Akenhead, Linda and Barbara Mitchell

Survey of Six Historic Religious Structures in Birmingham

(AR 758)

Photographs and printed material documenting the history and architecture of six downtown Birmingham religious structures: Cathedral Church of the Advent (Episcopal), First Baptist Church, First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist Church, St. Paul’s Catholic Church and Temple Emanu-El.

Size: 2 boxes

Bryan, James Alexander, John E. Bryan and Family

Papers, 1918-1975

(AR 39)

Correspondence, office files, newspaper clippings, photographs and other material relating to the lives, careers and family of Rev. James Alexander Bryan (Brother Bryan), a popular Birmingham minister, and John E. Bryan, who served as Superintendent of Jefferson County Schools, Executive Secretary of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Birmingham City Council.

Size: 7 boxes

Central Presbyterian Church, Birmingham. Ladies’ Aid Society

Minutes, 1895-1896

(AR 1705)

Size: 1 box

Cumberland Presbyterian Church

Records, 1868-1940

(AR 252)

This collection contains minutes of meetings and financial records.

Size: 2 reels microfilm

Edmonds, Henry Morris

Daily Column, 1942-1955

(AR 476)

This collection contains copies of many, but not all or Edmonds’ newspaper columns written for the Birmingham Age-Herald and Birmingham Post-Herald.

Size: 1 reel microfilm

Edmonds, Henry Morris

Papers, 1895-1961

(AR 159)

Henry Morris Edmonds was born in York, Alabama, in 1878. He was educated at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Edmonds came to Birmingham in 1913 to become pastor of the South Highland Presbyterian Church. A split in the congregation led to the formation of Independent Presbyterian Church on Highland Avenue in 1915. Edmonds remained at Independent until his resignation in 1942, when he accepted a deanship at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. After five years in Winter Park, Edmonds returned to Birmingham. Edmonds was a prolific writer. Throughout his career he contributed to the Birmingham Post-Herald and various magazines, and he published several books. He died in Birmingham in 1960. The bulk of this collection spans 1915-1960, and includes correspondence, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, sermons, eulogies, speeches, books of prayer, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, and books, magazines, and pamphlets. Among the letters and newspaper clippings are many relating to the theological differences between Edmonds and members of the congregation of South Highland Presbyterian Church, the split that developed between the supporters and opponents of Edmonds, the resulting North Alabama Presbytery Court Hearings, and the formation of Independent Presbyterian Church. Other correspondence is from church members, family, and family friends

Size: 21 boxes

Federation of Women’s Missionary Societies of Birmingham

Minutes, 1911-1923

(AR 277)

This volume contains minutes of the semi-annual and occasional meetings of the General Board of the Federation. The group included representatives of missionary societies from the Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopal and Christian denominations.

Size: 1 volume

First Presbyterian Church, Birmingham

Records

(AR 1307)

First Presbyterian Church, located in downtown Birmingham on the corner of Richard Arrington, Jr. Boulevard and Fourth Avenue North, grew out of the Old School Presbyterian Church, founded in the town of Elyton in 1858. In 1872, the wood frame church was dismantled and moved to the current location in the new city of Birmingham. The current brick sanctuary was completed in 1888. This collection contains church registers, minutes, correspondence and other material.

Size: 21 boxes

Hopewell Cumberland Presbyterian Church

Register, 1823-1934

(AR 1827)

Hopewell Cumberland Presbyterian Church was established near the community of Jonesboro in the western part of Jefferson County, Alabama in 1823. This collection contains one bound church register containing minutes of the session and recording the names of communicants, elders, deacons, baptisms and deaths for the period 1823 to 1934. Some of these listings seem to be incomplete, and no marriages are recorded. The collection also contains a typed abstract listing some communicants.

Size: 1 box

Independent Presbyterian Church

Records, 1915-1986

(AR 377)

Independent Presbyterian Church was established in 1915 by a group who left Birmingham’s South Highland Presbyterian Church to follow the Rev. Henry Edmonds, who had been dismissed from South Highlands following a theological dispute. The new congregation met at the synagogue Temple Emanu-El until their present church building was completed in 1926. Independent Presbyterian instituted a number of social service programs, including the Children’s Fresh Air Farm which opened in 1926. A 1996 fire destroyed all of the church’s buildings except for the sanctuary and the facility was rebuilt. The church had placed it’s records in the Archives of the Birmingham Public Library more than a decade before the fire, and so the church’s archives was spared. Today, Independent Presbyterian has more than 2,500 members. The collection includes minutes of the Session and Board of Deacons, correspondence, sermons, bulletins and other publications, financial records, membership records, scrapbooks and histories of the church.

Size: 30 boxes

Jones, O. May

Boy’s Opportunity Farm and Children’s Fresh Air Farm Scrapbooks

(AR 986)

These two scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings and photographs, most undated, relating to the Boy’s Opportunity Farm and Children’s Fresh Air Farm.

Size: 1 box

Keller, Mary E.

"Sketches in Black and White: A History of Inter-Racial Work, Synodical of Alabama, 1916-1944"

(AR 1753)

At the time this work was apparently written Mary E. Keller served as office secretary at Woodlawn Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. This collection contains a photocopy of a typescript entitled "Sketches in Black and White: A History of Inter-Racial Work, Synodical of Alabama, 1916-1944." The history deals with the Presbyterian Church and African Americans in Alabama.

Size: 1 volume

Whiting, Marvin Yeomans

Independent Presbyterian Church History Materials

(AR 1177)

Marvin Yeomans Whiting served as the first Archivist for the Birmingham Public Library. This collection contains photographs and other research material collected by Whiting while writing his book The Bearing Day is Not Gone: The Seventy-fifth Anniversary History of Independent Presbyterian Church of Birmingham, Alabama, 1915-1990.

Size: 1 box