ABOUT THIS BOOK

An engaging history of The University of Alabama President’s Mansion

As part of The University of Alabama’s 175th anniversary celebration (2006), the new edition of A Mansion’s Memories includes details of the tenures of the four presidents who have served since the Mathews term. Profusely illustrated with 69 black-and-white and 17 color photographs, this classic is sure to be welcomed anew by alumni and friends of the University and all lovers of fine old buildings that still function in their original capacities.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Mary Chapman Mathews is retired Executive Director of Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio, and the wife of former University of Alabama President David Mathews.

REVIEWS

“The mansion has watched history for more than a century; it has overheard the conversations of its residents and guests; it has seen itself change architecturally on the outside and decoratively on the inside; it has witnessed the destruction of the Civil War, difficulties during both World Wars, and student demonstrations that accompanied the Vietnam War; and it has captured the sights and sounds of its age in serving as host to more than 25,000 people who visit it annually from around the world. . . . Mathews tells its story with sensitivity and insight that come only from having been a part of its inner circle.”—Alabama Living

“The University of Alabama’s President’s Mansion is an icon of the campus. What better way for an alumnus to relive the wonderful years spent there than to stroll through this book, listening to the stories of presidents and residents past? I loved it.”—Sela Ward

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“Amusing, informative, delightful. . . . Mathews [has an] easy-to-read, down-to-earth style.”—Chattanooga News-Free Press

“Other residents may have been annoyed by the creaking floors, the rattling windows, the slamming doors, the poppings and cracklings in the night, the echoes of muffled voices, but Mary Mathews recognized those sounds as the voice of an aging mansion, a mansion with stories to tell. She listened, and she wrote the stores the mansion told her.”—Kathryn Tucker Windham

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“Mathews has done an excellent job in putting on paper the lore of the house she so obviously learned to love.”—Tuscaloosa News

“With fascinating anecdotes the author brings alive those who peopled the President's Mansion and reminds us that some university problems, especially financial ones, are perennial. This book will again charm readers.”—Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins, author of Love and Duty: Amelia and Josiah Gorgas and Their Family

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Building a New House for a Young University, 1837–1855

Basil Manly

Chapter 2. Surviving the Chaos of War, 1855–1878

Landon C. Garland

Short-Term and Acting Presidents

William R. Smith

Nathaniel T. Lupton

Carlos G. Smith

Chapter 3. Rebuilding the Campus around the President's Home, 1878–1897

Josiah Gorgas

Burwell B. Lewis

Henry D. Clayton

Richard C. Jones

Chapter 4. Greeting a New Century, 1897–1911

James K. Powers

William S. Wyman

John W. Abercrombie

Chapter 5. Cementing a Capstone, 1911–1942

George H. Denny

Richard C. Foster

Chapter 6. Battling for the Conscience of the University, an Angel for the House, 1942–1958

Raymond R. Paty

John M. Gallalee

Oliver C. Carmichael

Chapter 7. Opening Doors to All of Alabama, 1958–1980

Frank A. Rose

F. David Mathews

Chapter 8. Fostering Research and Restoration, 1981–2003

Joab L. Thomas

E. Roger Sayers

Andrew A. Sorensen

J. Barry Mason

Chapter 9. Celebrating the Twenty-first Century, 2003–present

Robert E. Witt

Appendix A: Presidents of the University

Appendix B: Chancellors of the University of Alabama System