Lives, Loves of UA’s Gorgas Family is Focus of Book Talk and Signing at Hoole Library

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Sarah Wiggins, professor emerita of history at The University of Alabama, will sign copies of her new book “Love & Duty: Amelia and Josiah Gorgas and Their Family” and discuss her research on Monday, Feb. 13 at 4:30 p.m. in the lobby and reading room of the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, located on the 2nd floor of Mary Harmon Bryant Hall on campus.

The book explores the intricate personal relationships within this prominent Alabama family, whose vast correspondence and related manuscripts document love, death, family, war and defeat in the Victorian South.

Amelia Gayle and Josiah Gorgas are considered a ‘first family’ of UA. Their ties to the University and to the libraries are significant – Josiah served as university librarian upon stepping down from the UA presidency in 1879. Upon his death, Amelia served as university librarian until her death in 1913. Members of the family lived on campus, in what is now known as the Gorgas House, until the mid-1950s.

Much of the research for this book was completed at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, where the Gorgas Family Papers are housed. A small exhibition of materials from the papers is on display in the Hoole Library through the end of March. The lecture is scheduled to start promptly at 5:10 p.m. A reception and signing will follow the lecture, with copies of the book for sale by the UA Supply Store.

Wiggins is also the author/editor of “The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865-1881,” “From Civil War to Civil Rights, Alabama 1860-1960: An Anthology from The Alabama Review,” and “The Journals of Josiah Gorgas, 1857-1878.” She served as editor of the Alabama Review for 20 years.

For more information, contact Jessica Lacher-Feldman at the Hoole Library, 205/348-0500, hooleinfo@bama.ua.edu.