Alabama Industrial and Scientific Society records, MSS.0038

Abstract: Materials relating to the organization, including: meeting minutes, account books, lists of members and officers, and other items.Scope and Content Note: The collection contains the minutes, secretary's account book, treasurer's account book, and mailing list in four volumes of the Alabama Industrial and Scientific Society. The minutes contain a list of members of the society, the constitution and by-laws, and the topics discussed at meetings. Frequent subjects of papers and discussions included: mapping the Cahaba coal fields, the Simon-Carvis method of coking with recovery of by-products, the future of the iron and steel industry in Alabama, the Thomas coking oven, Alabama cokes, Alabama bauxite, the benefits to Alabama from the construction of an isthmian canal, and coal mining in Alabama. The secretary's account book includes names of members of the society and the annual dues paid by each. The treasurer's account book shows the fees paid by each member and all of the expenditures by the treasurer for the society. The mailing list consists of a long list of newspapers, journals, societies, universities, and companies which received copies of the society's mailings.Biographical/Historical Note: An organization of "civil and mining engineers, mine and furnace owners and managers, chemists, metallurgists, geologists, and all others interested in the material progress of the state into a society for the promotion of the scientific examination and discussion of practical everyday affairs," the Alabama Industrical and Scientific Society was founded at the University of Alabama, 11 December 1890. Its officers included Cornelius Wade, C. A. Meissner, Erskine Ramsey, William B. Phillips, Thomas Seddon, F. M. Jackson, T. H. Aldrich, M.C. Wilson, J. H. Fitts, and Eugene Allen Smith