In 1873, just two years after its founding, Birmingham, was beset by a cholera epidemic that killed 128 people. The disease spread quickly through the city’s water supply. As the [more]

Pushmataha is perhaps the best-known Choctaw leader of the nineteenth century. He is most famous for negotiating treaties with the U.S. government that allied the Choctaws with the Americans against [more]

Blanche Evans Dean was a teacher, author, and conservationist. She published widely on the flora of Alabama and many of her field guides remain the standard today. She helped establish [more]

Greensboro native Richmond Pearson Hobson represented Alabama’s Sixth District in Congress from 1907–1915. A naval officer, he gained fame during the 1898 Spanish-American War for sinking the collier USS Merrimac [more]

Alabama-born Mary Lee Cagle was the central figure in a large circle of southern female holiness preachers, a co-founder of the Church of the Nazarene and an organizer of at [more]

Tuscumbia native Helen Keller is popularly remembered as the deaf and blind child who learned sign language from her teacher Anne Sullivan at the Keller home, Ivy Green. But during [more]

Birmingham entrepreneur and businessman A. G. Gaston was one of the most successful African American business owners in Alabama. Gaston overcame humble beginnings and racial discrimination to build a $40 [more]

Fred Shuttlesworth was one of the pioneering figures of the civil rights era and the central leader of the movement in Birmingham. As pastor of Bethel Baptist Church and founder [more]

Selma native Hattie Hooker Wilkins was the first woman elected to the Alabama State Legislature. She joined the 1923 Alabama House of Representatives as a Democrat, expressing the belief that [more]

Sequoyah was one of the most influential men in Cherokee history. His greatest legacy was his invention of a written version of the Cherokee spoken language, created largely during his [more]