For the University of Alabama Libraries 2022 Bama Blitz funding project, we plan to create and fund an endowment for University Libraries historical collections in honor of Dr. Sarah Wiggins who passed away in 2020. Beloved by students and faculty both at The University of Alabama and around the nation, the Dr. Sarah Wiggins History Fund will serve the needs of students and faculty through the purchase of research materials in history for general collections, as well as our Special Collections. We seek to raise $25,000.00 for this endowed fund, to be matched with University of Alabama Libraries Leadership Board funds, for a total of $50,000.00.
Dr. Sarah Wiggins, long time member of the University Libraries Leadership Board, earned a bachelor’s degree from Huntingdon College and received a master’s degree and doctorate in history from Louisiana State University. She later joined the history department at the University of Alabama as the first female faculty member. Dr. Wiggins was a professor of antebellum and Civil War social and biographical history, who also specialized in the history of Alabama. Her notable books include Love and Duty: Amelia and Josiah Gorgas and Their Family, as well as From Civil War to Civil Rights, Alabama 1860-1960. She retired in 1995 after 35 years of service.
Though retired, she continued her scholarly pursuits, publishing The Journal of Sarah Haynsworth Gayle, 1827–1835: A Substitute for Social Intercourse in cooperation with The University of Alabama Press, University Libraries Special Collections, and the University Libraries Leadership Board. Sarah Haynsworth Gayle, wife of Alabama Governor John Gayle, was the mother of Amelia Gayle Gorgas, for whom our main library is named. In addition to her primary appointment as a history professor, she was also the editor of The Alabama Review, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Alabama Historical Association, for 20 years.
Dr. Wiggins was the former president of the Alabama Historical Association and the Jemison-Van deGraaff Foundation Board of Directors. She also served as a member of a number of commissions and boards during her lifetime, including the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society Board, Alabama Historical Association Board of Directors, Southern Historical Association Executive Council, Alabama Local Records Commission, and the Alabama State Records Commission.
In the words of the Chair of the University of Alabama History Department, Dr. Joshua Rothman, "Dr. Sarah Wiggins was a pioneer in the University of Alabama Department of History and an excellent historian who made significant contributions to our understanding of the nineteenth-century South. Her decades of service to the department, the historical profession, and the Tuscaloosa community are legacies well worth honoring."
Help us honor a female history pioneer who meant so much to The University of Alabama and University Libraries.
