David Ernest Alsobrook (1946–2021) was born in Eufaula, Alabama, and raised in Mobile. He earned an undergraduate degree from Auburn University in 1968, and taught high school English and Alabama History before pursuing graduate studies. He completed an M.A. in history in 1972 at West Virginia University and a Ph.D. in history in 1983 at Auburn University. Alsobrook worked as an archivist at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, before moving on to a long career with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). He was Supervisory Archivist at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1981 to 1991. He also served as director of both the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, and the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. He left NARA in 2007 to serve as the Director of the History Museum of Mobile in Mobile, Alabama, until his retirement in 2015. Alsobrook is the author of numerous articles and book reviews, and published Southside: Eufaula's Cotton Mill Village and Its People, 1890–1945 in 2017.

Alsobrook died October 28, 2021 in Mobile, Alabama.