UAB 50th Anniversary Unfolding UAB: 50 Years of Photography from the UAB Archives

On June 16, 1969, Governor Albert Brewer and members of the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama held a press conference in Montgomery to announce the creation of a new three-campus University of Alabama System. That September saw the start of the first academic year for the newly autonomous University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

Originating as an extension program for the University of Alabama during the Great Depression and adding the medical campus in 1945, the history of UAB is multi-layered and complicated, by firmly grounded in the landscape of 20th century Birmingham.

Exhibiting over 80 photographs from the UAB Archives, Unfolding UAB pictographically traces not just the history of UAB as an institution but as a community that unfolded within the fabric of Birmingham, forging and building its own unique identity.

Co-curated by AEIVA Collections, Exhibitions and Programs Coordinator Christina McClellan and UAB Assistant Director of Historical Collections and Archivist Tim Pennycuff.
Image Credit // Sterne Library: A student studies in the Mervyn H. Sterne Library, circa 1978. Photograph by Richard Gunthorpe. UAB Archives.