Name: Lecture Series
Start: 2024-07-25T17:30:00-05:00
End: 2024-07-25T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Farrah Hall

Historic Tuscaloosa is excited to announce the return of its three-part lecture series, which explores the fundamentals and highlights broad aspects of heritage and historic preservation in Tuscaloosa.
This year’s lecture series will take place in room 214 in Farrah Hall at the University of Alabama on July 25, August 22, and September 26.
The series is not just about listening, but also about engaging. Each meeting includes interaction between participants and presenters through Q&A sessions at the end of each lecture, fostering a sense of community and shared learning.
Historic Tuscaloosa, formerly known as the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, is a non-profit organization that values the role of our local community in preserving our historical and cultural heritage. In our ongoing effort to engage and educate our community, we are thrilled to announce the return of our lecture series this year, offering a free and enriching experience to learn and expand one’s knowledge of our local history.
Beginning in July, the lectures will take place on the fourth Thursday of the month in room 214 in Farrah Hall at the University of Alabama. Lectures will start at 5:30 pm.
The series starts at 5:30 p.m. on July 25 with George Adair discussing his topic about the “Bryce Hospital Coal Mines.”
The series, sponsored by Historic Tuscaloosa, will continue at 5:30 p.m. on August 22 with Dr. Jennifer Feltman discussing “The Notre-Dame Restoration and Collaborative Research at UA.”
The final event will feature Dr. Sharony Green, who will discuss using the Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion as a lab for University of Alabama student discoveries concerning our complicated shared past at 5:30 p.m. on September 26.
All the events in this exclusive series are free and open to the public. We eagerly anticipate the privilege of welcoming you to this enriching event.
WHERE:
This year’s lecture series will be held in room 214 in Farrah Hall on the University of Alabama campus.
PARKING:
Parking on campus for visitors is accessible after 5:00 PM, so any regular parking space is okay. The only RESTRICTIONS are state vehicle parking and handicap parking, which are both marked spaces. University Blvd. and 6th will be closed this summer for construction.
https://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/
Lecture Descriptions
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Historic Tuscaloosa will kick off its summertime lecture series on Thursday, July 25, at 5:30 p.m. Gerald Adair will present his lecture focusing on Byrce Hospital Coal Mines in room 214 in Farrah Hall at the University of Alabama. This event is open to the public and free of charge.
George Adair grew up in Tuscaloosa and graduated from the University of Alabama. His professional career encompassed positions in private industry and municipal government. He and his wife, Cynthia, returned to the Tuscaloosa area in 2017 after he retired as Director of Public Utilities for the Town of Wallingford, Connecticut. Although analysis and writing were important aspects of his professional employment, it was only after his retirement that he applied these skills to the investigation of Alabama history.
Although he had known about Bryce Hospital for most of his life – his family moved to Tuscaloosa in 1964 – he was not aware until recently that the Hospital had operated its own coal mines. He first heard about them from someone he met while walking with his grandson along the Tuscaloosa Riverwalk, near the area where one of the mine shafts was located. Searching through newspaper stories to learn more about the mines, he came upon reports of the 1901 disaster and the lawsuits that followed in its wake. Discovering that these events had not received any scholarly attention, he embarked upon the research for the article that is the subject of his talk.
“The Bryce Hospital Coal Mine Lawsuits” is Adair’s first work to appear in print. He has submitted a second article for publication and is conducting research for a third.
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Historic Tuscaloosa will continue its annual summertime lecture series on Thursday, August 22, at 5:30 with Dr. Jennifer Feltman, who will discuss the Notre-Dame Restoration and Collaborative Research at UA. This event is open to the public and free of charge.
Dr. Feltman will talk about restoration and research groups in France but highlight what professionals are doing at the University of Alabama. This lecture will provide insight into the rebuilding process and the major discoveries made over the past five years, thanks to interdisciplinary and collaborative research. Highlights will be placed upon the UA-led collaborative research project, Notre Dame in Color.
Jennifer M. Feltman is a Medieval Art and Architecture associate professor at the University of Alabama. Her research focuses on French Gothic architecture and sculpture. She is a Chantier Scientifique de Notre-Dame member, a team of scientists and historians authorized by the French Ministry of Culture to study the fire-ravaged cathedral as it is being restored. As part of her contribution to new research on Notre Dame, she is directing “Notre Dame in Color,” a project to investigate, document, and virtually recreate the vibrantly painted sculptures of the Gothic Cathedral of Paris. This work is supported by the FACE Foundation – Transatlantic Research Partnership, a program of the French Embassy in the United States, a 3-year National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Grant, and the UA Collaborative Arts Initiative.
Medieval descriptions of the construction of Gothic cathedrals often begin with a destructive fire, miraculous survival, and renewed collective purpose for restoring what was lost. The old becomes new, and new ideas and possibilities emerge. Not only is a building reconstructed, but it is also transformed, and so are we: new techniques, artistic forms, and ideas are developed through the organization of collaborative effort. The Notre Dame restoration continues this story into our present moment as we watch the spire of the cathedral rise once again. The impressive reconstruction project is scheduled for completion in December 2024. At the same time, interdisciplinary groups of researchers continue to make new discoveries about this famous work of Gothic architecture.
DISCLAIMER: Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this lecture do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Historic Tuscaloosa will conclude its summertime lecture series on Thursday, September 28, at 5:30 p.m. The final presenter of this year’s lecture series will be Dr. Sharony Green, an associate professor of art history at the University of Alabama. This event is open to the public and free of charge.
For over a decade, University of Alabama historian Dr. Sharony Green has taken her students to and through local historic sites like Tuscaloosa's Jemison-Van de Graaff mansion to get them to think about our complicated shared past.
Join her as she discusses how her students learned to "unflatten" stories hovering around this once state-of-the-art dwelling in antebellum Alabama. How do we find meaning in the 19th-century politician-businessman Robert Jemison Jr.'s relationship with the once-enslaved-turned-well-respected architect Horace King? Or in King's own messy ties to the slaveholding South? Or the compelling role that Priscilla Cherokee Jemison played in her husband's business affairs?
Building on her lectures and a recently released book, Dr. Green shows us how her students encountered Tuscaloosa's historical past through walking tours, a music video they made, and other assignments. In fact, she left them with many entry points to think through the possibilities of our complicated shared past, present, and future, no matter the sometimes-trying news headlines.
One running thread throughout all her work is her deep interest in how human beings encounter one another in complicated ways. She addressed this topic in Teaching Public History Creatively in Alabama: About (Public) Face (Global Perspectives on Public History) (Routledge, April 2024).
https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-Public-History-Creatively-in-Alabama-About-Public-Face/Green/p/book/9781032564364