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 and scope.
Contact Us:
- archives@bama.ua.edu
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Curator:
Dr. Nancy DuPree -
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.Digital Projects
Likenesses Within the Reach of All

Scenes from the Lincoln Normal School

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

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

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, biographies ,and collections of papers relating to influential persons of the era. Influential figures like Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster are well-represented, as well as books on the judiciary and the Constitution. A high spot in this area is a first edition set of the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (Philadelphia, 1814).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 early twentieth-centuries. This part of the collection includes approximately 4,000 images and documents about 2,500 different studios. Adding to the research value of this archive is a collection of earlier daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, photographic reference books, articles, and biographical sketches of Southern photographers. The Civil War archive comprises a number of cartes de visite, stereographs, and larger albumen photographs of various subjects. The cartes de visite are of important Civil War personalities, outdoor scenes, and men from both armies. This archive is also augmented by a substantial number of reference books and data on Civil War photographers. Highlights include a rare set of Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War, published in Washington, D. C. in 1866. The collection also contains extremely rare cartes de visite of the execution of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. The general Southern photography archive emphasizes Alabama and contains a significant number of unpublished photographs that reach into the 1960s. Important sets within this archive include the operations of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company near Birmingham, civil rights activities in Georgia and Alabama, and a personal archive maintained by Mrs. Jennie C. Lee, a choir director at the Tuskegee Institute.Manuscript 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
