Beautiful pictures and the wonders of geneology research!

Unidentified couple, ca. 1910.  Gift of Dr. Wade Hall.

This wonderful photograph is just one of the many, many, many (!!) photographs in our collections.  The people in the photograph are unidentified, but someone out there might know who they are.

Many of the Hoole staff had the opportunity to attend the annual Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference which was held in Birmingham last month.  The staff learned a great deal and will be able to pass that knowledge along to our researchers.

One exciting item to note is that the rich online genealogical resource, AfriGeneas will be free for the entire month of October.  So, bookmark it and give it a try!  And if you know who this handsome couple is, please send me a note!

1968: The Year that Changed the World

Exhibit poster for 1968: The Year that Changed the World
- inspired by Thomas Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)

A new exhibit from the collections of the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library is now available -- 1968: The Year that Changed the World is an opportunity to reflect on this important time through the lens of the materials in the Hoole Library. Forty years after 1968, we still look upon that year as a pivotal one in the worlds of politics, culture, art, music, literature, and life.

Through our print collections, sound recordings, and more, this exhibit offers some insight into life both on the UA campus and in the world during 1968.

1968 Corolla (Detail) of Afro-American Society

1968 brought Robert Kennedy to campus as part of the Emphasis program in March of 1968, just three months before he was assassinated. 1968 was the year the first African-American student association was established on campus, and this year marks the 40th anniversary.

Assorted buttons - detail from 1968 Corolla

The exhibit is far-reaching, looking at art, music, literature, campus life, culture, war, and many of the things that were on the minds of students and others 40 years ago.

Soundtrack of the 1968 musical, Hair!

The exhibit also features some materials currently on loan and donated by UA alum Janet Stevenson, who was a student at The University of Alabama in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We even have her Fall 1968 calendar on display! This exhibit also features a few of the many, many LPs from the collection of UA History professor John Beeler, who was quick to loan some of the most important albums of 1968 to include in the exhibit.

Lumpy Gravy by Frank Zappa (1968)

To get a sense of campus life in 1968, come to see the exhibit! And if you want a real blast from the past, be sure to visit our digital collections which feature the 1968 Corolla as well as a full array of the talks and the program from Emphasis '68.

This exhibit was developed with graduate student, Audrey Coleman from the department of American Studies. Please join us in commemorating the 40 year anniversary of such an important year. We hope to have an event in December to "let the sunshine in".... stay tuned. Peace.

Tonight at Hoole: The Gladney Lecture for Justice and Social Change with the Rev. Dr. Dorsey Odell Blake

Please join at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, 2nd Floor Mary Harmon Bryant Hall at 7:30 this evening, Wednesday, April 2nd for the 2008 The Rose Gladney Lecture for Justice and Social Change with Rev. Dr. Dorsey Odell Blake.

Rev. Dr. Blake's lecture is entitled "40 Years after King: Wilderness or Promised Land".



A copy of the flier for download is available here:
http://www.lib.ua.edu/events/documents/blake_flier_final.pdf

Rev. Blake was the first head of the African American Studies Program at the University of Alabama, and was the first full-time African-American Male faculty member (1972-1977 at UA). Dr. Dorsey Odell Blake is the Presiding Minister of The Church for The Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, CA. Founded in 1944 during a time of local, national, and global tension and conflict, The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples is the nation's first interracial, interfaith congregation. Its mission, as articulated by co-founding pastors, Dr. Howard Thurman and Dr. Alfred Fisk, and visionary members, was to create a religious fellowship that transcended artificial barriers of race, nation, culture, gender, and social distinctions.

In establishing the context for the lecture series, Rose Gladney has written: "This great experiment in democratic governance which we call America draws strength from multiple human struggles to create not only a more physically comfortable life, but also a just and equitable society. I am fortunate to have grown into adulthood in the midst of the 20th century's greatest examples of such struggle: the African-American liberation movement, the women's liberation movement, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender liberation movements—all symbols and symptoms of the larger human struggle for justice and social change." Dr. Rose Gladney is a retired UA Professor of American Studies. The Rose Gladney Lecture for Justice and Social Change was endowed in her honor.

The Gladney Lecture is co-sponsored by UA Libraries, American Studies, Honor's College, New College, Religious Studies, Women's Studies, African American Studies Program, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Diversity Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences.