Alabama Education
The number and variety of Alabama's educational and cultural
institutions increased after 1950, as the state became more urban and
developed sophisticated modern industries.
Education
The first school was established in Alabama in 1799, but the legislature
did not provide for a statewide public educational system until 1854. In
the late 1980s Alabama had approximately 1300 public elementary and
secondary schools; the elementary schools had an enrollment of about
525,700 pupils per year, and the secondary schools about 197,600
students annually. In addition, some 57,600 students attended private
schools. In the same period Alabama had 87 institutions of higher
education, with a combined enrollment of about 208,600 students. Among
the most notable of these schools were the University of Alabama, with
campuses at University (near Tuscaloosa), Birmingham, and Huntsville;
Auburn University, in Auburn; and Tuskegee University, near Tuskegee.
Cultural Institutions
Although many of Alabama's cultural activities are university related
and thus distributed throughout the state, most of its cultural
institutions are located in Birmingham, Mobile, and Montgomery. The most
noteworthy art museums are the Birmingham Museum of Art, which contains
part of the Samuel H. Kress Collection; the Fine Arts Museum of the
South, in Mobile; and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. The state's
principal professional symphony orchestra is in Birmingham, as is the
Birmingham Public and Jefferson County Free Library (1902), considered
one of the most outstanding libraries in the South. Also of interest are
the George Washington Carver Museum, part of Tuskegee Institute National
Historic Site; and the Women's Army Corps Museum, at Fort McClellan
(near Anniston).
Alabama, one of the central southeastern states of the alabama,
bounded on the north by Tennessee, on the east by Georgia, on the south
by Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, and on the west by Mississippi. The
Chattahoochee River forms much of the eastern boundary.
Called the Heart of Dixie, Alabama entered the Union on December 14,
1819, as the 22nd state. In 1861 it became a founding member of the
Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Alabama's
economy was long dominated by farming, but by the 1990s manufacturing,
government, and services were the chief economic sectors. The name of
the state is taken from the Alabama River, which was named for the
Alabama, or Alibamon, people, who belonged to the Creek Confederacy.
Land and Resources
Alabama, with an area of 135,775 sq km (52,423 sq mi), is the 30th
largest state in the U.S.; 1.7 percent of the land area is owned by the
federal government. The state is roughly rectangular in shape, and its
extreme dimensions are about 540 km (about 335 mi) from north to south
and about 330 km (about 205 mi) from east to west. Elevations begin at
sea level and extend up to 733 m (2405 ft), atop Cheaha Mountain, in the
eastern part of the state. The approximate mean elevation is 152 m (500
ft). Alabama's shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico is 85 km (53 mi) long.
Physical Geography
The southern half of Alabama plus a narrow region in the northwest are
part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain. Roughly parallel, generally
forested ridges (mostly less than 152 m/500 ft in elevation) stretch
east-west across the plain. Soils are mainly clays and sandy clays, with
the exception of the limestone-derived dark clays of the Black Belt, a
fertile area in the center of the region. The delta formed by the Mobile
and Tensaw rivers at the city of Mobile includes much swampland and
marshland.
In northern Alabama are the Interior Low Plateaus, a part of the
Cumberland Plateau, the Valley and Ridge Region, and a section of the
Piedmont Plateau. The Interior Low Plateaus, developed on flat-lying
limestone and alluvium, are overlaid with relatively fertile sandy clay
soils. The Cumberland Plateau region consists of flat to gently rolling
land, developed principally on sandstone and sandy shale. The Valley and
Ridge Region contains sandstone ridges and broad, moderately fertile
valleys. It includes the Beaver Creek Mountains and part of Lookout
Mountain. The generally forested low hills and ridges of the Piedmont
Plateau, developed on the oldest rocks in Alabama, are overlaid with
clay and sandy clay soils. Situated in this region are Colvin Mountain
and Talladega Mountain.
Rivers and Lakes
With the exception of the Tennessee River and its tributaries in
northern Alabama, all streams in the state flow generally south toward
the Gulf of Mexico. Among the rivers are the Mobile, Alabama, Tombigbee,
Chattahoochee, and Tensaw. The Alabama and Tombigbee rivers join to form
the Mobile-Tensaw system. Principal tributaries of the Alabama River
include the Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Cahaba rivers; and the Black Warrior
River is the chief affluent of the Tombigbee River.
All of Alabama's large lakes are constructed impoundments. These bodies
of water include Lakes Guntersville, Wheeler, and Wilson, on the
Tennessee River; Weiss Lake, on the Coosa River; and Walter F. George
Reservoir, on the Chattahoochee River.
Climate
The temperate climate of northern and central Alabama grades into a
subtropical climate in the coastal area. The average annual temperature
ranges from 15.6° C (60° F) in the north to about 21.1° C (about 70° F)
near the Gulf of Mexico. The recorded temperature in the state has
ranged from -32.7° C (-27° F), in 1966, to 44.4° C (112° F), in 1925.
The average yearly rainfall for the state is approximately 1350 mm
(about 53 in). The area near the Gulf receives approximately 1650 mm
(approximately 65 in) of precipitation per year and is subject to
occasional hurricanes in the summer months.
Plants and Animals
Forests cover about 65% of the total land area of Alabama; approximately
3% of the forest area is part of the National Forest system. Forests in
northern Alabama are mixtures of hardwoods and softwoods, whereas
softwood pines are the dominant trees in southern areas. A warm, humid
climate, with a long growing season, has helped to produce more than 125
tree varieties and more than 150 species of shrubs in Alabama. Besides
pines, notable trees include oak, hickory, cypress, and southern
magnolia; among the shrubs are rhododendron, mountain laurel, azalea,
and sumac.
Mammals in Alabama include white-tailed deer, red fox, squirrel,
muskrat, nutria, beaver, and rabbit. Among the numerous birds are the
yellowhammer (the state bird), bluebird, cardinal, blue jay, and
mockingbird. Reptiles include snakes, alligators, turtles, and lizards.
Fish abound here. Freshwater varieties include catfish, bream, bass, and
crappie. Mullet, croakers, flounder, red snapper, and tarpon inhabit the
Gulf of Mexico, as do oysters, shrimp, and crabs.
Mineral Resources
Among the major mineral deposits found in Alabama are coal, located
mainly in the northern half of the state, and petroleum and natural gas,
situated principally in the East Gulf Coastal Plain. The state also has
substantial deposits of limestone, iron ore, sand and gravel, bauxite,
and clay.
Population
According to the 1990 census, Alabama had 4,040,587 inhabitants, an
increase of 3.8 percent over 1980. The average population density in
1990 was 30 people per sq km (77 per sq mi). Whites made up 73.6 percent
of the population and blacks 25.3 percent; additional groups included
Asian or Pacific Islander, 0.5 percent; Native American, Eskimo, or
Aleut, 0.4 percent; and other races, 0.2 percent. About 24,600 persons
were of Hispanic background. Baptists (51.4 percent), Methodists (10.4
percent), and Roman Catholics (4.5 percent) constituted the largest
religious groups in the state; other Protestant groups made up most of
the remainder. In 1990 about 60 percent of the people of Alabama lived
in areas defined as urban, and the rest lived in rural areas. The
state's largest cities were Birmingham; Mobile; Montgomery, the capital;
and Huntsville.
Historical Sites
Many of Alabama's historical sites commemorate battles of Indian wars
and the American Civil War. Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, near
Alexander City, includes the site of Andrew Jackson's victory over the
Creek in 1814; and Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines in Mobile Bay are Civil
War fortifications. The first White House of the Confederacy, in
Montgomery, contains exhibits of personal furnishings of Jefferson
Davis. The Civil Rights Memorial, in Montgomery, honors 40 persons who
lost their lives in support of the civil rights movement between 1954
and 1968.
Sports and Recreation
Opportunities for outdoor recreation in Alabama are provided by numerous
rivers and lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and four national forests. Hiking,
camping, fishing, hunting, golf, boating, and swimming are among the
foremost recreational activities.
Communications
In the early 1990s Alabama was served by a comprehensive communications
system, which included 160 AM radio stations, 117 FM radiobroadcasters,
and 40 television stations. The first radio station in the state, WBRC
in Birmingham, was licensed in 1925, and the first television station,
WAFM-TV in Birmingham, was licensed in 1949. In 1955, Alabama began to
run the nation's first state-owned educational television network.
Alabama's first regularly issued newspaper, the Mobile Centinel, began
publication in 1811. In the early 1990s the state had 27 daily
newspapers with a total daily circulation of about 767,000 copies.
Alabama's influential dailies included the Birmingham News, the
Huntsville Times, and the Montgomery Advertiser.
Government and Politics
Alabama is governed under a constitution adopted in 1901, as amended.
Five earlier constitutions had been instituted in 1819, 1861, 1865,
1868, and 1875. An amendment may be proposed by the legislature or by a
constitutional convention. To become effective, it must be approved by a
majority voting on the issue in an election.
Executive
The chief executive of Alabama is a governor, who is popularly elected
to a 4-year term and may not serve more than two consecutive terms. The
same requirements apply to the lieutenant governor, who succeeds the
governor should the latter resign, die, or be removed from office.
Additional members of Alabama's executive department include the
secretary of state, attorney general, auditor, treasurer, and the
commissioner of agriculture and industries.
Legislature
The bicameral legislature comprises a senate and house of
representatives. The 35 members of the senate and 105 members of the
house are popularly elected to 4-year terms.
Judiciary
Alabama's highest court, the supreme court, is made up of a chief
justice who presides over the court and eight associate judges. The two
intermediate appellate courts are the court of criminal appeals, with
five judges, and the court of civic appeals, with three judges. The
major trial courts are the circuit courts. The judges of all the courts
are popularly elected to 6-year terms. District probate judges are also
elected, but judges of municipal courts are appointed by the governing
body of the municipality.
Local Government
In the early 1990s Alabama contained 67 counties, each of which was
governed by a board of commissioners. Other important county officials
include the county judge, probate judge, superintendent of education,
and sheriff. Most of the state's towns and cities are governed under the
mayor-council system.
National Representation
Alabama elects two senators and seven representatives to the U.S.
Congress. The state has nine electoral votes in presidential elections.
Politics
In national, state, and local politics, Alabama has been a traditional
stronghold of the Democratic party. The dominant political figure since
the early 1960s has been George Corley Wallace; first elected governor
as a staunch segregationist, he later won with black support.
Economy
From the early 19th century, Alabama's economy was dominated by one
crop—cotton. After 1915, however, boll weevils so damaged the state's
cotton plants that farmers began to concentrate on raising livestock and
crops other than cotton. Manufacturing began to be important to Alabama
with the growth of the iron and steel industry during the early 20th
century. Beginning in the 1930s low-cost power provided by the Tennessee
Valley Authority (TVA), a federal agency, encouraged industrial
development. Manufacturing, along with the government and service
sectors, retained its importance in the early 1990s. Federal facilities,
notably the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, were
major employers.
Agriculture
Farming accounts for about 2 percent of the annual gross state product
in Alabama. The state has some 45,000 farms, which average 88 hectares
(218 acres) in size. Livestock products make up about 75 percent of
Alabama's farm income. Broiler chickens and chicken eggs, produced
mainly in the northern part of the state, are the most important
livestock products, and cattle and calves are next as sources of farm
income.
Crops account for about 25 percent of Alabama's agricultural income.
Peanuts, the leading crop, are grown in the southeastern part of the
state. Cotton, hay, and greenhouse products are also important. Soybeans
are grown mainly in the lowlands of southwestern Alabama and in the
Tennessee River valley.
Forestry and Fishing
The annual income from forestry and fishing in Alabama is relatively
small. Yellow pine, the state's most common tree, is used for lumber and
for making paper; some hardwood lumber also is produced.
In the late 1980s, about 11.3 million kg (about 24.9 million lb) of
seafood was caught yearly in Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico by
Alabama commercial fishers. Most of the catch consisted of shrimp, the
state's most valuable marine product. Catfish farming is a growing
sector of the economy.
Mining
The mining industry accounts for about 2 percent of the annual gross
state product of Alabama. Leading minerals are coal, natural gas,
petroleum, and stone. Coal is mined primarily in north central Alabama,
petroleum and natural gas are recovered in the southwest, and limestone
is quarried in the northeast.
Manufacturing
Enterprises engaged in manufacturing have an annual payroll of $8
billion in Alabama and employ about 384,000 workers. Leading
manufactures include apparel and textiles, transportation equipment,
primary metals, and paper and paper products. Iron and steel production
is centered around Birmingham, Anniston, and Bessemer. Aluminum plants
are located in the tri-cities area of Florence, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia
and in Mobile. Paper mills are situated in Mobile, Selma, Demopolis,
Courtland, and Tuscaloosa. Birmingham, Mobile, Decatur, Sheffield, and
Tuscaloosa have chemical plants. Other major manufactures of Alabama
include industrial machinery, processed foods, and rubber and plastic
products.
Tourism
Each year several million visitors produce more than $3.4 billion for
the Alabama economy. Many persons visit the five areas in the state
administered by the National Park Service; Horseshoe Bend National
Military Park is the most popular of these areas. The state maintains a
system of 24 parks, including Cheaha State Park, near Anniston, which is
the site of Cheaha Mountain, the highest point in Alabama.
Transportation
Birmingham and Montgomery are important hubs within a network of about
146,000 km (about 90,700 mi) of federal, state, and local roads that
serve all sections of Alabama. Some 1430 km (890 mi) of interstate
highways link the major cities of the state. Alabama is served by about
6735 km (4185 mi) of railroad track. Birmingham is the major rail
center.
Mobile is Alabama's only seaport. It handles more cargo than any other
port on the Gulf of Mexico between Tampa, Florida, and New Orleans,
Louisiana. The state includes a section of the Gulf Intracoastal
Waterway and also has about 3200 km (about 1990 mi) of navigable inland
waterways. The Black Warrior-Tombigbee-Mobile river system is the
longest and most important such waterway in the state. The Tennessee
River links northern Alabama with the Mississippi River system.
Alabama has more than 150 airports. The Birmingham airport handles more
than four-fifths of the state's air passenger traffic.
Energy
In the early 1990s, the electricity generating plants of Alabama had a
total capacity of 20 million kw and produced about 76.2 billion kwh of
electricity each year. Although Alabama ranked seventh among the states
in hydroelectric capacity, about 70 percent of its electricity was
coal-generated, and about 16 percent was produced by nuclear power
plants. More than 40 percent of the state's electricity was generated by
TVA facilities; these included the Browns Ferry nuclear plant, near
Athens.
History
Earthen mounds and other archaeological evidence indicate that people
have lived in Alabama for at least 9000 years. The major Native American
groups at the time of European settlement were the Chickasaws and
Cherokees in the north and the Creeks and Choctaws to the south.
The first known Europeans to explore Alabama were Spaniards and probably
included Alonso Piñeda in 1519 and Pánfilo de Narváez in 1528. Hernando
de Soto reached a site near the present-day city of Mobile on October
18, 1540, after winning a costly victory over the Choctaw in the Battle
of Maubila. The French established the first permanent European
settlements, at Fort Louis (1702), Port Dauphin (1702), and Mobile
(1711). British claims to the area were recognized in the 1763 Treaty of
Paris, but the Spanish regained Mobile and the Gulf coast by the 1783
Treaty of Paris. The alabama took possession of the entire area
after the War of 1812.
Antebellum Alabama
The Creek War (1813-14), in which the “Red Stick” Creeks tried to resist
white encroachment, ended with General Andrew Jackson's victory at the
Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Alabama became a territory in 1817 and
was accepted into the Union as the 22nd state on December 14, 1819.
The antebellum era in Alabama was characterized by the continued
development of plantation agriculture in the central and southern parts
of the state, the removal of the Native Americans to the West, and the
rising controversy over the nature and legitimacy of slavery and its
extension into new territories. The election of President Abraham
Lincoln led to the special state convention that voted to secede from
the Union in January 1861. Montgomery became the first capital of the
Confederacy, and Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president there in
February. Military operations in Alabama during the Civil War consisted
of several Union raids into the state and the victory of Admiral David
Farragut in the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864.
Alabama After the Civil War
A new state constitution recognizing the abolition of slavery was
adopted in December 1865. In March 1867, Alabama came under federal
military control, and another constitution was adopted in November,
affirming provisions of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Blacks responded to emancipation by attempting to exercise their new
freedom and improve their condition, and a number of blacks were elected
to public office during the Reconstruction era.
Conservative Democratic politics persisted throughout the last quarter
of the 19th century, as did farm tenancy and poor agricultural
conditions, despite the reform efforts of the People's party (Populists)
in the 1890s. The growth of industry in northern Alabama was especially
significant. Founded in 1871, Birmingham quickly became a center for
iron and steel manufacture and one of the fastest growing cities in the
South; it had 132,685 inhabitants in 1910 and 256,678 in 1930.
White supremacy was consolidated in the state constitution of 1901,
which effectively prevented most blacks from voting. White political
control resulted, among other things, in the casting of Alabama's
electoral votes in 1948 for the states' rights candidate rather than for
President Harry S. Truman, the regular Democratic party nominee, and in
resistance to the black civil rights movement in the 1950s and '60s.
Social and Economic Changes
The Montgomery bus boycott by blacks in 1955 fueled the beginnings of
civil rights protest. In May 1961, “Freedom Riders” of the Congress of
Racial Equality were attacked by white mobs in Anniston, Birmingham, and
Montgomery. In the spring of 1963, a series of demonstrations in
Birmingham led by Martin Luther King, Jr., were met with mass arrests by
city police, but resulted in a settlement containing most black demands.
The Selma to Montgomery march of 1965, also led by King, furthered the
passage of the federal Voting Rights Act.
Alabama's economic development in the 1960s and 1970s, paced by the
statewide growth of higher education, was greater than at any other time
in the 20th century. The economy continued to grow in the 1980s, but
Alabama lagged behind most other states in per capita income and
educational attainment as the 1990s began.