The College of Communication and Information Sciences History Forum will be co-sponsoring a lecture with UA Libraries today. The speaker is Julie Hedgepeth Williams, who will be discussing her new book, “Wings of Opportunity: The Wright Brothers in Montgomery, Alabama.”
Williams earned her bachelor’s degree in English and history at Principia College, located in Elsah, Ill. Afterward, she worked in Clinton, N.C., for The Sampson Independent for seven years.
On a whim, she said she sent her GRE scores to the University. She received her acceptance letter for the UA Graduate School without officially applying. Williams came to the University to receive her master’s in journalism and a doctorate in mass communications. In 1994, Williams began work at Samford University in Birmingham, where she teaches journalism history and media writing.
Williams has written and co-written several books including “The Significance of the Printed Word in Early America” and “The Early American Press, 1690-1783.”
Williams put out her new book about the Wright brothers in January. The book talks about the first civilian American flight school established by Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1910. Named the Wright School of Aviation, the school ran for six years from 1910 to 1916. The school was set up in Montgomery on a site that was later turned into the Maxwell Air Force Base and was successful in training 119 people to fly.
Williams’ book specifically discusses how the school gave the residents of Montgomery hope and a love of the sky.
The book has already gained a fair amount of notoriety. Bill Barnes, a World War II pilot and historian, reviewed Williams’ book.
“We owe a special thanks to the Wright brothers and also to Dr. Williams for this well researched and most enjoyable book,” Barnes said.
David Sloan, a professor of journalism at the University and co-founder of the American Journalism Historians Association, also offered a review.
“In ‘Wings of Opportunity’, Julie Williams vividly recreates the complex tale of civic pride, two aviation pioneers who had little interest in public image, local journalists who didn’t know what to make of them, and the fascination of ordinary citizens with the amazing invention of flight,” Sloan wrote in his review.
The lecture will take place at 3 p.m. in Room 205 of Gorgas Library. There will be a reception and book signing following the lecture.
