Birmingham-Southern’s archives finds new home at the library

Years ago, Birmingham-Southern College professor emeritus Guy Hubbs was working in the campus library, spending some of his day with the North Alabama Methodist Conference archives.

That's when he came across boxes and boxes of documents and books on a shelf. That's where the college's archives were stored.

The historian by training came across a list of faculty member names, dating back decades. One of them was Benjamin P. Thomas, a well-known biographer and Abraham Lincoln scholar during the 20th century whose books are still read.

So he started putting together a list of all the faculty members at Birmingham-Southern and its previous derivatives, back to when the college first was chartered in 1856 as Southern University, a Methodist institution, and later merged with Birmingham College in 1918.

"It was 320 pages for a little liberal arts college," Hubbs said. "It kind of snowballed from there."

Now that the private institution is closed, the college's archives collection now has a new home, at the Birmingham Public Library.

"They were certainly the first ones on our list to take over our collection," Hubbs said.

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Hubbs said he never had the official title of college archivist, but he "wore a lot of hats" during his time at Birmingham-Southern, starting in 1999 as a historian who taught courses and worked in the library. He retired several years ago, but he helped facilitate finding a new home for the collection.

The college's collection at the library's Department of Archives and Manuscripts includes a full set of yearbooks, photographs, and published theses, the library announced Friday.

"The school and its campus is closed, but the tangible history of BSC in the form of documents and ephemera remains intact," said library assistant Madison Newport in a blog post .

Hubbs said it would be impossible to count just how many records are in the collection. It includes student newspapers dating back 1920, yearbooks, catalogs, and unpublished manuscripts, he said. There are meeting minutes recorded in longhand in thick, heavy books, dating back to very first faculty meeting during the 1850s, he said.

The collection also includes publications like bulletins, handbooks, newsletters, surveys and annual reports; photos of the campus grounds, theater productions, sports teams and alumni reunions; and more.

Some of the archives could resemble the photo depicted at the top of this story, which depicts a parade headed down Birmingham's 19th Street from the 1935 Birmingham-Southern vs. Howard College (now Samford University) football game that took place annually in November. This photograph, by Oscar V. Hunt, was already included in the library's archives, in the O.V. Hunt Photograph Collection.

"The college had a great story, just an extraordinary story. Just didn't get told enough," Hubbs said. "I'm very glad that all our records are going to be available for anyone to see."

Requests for an inventory of the archives or to schedule an appointment to view them can be made at 205-226-3630 or online .

The college's United Methodist Center was the headquarters for the North Alabama Methodist Conference, and its archives have been held in the campus library. Hubbs is still the archivist, working to secure the new location for those archives.

The Birmingham Public Library's collection also does not include student transcripts.