. Kennedy gave a speech at the University of Alabama in March of 1968, just months before he was assassinated? Kennedy was invited to the University to speak as part of the Emphasis Program, which … Continue reading

Working Lives Oral History Project

Our Digital Collections not only feature manuscripts and photographs, but also audio. One of our audio collections is the Working Lives Oral History Project. Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this project focuses on black … Continue reading

Theodore Roosevelt Letters

Theodore Roosevelt passed away on this date in 1919. Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901-1909. In our William Crawford Gorgas collection, we have several letters from President Roosevelt, including some written while he was … Continue reading

Holiday Cards

Tis the season for holiday cards! In Acumen, we have some digitized holiday cards dating back to the early 1900s. The cards included here were found in the William Crawford Gorgas Papers, the Manley Family Papers, the Tuscaloosa Service Men’s … Continue reading