On April 13, the Alabama Historical Association honored NewSouth Books authors Dan Haulman and Mary Ann Neeley with awards acknowledging their scholarship and contribution to state history.

Haulman received the Milo B. Howard award for his article “The Tuskegee Airmen and the ‘Never Lost A Bomber’ Myth,’” published in the January 2011 Alabama Review and then released as an ebook by NewSouth Books. Ed Bridges, director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, told The Montgomery Advertiser that Haulman was “an amazing researcher.”

In the introduction to his ebook, Haulman discusses how disproving the Airmen’s perfect record initially seemed controversial to other historians, but they came to understand that by verifying the Airmen’s record, history would be better able to appreciate the Airmen’s accomplishments overall.

Neeley received the Clinton Jackson Coley Award for her book The Works of Matthew Blue, Montgomery’s First Historian. She told the Alabama Historical Association’s Martin Olliff in an interview that she finds Matthew Blue an interesting historical figure because it was only after he lost his influential job as Montgomery postmaster that he began documenting the history of the city — Blue’s loss, in essence, was history’s gain.

The Alabama Review’s Leah Rawls Atkins said Neeley’s revival of Blue’s works, extensively annotated in Neeley’s book, “should be in major research libraries in the nation and included in most of Alabama’s public and academic collections.”

Congratulations to both our authors for their accomplishments.

* Mary Ann Neeley’s The Works of Matthew Blue, Montgomery’s First Historian is available in hardcover from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.

Books by Dan Haulman:

* The Tuskegee Airmen and the “Never Lost a Bomber” Myth is available in all major ebook formats from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.

* The Tuskegee Airmen, An Illustrated History: 1939-1949, by Haulman, Joe Caver, and Jerome Ennels, is available in hardcover from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.

* Eleven Myths about the Tuskegee Airmen is available in paperback and ebook from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.

* What Hollywood Got Right and Wrong about the Tuskegee Airmen in the Great New Movie, Red Tails is available in all major ebook formats from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore.

A full auditorium at the Alabama Department of Archives and History yesterday enjoyed NewSouth author and Alabama historian Mary Ann Neeley discussing her upcoming book The Writings of M. P. Blue: Montgomery’s First Historian. Mary Ann talked about the troubled life of Matthew Blue and his drive to write the history of Montgomery; Mary Ann also read excerpts from the diary of Blue’s sister Ellen, regarding the approach of the Union army to Montgomery during the Civil War. For her book, Mary Ann has annotated Blue���’s history to correct errors and clear up inconsistencies, and added other material on early churches and a genealogy of the colorful Blue family, as well as Ellen’s Civil War diary. The book also includes many nineteenth century photographs.

The Writings of M. P. Blue will be available soon for pre-order from NewSouth Books, or your favorite local or online book retailer. To be notified when the book is available, call NewSouth books toll-free at (866) 639-7688.