Jackie Matte, M.A., independent scholar

Matte grew up in Washington County, Alabama, near Old St. Stephens. She is an independent scholar, with master's degrees in history and in secondary education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has taught at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and in the Mountain Brook School System, and in 1991, she received a Teacher-Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities for one year of independent study. The research she did that year on Southeastern Indians was published in Social Education, the professional journal of the National Council for Social Studies. In 2001–2002, Matte served as the National Endowment for the Humanities Scholar in Residence for Baldwin County High School. In 1997, she researched and prepared a survey of records relating to Old St. Stephens for the St. Stephens Historical Commission. Earlier in 1982, she wrote, The History of Washington County: The First County in Alabama, where Old St. Stephens, the territorial capital, was located. She has also written They Say the Wind is Red: the Alabama Choctaw Lost in their Own Land , and co-authored, with Virginia Van der Veer Hamilton, Seeing Historic Alabama: Fifteen Guided Tours.

Presentations by Jackie Matte
Where Alabama Began: Old St. Stephens—Alabama's Territorial Capital