50th Anniversary for the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2019

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding in 1969.

UAB's traces its history back along two paths to the 1859 founding of the Medical College of Alabama and the 1936 opening of the Birmingham Extension Center of the University of Alabama. 

In 1945 the Medical College of Alabama was moved from Tuscaloosa and the University's Medical Center was founded in Birmingham. In 1954 the Extension Center was moved to a newly constructed facility adjacent to the Medical Center, bringing together for the first time the University's two academic components in Birmingham. 

Later, in November of 1966, the Extension Center and the Medical Center were administratively merged to form the "University of Alabama in Birmingham," an organizational component of the University of Alabama (in Tuscaloosa). In 1969 UAB became an independent institution, one of the autonomous universities within the newly created three-campus University of Alabama System.

UAB's Archives offer an extensive Chronological History of the institution that includes its predecessors. Archives collections also include university records, manuscripts, and photographs.