BPL Archives: Picture It...Birmingham, 1978

Picture it. A gray March day in Birmingham, Alabama. Three documentarians are trying to find their last shot before they can leave to go back home. They have 15 seconds of film and a few still shots but nothing with identifiers that lead to the cross streets. What's more, the film is from over 40 years ago and the area has changed drastically! What to do?!

TO THE ARCHIVES!

This kind of question, "Where is this?" (or more accurately, "where was this?"), is the kind of question Archivists answer all the time! This particular scenario actually occurred this past March, and we thought it would be beneficial to walk through the process from initial question to solution, along with the time taken. 

Friday, March 31, 3 documentarians from Berlin came down to the Archives. One of them told us her father did a documentary about Birmingham in 1978. She was trying to recreate the documentary shot for shot. She had everything except one shot. Row houses with train tracks in the foreground, bridges, and silos in the back. In one part of the shot, a woman sweeps the porch and the house number is visible. That's it. No street signs. No sun to determine orientation. Just row houses, train tracks, silos, and two parallel bridges. To make matters more complicated, there was a very good chance the majority of those markers were likely gone now. 

So, we set to work. We gathered Sanborn maps (fire insurance maps that most major cities have that update the city as it grows and changes), Board of Equalization files (tax files that document every standing structure in Jefferson County starting in 1938–1976), our general photos collection (the circa 1970 aerial view), our 1972 city map, several photos from the Jefferson County Land Development Office 1966 aerial photos, and the Internet street views, which were referred to us by the Documentarians' internet sleuths.

The search began on Friday afternoon until we closed at 6:00 p.m., continued between patrons on Saturday (did you know Archives is open by appointment on Saturday? We are! Give us a call at 205-226-3630), and resumed Monday morning. We used the internet sleuths modern map to identify the intersection, which showed the current business on the property, which led us to the parcel number (the number you need to pull a property file! For more information on how to research your building, take the "how to research your historic home" class. Coming soon in person and virtually.), which led us to the Board of Equalization file, which had a photo of the exact houses from 1978...though this picture was from 1940!

There you have it. It took 2 Archivists and 3 working days, but we found the needle in the haystack!

Thank you for going on this journey with us. We are happy to help you with your quest. Just make an appointment and we'll see you soon!

By Catherine Oseas and Don Veasey | Archives, Central Library