Category Archives: UA History

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

February 1956: When the Eyes of the World Were on Us

Sixty years ago, the first major step was made toward desegregating the University of Alabama. Autherine Lucy, a black woman from Shiloh, Alabama, was enrolled – and a few days later suspended, eventually expelled, though she had done nothing wrong. … Continue reading

Holiday Cheer

Every year since 1969, the Department of Music at UA has presented a Christmas program called Hilaritas. It includes a variety of holiday-themed music, mixing traditional carols and standards with modern pop songs and new arrangements. Earlier this year, we digitized the audio from … Continue reading

Newly Online: James B. Tipton papers

This year for Veterans Day, we celebrate a man who was a veteran twice over during his long career in the military. Major General James B. Tipton was a pilot and pilot instructor with the United States Army Air Forces (later … Continue reading

Becoming Kappa

When we say goodbye to buildings, we often say hello to interesting things that finally come out of them as their inhabitants prepare for demolition. Over the summer, we got to digitize one such discovery: a scrapbook of chartering documents from the UA … 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

Campus Rewind: Foster Auditorium and Coleman Coliseum

It seems like it’s impossible to write a blog post about any building on campus without talking about what came before or after. In this case, a look at Foster Auditorium led down an unexpected path — to Coleman Coliseum. But how? … Continue reading

Alabama’s Jewish History

Did you know May is Jewish American Heritage Month? You may not: it’s a new commemoration, proclaimed by President Bush in 2006. Alabama, like much of the South, is not known for having a large Jewish population, yet Jewish Americans have … Continue reading

Eyewitness to Croxton’s Raid on Tuscaloosa, April 1865

Last year, we shared an in-depth post on the burning of the UA campus in the last days of the Civil War. This year, we take a look at the words of an eyewitness to the events. Basil Manly, Sr., … Continue reading

Fins and Flippers, magazine from a local WWII pilot training program

On this day in 1941 — four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii — the U.S. officially went to war with Germany and Italy. It had already declared war on Japan. On this day in 1941, a group … Continue reading