Category Archives: Kate Matheny

“There was joy and there was sorrow”: Armistice Day, 1918

World War I was fought between multiple countries in two main alliance groups, making the process of ending the war complicated. In some ways, it began with Allied power Russia’s separate peace with the Central Powers, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, … Continue reading

Documenting Black Literary Culture, 1926-1976

We recently published a new research guide called From Jim Crow to Black Power: African American History and Culture, 1877-1970 , which is designed to help researchers navigate our holdings on life during the post-Reconstruction, pre-Civil Rights era, as well as the … Continue reading

WWI Poster Art

Hoole Library is home to over 100 World War I posters — large and occasionally fragile, but still in beautiful color. You can take a look at full-size facsimiles of some of them at Gorgas Library, as part of our … Continue reading

Native American History Resources

The Division of Special Collections has some interesting resources related to the culture and history of local Native American tribes, both in the Williams Collection and at Hoole Library. For Native American Heritage Month, we’d like to share a few pertinent manuscript … Continue reading

The Power of Facsimiles, part 1

Facsimiles — exact copies — of historical documents provide a way to access details of the original without having to actually possess it. Some are of printed items for which certain versions are now rare, or for which the original publishing context — … Continue reading

Scripture in Miniature

It’s not surprising that one of the best selling books in the world has been produced in miniature form. Still, I didn’t expect to stumble across these two turn-of-the-century specimens today. I was on a hunt in an artifacts box for something … Continue reading

Men of Color in the 19th Century

African Americans occupied a wider variety of spaces in the social order of 19th century America than you may realize. Because of the horrors of slavery, there are an uncountable number who, at least individually, are all but erased from the historical … Continue reading

Shakespeare at 400

Four hundred years ago tomorrow, William Shakespeare’s life was over and the story of his cultural legacy began. At what a legacy it has been! There are countless adaptations of his work, in every artistic medium we’ve come up with over the … Continue reading

What the Heck Is a Vertical File?

What the heck is a Vertical File? This is a question I had when I began working in archives. We have three such large archival collections here at Hoole — University of Alabama Pamphlet Files, Alabama Vertical Files, and Rare Vertical Files — and I … Continue reading

New Finding Aids, Spring 2016, part two

Last month, we shared some of dozens of finding aids that had recently gone online in Acumen. This week, the focus is on personal collections, including several related to World War II. (Click on any of the images below to see a larger … Continue reading