Jim Day is Professor of History and Chair of the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Montevallo. He holds a B.S. in engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, an M.A. in history from the University of Georgia, and a Ph.D. in history from Auburn University. His monograph—Diamonds in the Rough: A History of Alabama’s Cahaba Coal Field—combines technological and social history to examine the industrial development of central Alabama. The book won the Alabama Historical Association’s 2014 Clinton Jackson Coley Award for the best work on local history, and Jim was named UM’s University Scholar for Academic Year 2014-2015. He also served as the inaugural Michael J. Grainger Professor in Modern History, 2018-2022.
Since retiring from the Army in 1995, Jim has taught history at Marion Military Institute, Judson College, Auburn University Montgomery, and the University of Montevallo. At UM, he teaches courses in Colonial America, Revolutionary America, Jeffersonian and Jacksonian America, the Gilded Age, U.S. History since 1945, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the History of Alabama’s Constitutions. He also has developed Staff Ride/Terrain Walk courses on the Civil War battles of Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Franklin.