April 19, 1947

The Alabama Historical Association (AHA) was founded at Alabama College, now the University of Montevallo, by a group of professional and amateur historians. The group elected James Sulzby Jr., a real estate executive from Birmingham, president and formed a committee to develop a state historical journal and an annual formal meeting. The AHA’s published their first journal, The Alabama Review: A Quarterly Journal of Alabama History, later that year. In 1949, the organization created the state’s first historical marker program to commemorate important sites. Today, the AHA has approximately 900 members and continues to sponsor both the Alabama Review and the state’s historical marker program.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Officers of the Alabama Historical Association are seen at a meeting in Tuscaloosa in 1959. From left: Milo B. Howard, Gordon T. Chappell, Margaret Pace Farmer, and James F. Sulzby. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.