Unfolding UAB: 50 Years of Photography from the UAB Archives
October 21 – December 14, 2019
Public reception:October 25, 6-8pm
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.
Sterne Library: A student studies in the Mervyn H. Sterne Library, circa 1978. Photograph by Richard Gunthorpe. UAB Archives. 
Image Credits:
Jefferson Tower: The original entrance portico of University Hospital, circa 1960. Photograph by Ken Ives Studio. UAB Archives.
Registration: A student considers her options during fall registration, 1971. UAB Archives.
Bicycle: Bike on lamppost and Hippocrates statue outside of Lister Hill Library, 1978. Photograph by Richard Gunthrope. UAB Archives.