Amelia Gayle Gorgas (June 1, 1826 – January 3, 1913) was librarian and postmaster of the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and largest of the publi ...

for 25 years until her retirement at the age of eighty in 1907. She expanded the library from 6,000 to 20,000 volumes. The primary library at the university is named after her. A native of

Greensboro, Alabama Greensboro is a city in Hale County, Alabama, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 2,497, down from 2,731 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Hale County, Alabama, which was not organized until 1867. It is part o ...

, Amelia was the daughter of Alabama governor John Gayle, the wife of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

-born

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

general

Josiah Gorgas Josiah Gorgas (July 1, 1818 – May 15, 1883) was one of the few Northern-born Confederate generals and was later president of the University of Alabama. As chief of ordnance during the American Civil War, Gorgas managed to keep the Confederate ...

and the mother of Surgeon General

William C. Gorgas William Crawford Gorgas KCMG (October 3, 1854 – July 3, 1920) was a United States Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914–1918). He is best known for his work in Florida, Havana and at the Panama Canal in abating the ...

. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1977.

References

External links

Alabama's Women Hall of Fame

University of Alabama Gorgas Library

Josiah and Amelia Gorgas Family papers, University Libraries Division of Special Collections, The University of Alabama
People from Greensboro, Alabama 1826 births 1913 deaths University of Alabama people American librarians American women librarians {{library-bio-stub