University Of Montevallo: Questions And Answers With Mary Haynes Furman '18

Press release from the University of Montevallo:

December 1, 2021

Your home: Montgomery

Tell us about your family. I am the oldest of eight children. I was born in New Orleans, and after a few years in Tennessee, we moved back to Mandeville, Louisiana, where I was raised.

What is your profession? I currently work at the Alabama Department of Archives and History as the department’s first digital history curator. In this newly created role, I work to expand the reach of the department’s exhibits by creating digital, web-based stories about Alabama history. As the digital-specific curator at the ADAH, my work brings a new era to the department’s traditional, in-person-only exhibits and offers them to a wider audience for the first time. I also function as a member of the Exhibits, Publications and Programs team.

What made you choose this profession? During my first year at the state archives, I worked as a communications assistant, where I had a hand in anything public-facing for the department. I helped with preparations for the ADAH’s bicentennial exhibit, “We the People: Alabama’s Defining Documents.” This initial exposure to exhibit work had me hooked, and I knew I wanted to do more. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Archives closed temporarily, and we pivoted to providing more robust digital offerings as many institutions and businesses did. I became much more involved in expanding our digital content and discovered a love for graphic design. When the opportunity arose to combine my interest in exhibits with a growing passion for digital historical content as the digital history curator, I couldn’t wait to take on the challenge.

How did Montevallo affect your career path? Without Montevallo, I never would have considered history as a career option. My first semester, I took University Archivist Carey Heatherly’s “Digging Up Treasures” archives course as an honors elective. Though I’ve always enjoyed visiting museums, it had never occurred to me to explore the huge job market behind them. Learning about archives through his course was my first exposure to the professional work which lies behind the preservation and presentation of the past.

Tell us about your educational foundation. Montevallo’s top-notch history program provided me with an excellent base for my future work. The instruction from professors like Dr. Ruth Truss and Dr. Clark Hultquist taught me the basis of all historical research and writing, both of which have been essential to my current job. My internship and student work in the Anne Crawford Milner Archives under the tutelage of Professor Carey Heatherly also provided me with an invaluable base knowledge of historical preservation and archival work.

Talk about the ways in which you helped to study and preserve UM’s history during your time as a student. Like many who attend Montevallo, College Night was one of the biggest draws to the school. When I took a digital course offered by the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC), fellow student Savannah Willard and I knew we wanted to learn more deeply about and showcase the history of our school’s unique and beloved tradition. Together we delved into the collection of College Night production books held by the Anne Crawford Milner Archives, using them to trace a timeline of significant events within Montevallo’s history. We also digitized more than 20 of the books, making them publicly available for the first time. The project can still be viewed at slob.coplacdigital.org/montevallo.

After this project, I found myself continuing to think about the early records of the school and the unique story Montevallo tells as a symbol of progressivism in Alabama. It was unique being a public industrial school unassociated with a church at its founding, and continuing to be a symbol of progressivism as it became the first public women’s college in the state. I found this thread of a story fascinating, and for my senior thesis I investigated the social factors, people and policies which enabled the Alabama Girls’ Technical Institute to become Alabama College in 1923.

What is your secret for success? There is no “secret” to success, whether in the professional world or in your personal life. Success – measured on our own individual terms – comes from showing up authentically, from defining and prioritizing our values, and from being honest, hopeful and curious about “what’s next?”