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Fire Escapes and Water Tower Additions to Main Hall
President Palmer addresses the building committee and said he had already asked twice that the building committee approve a much needed water tower. In March, because of the tragic accident with Condie Cunningham, this time when President Palmer…
John Steelman with his pet wolf
The son of a farmer and logger, John Steelman grew up in Arkansas. He paid for college by picking crops and working a variety of jobs. For the duration of his life he felt comfortable in rugged backwoods areas. At Alabama College Steelman taught…
Cynthia Shackelford
Cynthia Shackelford, a Montevallo alumna, took over as the university’s director of public relations in 1993. Until her death in 2011, she actively cultivated the campus’s reputation for ghosts. In fact, she welcomed a number of paranormal societies…
College Night Program
A program from College Night in 1937. At this time, the University of Montevallo was still called Alabama College and was a university only for women. The picture is of Palmer Hall, the building where College Night is held annually.
Acetylene Gas Machine
In 1899, the President of the University of Montevallo (then called Alabama Girls Industrial School) Francis Peterson was given an advertisement for an Acetylene Gas Machine from the Craig Reynolds Foundry Company.
This “illumination machine”…
This “illumination machine”…
Kenney Flushometer System
In the December 1899, University of Montevallo (then called Alabama Girls Industrial School) President Francis Peterson received a letter from the Ahrens and Ott manufacturing company. This company sent a brochure to Peterson of the items that they…
School Tuition in 1900 & 1903
The Alabama Girls Industrial School empowered women through education. Although classes offered in the early 1900s reflected what society deemed appropriate and useful at the time, the promotion of higher education for women is one proud heritage for…
Calkins Hall
Calkins Hall was built to house the Department of Music and it served that purpose from 1917 to 1971. Renovated for administrative offices, it opened for that purpose in 1973. Calkins remains, along with Main Hall, and Reynolds, one of the campus’s…
The Tower
The Tower, pictured above, is one of the most recognizable and historic structures on the University of Montevallo's campus. Erected in 1910, the Tower provided the Alabama Girls' Industrial School, the name by which the University of Montevallo was…
Alumni photo from the 2009 Homecoming
Alumni photo of the classes of 1950-1955 from Homecoming 2009. Since Montevallo lacks a football team each year their homecoming traditions include student run events and culminate in a musical performance. College Night is completely student based…
Tuberculosis Free Certification
This is a certificate notifying the Alabama College that the herd of 96 Holstein cattle, located in Montevallo, AL are tuberculosis free. The certificate was issued by the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture and…
Tuberculosis Test
This is proof of a result of a tuberculin test done on a herd of 102 Jersey and Holstein cattle done on June 24, 1930. The tuberculosis vaccine was developed in 1927, but still not very wide spread. The cattle tested for tuberculosis were given an…
Letter Regarding the Cleanliness of Milk Cans
A handwritten letter from U.D. Franklin to future president and current business manager E.H. Wills regarding milk cans being returned to the dairy without being cleaned thoroughly. During 1927 tuberculosis was at an all time high, and the first…
Main Hall
In 1896 the president of Alabama’s Girls’ Industrial School managed to board students with local families, but growing enrollments demanded the rapid construction of a dormitory. Remarkably, the west wing of Main Hall, with the capacity to…
Main Hall
This photograph shows unfinished construction on Main Hall. A basement, dining hall, and two more residential wings would be completed in 1908.
Ice Company Petitions President Peterson
During the late nineteenth century New England merchants dominated the global ice trade, shipping frozen water around the globe. The city of Montevallo received rail shipments of naturally harvested ice from northern firms through the port of Mobile,…
Jimmie Foxx
Jimmie Fox was born 10/22/07 in Sudlersville, Maryland. He threw right handed and batted right handed. He hit 534 home runs during his time in the league making him only the second player in major league history to hit over 500 home runs. Jimmy Foxx…
The General Plan for Alabama College
The Board of Trustees hired the Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects of Brookline, Massachusetts to layout the growing campus in the nineteen twenties. This is the same firm that designed the Biltmore House grounds in Asheville North Carolina as…
A Faithful Horse
This short newspaper clipping humanizes President Palmer and shows us a softer side of the gargantuan figure who oversaw Montevallo for nearly two decades. This document, commemorating the death of Dr. Palmer's horse of twenty five years, Old…
Senior Elite
Each year the graduating class at Alabama College would elect a group of elites in different fields such as art, science, home economics, and athletics. The Class of 1954 voted Dolly elite sportswoman.
Yearbook Photo
At Alabama College Dolly was active in campus life, participating in College Night, a Speech Tournament, and the Pi Epsilon Delta sorority. Unsurprisingly, she served as the softball team counselor. The yearbook misspelled her surname"Brunfield".
King Graveyard
This small plot is the family cemetery of the King family. This graveyard is located just behind Hill House and near Harmon Hall. The cemetery houses Edmund King and his family. The tall white obelisk headstone is that of Edmund King's. It is also…
Alabama College Wins Prize
The Holstein Friesian Association of America sent Alabama College (as The University of Montevallo was known from 1923 to 1969) a check on May 28, 1929. The check was made out for the amount of thirty dollars in prize money ( $435.29 in 2017). The…
Letter to the Alabama Governor regarding the transition to Alabama College
A letter to the Governor of Alabama, William W. Brandon from the Alabama College Board of Trustees. This is the first page of the full letter from the Board which outlines the completion of the transition to the new name of Alabama College as well as…
Birmingham News Article Featuring Delores "Dolly" Brumsfield White.
This article was published Sunday February 27, 1994 by Bill Piott of The Birmingham News. In this article Delores “Dolly” Brumsfield White talks about her playing days with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and how she played…
President Reynolds with his Faculty
The Alabama Girls’ Industrial School opened in 1896 with a faculty of six (five women and one man) and a student body of 145. During Reynolds' three years as president, he acquired 25,000 acres of public land from Congress and built the first…
Squirrels on Campus
This letter states that the season for taking squirrels closed on February 1st and it would not begin again until the following fall. The letter was written by I. T. Quinn commissioner of the Alabama State Department of Game and Fisheries in…
Red Bricks
The University of Montevallo's red brick streets are not as new as some people might think. The impetus for this change came from the Olmsted Brothers, a landscape architect firm, that recommended brick streets in 1930 as a way to unify the entire…
Tribute to Steelman by the Senior Class
In 1934, the same year Professor Steelman departed for Washington DC, the school yearbook wrote about his role as advisor to the senior class: “he has so loyally filled this position that he has earned a love and admiration equaled by few. His quick…
John R. Steelman
John R. Steelman came to Montevallo in 1928 where he taught sociology and economics for six years until 1934. During that time he distinguished himself as an educator and gained a reputation for friendliness. Few could have imagined that Steelman…