Amelia Gayle Gorgas

Amelia Gorgas served the University of Alabama as a hospital matron, librarian, and postmistress for 25 years until her retirement at age 80 in 1907. She was the first female librarian on campus, and the Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library was the first academic building at the University named for a woman.

Historian James B. Sellers asserts that "Amelia Gayle Gorgas was . . . the first woman to set the imprint of her personality on the growing University."
Born in Greensboro, Alabama, in 1826, she graduated with honors from the Columbia Female Institute in Tennessee and, in 1853, married General Josiah Gorgas. After a distinguished military career, he served as president of The University of Alabama. Due to failing health, Gorgas resigned in 1879, at which time the position of University librarian was created for him.

At the same time, Amelia, then in her mid-fifties, was appointed hospital matron, nursing sick students in what is known today as the Gorgas House. After Josiah's death in 1883, she assumed the duties of librarian and was also appointed postmistress in 1886. Of her varied responsibilities, however, Mrs. Gorgas is best remembered as a librarian, increasing the fledgling University collection from 6,000 to about 20,000 volumes.

After her death in 1913, a movement was begun to build a memorial - a library building - that was completed in 1925 (the present Carmichael Hall). When the new main library was completed in 1939, it, too, was named for Amelia Gayle Gorgas. Her portrait that hangs on the second floor of the library was a memorial sponsored by alumni and presented in 1937.

The 1896 Corolla was dedicated to Gorgas with the following tribute: "Conforming to the unanimous desire of the Alabama Cadet Corps, and thus, in a measure, expressing their filial love, the Corolla of 1896 is dedicated to Mrs. Amelia G. Gorgas, whose tender ministrations to the sick, motherly counsel to the wayward and erring, and words of encouragement and incentive to all, have made her the good angel of their college home."