The History of The University of Alabama begins with an act of United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 in 1818 authorizing the newly formed Alabama Territory

Alabama Territory

The Territory of Alabama was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 15, 1817, until December 14, 1819, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Alabama.-History:...

 to set aside a township for the establishment of a "seminary of learning." Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

 was admitted to the Union

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on March 20, 1819 and a second township added to the land grant. The seminary was established by the General Assembly on December 18, 1820 and named The University of the State of Alabama

University of Alabama

The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

. The legislature appointed a Board of Trustees to handle the building and opening of the campus, and its operation once complete. The Board selected Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...

, then capital of the Alabama, as the site of The University in 1827, and opened its doors to students on April 18, 1831.

The school in writing: 1820–1831

The original land grant included the entire area within the Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...

 city limits stretching south of what is now University Boulevard to the AGS Railroad and west to Queen City Avenue. The land had been owned by William Marr, whose name is commemorated today in Marrs Spring and the literary Marrs Field Journal. A prominent architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

, Captain William Nichols, was commissioned to design the campus.

Most of the material for the early buildings came from university land. Slaves

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

 quarried sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 near the Black Warrior River

Black Warrior River

The Black Warrior River is a waterway in west central Alabama in the southeastern United States. The river rises in the extreme southern edges of the Appalachian Highlands and flows 178 miles to the Tombigbee River, of which the Black Warrior is the primary tributary...

, burned and made brick

Brick

A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...

s on the spot, and cut lumber

Lumber

Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....

 from The University's own timber

Timber

Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...

 tract. An extensive vineyard

Vineyard

A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...

 was situated in the area of Denny Field and Barnwell Hall.

The frontier school: 1831–1860

The Board of Trustee selected the Reverend Alva A. Woods to be the first president of the university. Educated at Phillips Andover

Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...

, Harvard College

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 and in Europe. Woods hoped to turn the university into a Harvard-style seminary.

Admission standards were set high. Simply to enter the university, one had to demonstrate the ability to read Classical Greek and Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 at an intermediate level, with advanced study in those languages to begin immediately. But Alabama, a frontier state a sizable amount of whose territory was still under the control of various Native American tribes, was decades away from possessing the infrastructure necessary to provide adequate education (public or even private) to meet such high standards.

The university was consequently forced to admit many students who were not adequately prepared for university education. For the duration of the Antebellum period, the university would graduate only a fraction of those young men who entered. Of the 105 student who enrolled in 1835, only eight graduated.

Within a month of the opening of the university, social societies emerged. Unlike the social fraternities that would emerge in the next decade, these clubs were academic debate societies by nature. The Erosophic Society was founded in May 1831, while the Philomathic Society came out eight months later.

For $80 a year, students received room and board at the Hotel, now known as the Gorgas House. Washington Hall and Jefferson Hall, called the "colleges," stood three stories high. Each contained twelve apartments, which in turn contained two bedrooms and a sitting room. Forty-eight students resided in each dormitory

Dormitory

A dormitory, often shortened to dorm, in the United States is a residence hall consisting of sleeping quarters or entire buildings primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people, often boarding school, college or university students...

. Madison and Franklin Halls were built later. Following the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, the remains of Madison and Franklin Halls were made into memorial mounds. Madison Mound was removed during the 1920s, but Franklin Mound is still used for Honors Day ceremonies. Additionally, an archaeological excavation, conducted in 2007, examined the remains of Washington and Jefferson Halls foundations.

At the center of the campus, where the Gorgas Library is now situated, stood the "grande dame" of the university, the Rotunda. In the 1894 yearbook, Corolla, the building is described as "a circular edifice of three stories, seventy feet in diameter and seventy feet in height, and surrounded by a lofty peristyle of the Ionic order

Ionic order

The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

 of architecture. The principal story was used for chapel service and academic recitations. This department was long celebrated as being the finest auditorium in the State. In the second story was the circular gallery, supported by carved columns of the Corinthian order

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...

. The third story contained the library and the collections in natural history." The Rotunda was destroyed by fire and was never rebuilt. Following an excavation

Earthworks (engineering)

Earthworks are engineering works created through the moving or processing of quantities of soil or unformed rock.- Civil engineering use :Typical earthworks include roads, railway beds, causeways, dams, levees, canals, and berms...

 in 1985, the Rotunda's remains were cushioned in sand and covered with concrete to mark where the building had once stood.

Greek life began at the university in 1847 when two young Mobilians visiting from Yale

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 installed a chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon

Delta Kappa Epsilon

Delta Kappa Epsilon is a fraternity founded at Yale College in 1844 by 15 men of the sophomore class who had not been invited to join the two existing societies...

. When DKE members began holding secret meetings in the old state capitol building that year, the administration strongly voiced its disapproval. Over the next decade, three other fraternities appeared at Alabama: Phi Gamma Delta

Phi Gamma Delta

The international fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta is a collegiate social fraternity with 120 chapters and 18 colonies across the United States and Canada. It was founded at Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in 1848, and its headquarters are located in Lexington, Kentucky, USA...

 in 1855, Sigma Alpha Epsilon

Sigma Alpha Epsilon

Sigma Alpha Epsilon is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity founded at the University of Alabama on March 9, 1856. Of all existing national social fraternities today, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the only one founded in the Antebellum South...

 in 1856, and Kappa Sigma

Kappa Sigma

Kappa Sigma , commonly nicknamed Kappa Sig, is an international fraternity with currently 282 active chapters and colonies in North America. Kappa Sigma has initiated more than 240,000 men on college campuses throughout the United States and Canada. Today, the Fraternity has over 175,000 living...

 in 1867. Anti-fraternity laws were imposed in that year, but were lifted in 1890s. Eager to have a social organization of their own, women at The University founded the Zeta Chapter of Kappa Delta

Kappa Delta

Kappa Delta was the first sorority founded at the State Female Normal School , in Farmville, Virginia. It is one of the "Farmville Four" sororities founded at the university...

 sorority in 1903. Alpha Delta Pi

Alpha Delta Pi

Alpha Delta Pi is a fraternity founded on May 15, 1851 at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. The Executive office for this sorority is located on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia. Alpha Delta Pi is one of the two "Macon Magnolias," a term used to celebrate the bonds it shares with Phi Mu...

 and Zeta Tau Alpha

Zeta Tau Alpha

Zeta Tau Alpha is a women's fraternity, founded October 15, 1898 at the State Female Normal School in Farmville, Virginia. The Executive office is located in Indianapolis, Indiana...

 soon followed.

The military school: 1860–1902

In the 1850s, the school's president, Landon Garland

Landon Garland

-Biography:He graduated with first honors from Hampden-Sydney College in 1829. He taught chemistry and natural philosophy at Washington College , c1829-1830, and taught chemistry and natural history at Randolph-Macon College, 1833-1834, eventually being elected chair of the department. In 1837, he...

, began lobbying the Legislature to transform the university into a military school. In 1860, in the wake a violent brawl which resulted in the death of student as well as the impending war, the legislature authorized Garland to make the transformation beginning in the Fall of 1860. As a result of this transformation, during the Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, the school trained troops for the Confederacy

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

.

Because of this role, Union

Union (American Civil War)

During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...

 troops burned down the campus in April 1865. Only seven buildings survived the burning, one of which was the President's Mansion - and its outbuildings. Frances Louisa Garland, wife of President Landon C. Garland, saved the home from destruction by the Union soldiers. When she saw flames in the direction of the campus, she ran from the Bryce home where the family had taken refuge and demanded the soldiers put out the fire in the parlor. The university reopened in 1871 and shortly after, the military structure was dropped. The other principal buildings today, have new uses. Gorgas House (http://gorgashouse.ua.edu/), at different times the dining hall, faculty residence, and campus hotel, now serves as a museum. The Roundhouse, then a sentry box for cadets, later a place for records storage, is a campus historical landmark. The Observatory, now Maxwell Hall, is home to the Computer-Based Honors Program.
In 1880, the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 granted the university 40,000 acres (160 km²) of coal land as partial compensation for the $250,000 in war damages. Some of the money went toward the building of Manly and Clark Halls. In 1887, Clark became the home of the library, whose 7,000 volumes had been destroyed. It was not until 1900 that private donations, including the donation of 1,000 volumes collected by John Leslie Hibbard's father, restored the library to 20,000 books. Garland Hall, which housed the geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

 museum and lecture rooms, completed what became known as Woods Quad. Tuomey and Barnard Halls were also built before 1900.

The growing university: 1902–1941

The university was officially opened to women in 1892 after much lobbying by Julia Tutwiler

Julia Tutwiler

Julia Strudwick Tutwiler was an advocate for education and prison reform in Alabama. Graduating in the first class of Vassar College, she served as co-principal of the Livingston Female Academy, and then the first woman president of Livingston Normal College .-Early life and education:Tutwiler...

 to the Board of Trustees. In 1895, it was advertised that "young women of good character, who have attained the age of eighteen, may be admitted to the university, provided they are prepared to take up subjects of study not lower than those of the Sophomore class. They must reside in private families; but rooms for study during the study-hours of the day are provided at The University."

Although the university attempted to look forward to the twentieth century, some elements of the past remained. Four tombstones marked the graves of Professor Horace S. Pratt and his family in a tiny cemetery beside the biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 building. In celebration of the university's seventy-fifth anniversary in 1906, President Hill Ferguson and Robert Jemison launched a fund-raising campaign with the slogan, "A quarter million dollar improvement fund." The $5,000 which the campaign secured from the state legislature in 1909 went toward the building of Smith and Morgan Halls. Constructed of yellow Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 brick with Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

 limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 trim, the buildings reflected the Beaux-Arts Greek Revival style of architecture that was popular at the turn of the century.

The modern university: 1941–present

In 1941, Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library opened its doors in the same spot where the Rotunda once stood. Half a century later, its long wooden tables, stained glass windows, and worn books smelling of dust and age contrasted with the grey computer catalogue terminals and slick. Gorgas Library stood as a perfect symbol of the way, in all facets of the university, progress persisted amidst elements of the past.

In 1953, Autherine Lucy

Autherine Lucy

Autherine Juanita Lucy was the first black student to attend the University of Alabama, in 1956.She was born on October 5, 1929 in Shiloh, Alabama and graduated from Linden Academy in 1947....

 sued in Lucy v. Adams

Lucy v. Adams

Lucy v. Adams, , was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully established the right of all citizens to be accepted as students at the University of Alabama....

 to prevent the university from denying admission solely based on race or color. Lucy became the first African-American to attend the school when she was admitted in 1956. On the third day of classes, a hostile mob assembled to prevent Lucy from attending classes. The police were called to secure her admission but, that evening, the University suspended Lucy on the grounds that it could not provide a safe environment. The university overturned her expulsion in 1980, and in 1992, Lucy earned her Masters degree in Elementary Education from the university that she was admitted to decades earlier.

On June 11, 1963, George Wallace

George Wallace

George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...

, the governor of Alabama, stood in front of a schoolhouse door at The University of Alabama in what became known as the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door took place at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, in a symbolic attempt to keep his inaugural promise of "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" and stop the desegregation of...

 in an attempt to stop desegregation

Desegregation

Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...

 of that institution by the enrollment of two African-American students, Vivian Malone

Vivian Malone Jones

Vivian Juanita Malone Jones was an African-American woman, one of the first two African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963 and was made famous when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked them from enrolling at the all-white university.-University of Alabama:On June 11, 1963,...

 and James Hood

James Hood

James Hood was one of the first African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963 and was made famous when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked him from enrolling at the all-white university....

; when confronted by federal marshal

United States Marshals Service

The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...

s, Wallace stepped aside. Later in life, he apologized for his opposition at that time to racial integration

Racial integration

Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...

.

The University of Alabama paid tribute to Autherine Lucy Foster, James Hood and the late Vivian Malone Jones, the three African-American students whose enrollment represented The University of Alabama's first steps toward desegregation, at the dedication of the Malone-Hood Plaza and Autherine Lucy Clock Tower at Foster Auditorium on November 3, 2010. The day’s events began with a panel discussion featuring Foster, Hood and Jones’ brother and sister, Elvin Malone and Dr. Sharon Malone Holder. Dr. E. Culpepper Clark, former dean of the UA College of Communication and Information Sciences and author of the book, “The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation’s Last Stand at The University of Alabama,” was the moderator for the discussion. Revisions have been made to the original plans for Malone-Hood Plaza, including the Autherine Lucy Clock Tower. The 40-foot-tall brick tower, with open arches and four large bronze plaques at its base, tells the story of Autherine Lucy Foster, James Hood and Vivian Malone Jones and the courage they displayed in breaking down barriers and in opening doors (http://malonehoodplaza.ua.edu/).