The A. S. Williams III Americana Collection, housed at the Gorgas Library at the University of Alabama since 2010, is an extensive collection of Americana. Assembled over forty years by insurance executive and bibliophile A.S. Williams III of Birmingham, Alabama, the collection is an exceptional archive of southern history and literature in size, rarity
Contact Us:
- specialcollections@ua.edu
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Outreach Coordinator for Special Collections:
Dr. Kate Matheny
About the Collection
The Collection includes some 20,000 volumes and pamphlets published between the late-seventeenth century and 2009. These pertain to the U.S. presidents and the history and culture of the South. The Civil War is particularly well represented, with some 6,000 volumes published from the earliest days of Secession to the present. These materials reflect the observations of the Union, the Confederacy, European visitors during the War, veterans, and subsequent generations of scholars. The Collection also contains a wide variety of archival materials ranging from the mid-eighteenth century to the Great Depression. Particularly noteworthy are some 18,000 Southern photographs taken between the 1850s and the mid-1930s. These documentDigital Projects
Likenesses Within the Reach of All
The Southern Cartes de Visite Collection is a digitized group of 3,356 photographs taken between 1850 and 1900. Small, albumen images mounted on cardstock, Scenes from the Lincoln Normal School
The Lincoln Normal School, in Marion, Alabama, was an important institution in the history of African American education in the South. Founded by freed slaves shortly after the Civil War, it educated students from kindergarten to high school, with a special focus on teacher training. It was open for more than one hundred years, from 1868 to 1970. The A.S. Williams III Americana Collection owns two rare photograph albums kept by teachers at the school in the early decades of the twentieth century. The exhibit uses these images to illustrate the history of the school, its campus, its students, and its faculty during this time.
American Civil War
African American History
The African-American experience in the South is well represented in the Collections from original art, to photography, to extensive holdings in the book and pamphlet collection. A special effort has been made to collect significant material on Tuskegee Institute, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver.
Books and Pamphlets
The Collection houses more than 20,000 volumes and 3,000 pamphlets, covering five major areas: the American presidency, the American Civil War, the history and culture of Alabama and the South, Southern literature, and pre-Civil War American history. Sub-collections include slavery and African American history with an emphasis on Tuskegee Institute, the Southern Indians, and an important grouping of books issued from the press of publisher Walter Neale.
Presidential Collection
The presidential collection includes a considerable quantity of manuscript material and ephemera. Every president is represented by a significant grouping of volumes, including contemporary works, secondary scholarship and, where published, scholarly annotations of their public papers and addresses. The Collection holds at least one document signed by every past president and contains a number of books signed by various presidents. The Collection is further enhanced by a collection of political campaign buttons and other political ephemera.Southern History and Literature
The Collection holds important books and pamphlets on Southern history, with a particular emphasis on Alabama. This section is rich in personal narratives, county histories, biographies, and scholarly monographs. The pamphlet collection is strong in rare Alabama and Southern titles including African-American history, church history, and town histories. A significant number of rare titles are held on southern Native Americans, including first editions of early travel narratives through Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and the Carolinas.
Mr. Williams also assembled an extensive collection of Southern literature. Every major Southern writer is represented, along with History of the Republic
The Collection holds a significant number of titles on the history of the United States, with an emphasis on the early history of the republic. This section includes contemporary history, personal narratives, scholarly works,Photographic Archive
The photographic archive consists of over 18,000 images divided into three major categories: the Southern Photographer, 1860-1910, the American Civil War, and general Southern photography. The Southern Photography collection documents the formats, period, and place of Southern photographers from Maryland to Texas in the late nineteenth- and earlyManuscript Collection
The manuscript collection includes letters and documents from United States presidents, signers of the Declaration of Independence, Civil War military personalities and politicians, early American statesmen, Southern literary figures, and notable African Americans. The majority of the collection relates to famous and less notable Alabamians and includes private and public correspondence, official documents, account books, business records and manuscript historical monographs on a variety of subjects.Prints and Lithographs
The print collection is strongest in Civil War-related graphics, from rarities as Julio’s “Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson” to a set of Adalbert Johann Volck’s “Confederate War Etchings”. There are a number of items related to the early history of the United States, especially the American Revolution. Included in this segment is a rare John Trumbull print of General George Washington from 1781.Maps and Art
The map collection focuses on Alabama and the American Civil War with a number of maps relating to North America generally as well. The Alabama portion contains important early maps not only of the state, but of various counties, cities, and townships. There are also a number of Alabama city atlases in the collection. The Collection also holds an original set of the rare Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion.