The Baldwin County Genealogical Society will welcome historian Mike Bunn on Oct. 11 for a presentation titled “The Southern Metropolis: Life in Antebellum Mobile.”

The program begins at 10 a.m. in the meeting room of the Foley Public Library.

Bunn currently serves as director of Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama. His career includes leadership of the Historic Chattahoochee Commission, a bi-state agency in southeastern Alabama and southwestern Georgia, as well as curatorial work with the Columbus Museum in Georgia and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s Museum of Mississippi. He has also contributed to the Birmingham Historical Society and the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society.

Bunn earned his undergraduate degree from Faulkner University and holds master’s degrees in history and higher education administration from the University of Alabama. He also completed a graduate certificate in public history at the University of West Georgia. He is the author or co-author of several books on Gulf South history, covering the colonial, early statehood, antebellum, and Civil War periods. His book Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During the Revolutionary Era received the NSDAR Excellence in American History Award, and he was recently named the J.Y. Sanders Research Scholar by the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University.

In addition to his writing, Bunn is editor of Muscogiana, the journal of the Muscogee County Genealogical Society. He serves as chair of the Baldwin County Historic Development Commission, vice president of the Mobile Area Civil War Roundtable, secretary of the Friends of Old Mobile, and is a board member for the Bartram Trail Conference, the Friends of the Alabama Archives and the Alabama Historical Association. He is a graduate of Leadership Baldwin and a certified interpretive guide with the National Association for Interpretation.

Seating for the event is limited to 42. Reservations will close once capacity is reached. Those interested may RSVP by emailing BaldwinGenealogy@gmail.com. Members attending the meeting may sign up for next month’s program in person, while members not attending can register after the meeting. Visitors and guests may register for the following meeting after the 25th of the month prior to the event.