070914 Friday Focus - Mary Anne Neeley

Mary Ann Neeley is a historian, preservationist, author, and former educator. She earned a degree in history at Huntingdon College and was a teacher before becoming director of the Landmarks Foundation. She has written and edited several books on local history, including those entitled Montgomery & the River Region Sketchbook and Montgomery.

Mary Ann Neeley is Montgomery’s leading local historian and the former director of the Landmarks Foundation. A native Alabamian, she received her B.A. in English and History from Huntingdon College in 1954 and an M.A. in History from Auburn University in 1973. Neeley taught in the Montgomery public school district from 1966 to 1978 and as an adjunct professor at Auburn University at Montgomery, Huntingdon College, and Faulkner University. Deeply interested in Alabama’s colonial past and settlement, she joined the staff at Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery as a historical researcher in 1978 and served as Executive Director from 1979 until her retirement in 2003. She has written and edited numerous books and articles documenting the history and culture of central Alabama, including The Way It Was (co-authored with Beth Muskat), Capital City Corners, Old Alabama Town, and the narrative for The River Region Sketchbook. Her talk is based on her latest book, The Writings of M. P. Blue: Montgomery’s First Historian.