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A state of the southeast United States. It was admitted as the 22nd state in 1819. Alabama was first explored by the Spanish, and the southern section was claimed by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase (1803). Montgomery is the capital and Birmingham the largest city. Population: 4,630,000.
Alabamian Al'a·ba'mi·an (-bā'mē-ən) or Al'a·bam'an adj. & n.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Alabama
For more information on Alabama, visit Britannica.com.
US History Encyclopedia:
Alabama
Geography has had a great influence on the history of Alabama. The state is bound by Tennessee on the north, Georgia on the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, and Mississippi on the west. Alabama is a state of contrasts, with mountainous regions in the north, the prairie lowlands called the Black Belt in the middle of the state, and coastal plain regions in the south. Cheaha Mountain is the highest point in the state, with an elevation of 2,407 feet.
The thirteen major rivers of Alabama construct a framework for intense agricultural production, transportation, and hydroelectric power. The Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers run southeast through the state, the Tennessee River loops through the northeastern part of the state, the Tombigbee and Black Warrior Rivers merge in the west-central part of Alabama, and the Chattahoochee marks a portion of the eastern border with Georgia. Early on, rivers were central to the lives of the native inhabitants for accessing food supplies and for transportation. Early European settlers followed the Native Americans' pattern, establishing communities near water sources first.
Early Inhabitants
Archaeologists estimate that the first human settlements in Alabama date from around 9000 B.C. The first inhabitants lived in communities located near cave and bluff sites around the state, such as Russell Cave in Jackson County. Moundville, situated in Hale and Tuscaloosa counties on the Black Warrior River, is one of the largest prehistoric communities north of Mexico. By the 1600s, most of the Native Americans living in what would become Alabama belonged to four major nations: Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. These nations (which included the Alabama, Apalache, Coushatta, and Mobile tribes) were related through a common language, Muskogean, and many shared traditions. The Native Americans primarily lived in villages located on water sources, such as the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers. The largest group was the Creek Confederation, numbering about 22,000 when the Europeans first landed, but the effects of European communicable diseases were devastating to the Native Americans.
The state's name probably comes from the name of a Native American tribe that lived primarily in central Alabama. A major river in the state was named for this group, and the state was named for the river. Some experts believe that the name has roots in the Choctaw tongue; it is commonly translated as "thicket clearers."
European Contact
According to available documents, the first Europeans to reach Alabama were Spanish explorers Alonzo Alvares de Piñeda in 1519 and Pánfilo de Narváez in 1528. However, a 1507 German New World map depicts Mobile Bay in great detail, suggesting that an unknown individual charted the Alabama coast prior to the first Spanish explorers. Sometime in the 1540s Hernando de Soto entered the region. The treasurer from that expedition, Cabeza de Vaca, offered the first written account of the Alabama land, including the first description of the native inhabitants. A significant battle was fought at the village of Maubila between de Soto's Spaniards and Chief Tuscaloosa's (or Tascaluza's) warriors.
Don Tristán de Luna made the first attempt to establish a Spanish colony on the Alabama-Florida coast, but his efforts failed in 1561. The first permanent European settlement, Fort Louis de la Mobile, was established by Jean-Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville in 1702 at Mobile Bay (then part of Louisiana, ruled by the French). In 1717, Fort Toulouse was established on the Coosa River for trading purposes. The first African slaves arrived in Alabama in 1721, aboard the slave ship the Africane.
In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, Alabama was taken by Spain. The United States took back the Mobile area, considered the center of Spanish power, during the War of 1812. The Alabama Territory was created from Mississippi Territory land, and settlers disputed over rights to the land and fought to gain favor with the Creek Nation. The Creek War of 1813–1814 ended with the defeat of the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend. On 9 August 1814, Creek leader William Wetherford surrendered to General Andrew Jackson at Fort Jackson, where he signed a treaty that ceded the Creek lands to the federal government.
Becoming a State
After the defeat of the Creek nation, "Alabama Fever" swept the land. Thousands of settlers flocked to the state, seeking the temperate climate and rich soil that proved perfect for the production of cotton. Small farmers, planters, and professionals brought families from other Piedmont regions of the Southeast. The majority of newcomers to the state were farming-class families who brought with them few slaves and limited supplies. Most settled as squatters prior to land being made available for sale by the government.
William Wyatt Bibb, a former Georgia senator, was appointed the new territorial governor of Alabama in 1817. There have been five state capitals since the 1817 Congressional act that created Alabama: St. Stephens, Huntsville, Cahaba (at the juncture of the Cahaba and Alabama Rivers), Tuscaloosa, and finally Montgomery, on the Alabama River. The state's founders felt that a river location was important for the capital. The first steamboat, The Alabama, was built in St. Stephens in 1818.
Alabama was admitted to the Union on 14 December 1819 as the twenty-second state. The first Alabama Constitution was written in 1819, and William Wyatt Bibb was publicly elected that year as the first governor of the state. The 1830 Federal Census lists Alabama's population as 309,527; 190,406 were white and 119,121 were African American (with 117,549 designated as slaves and 1,572 as free blacks).
The Plantation and War
Alabama's cotton kingdom was built by the hands, minds, and spirits of slaves brought primarily from West Africa. Slavery, called the "peculiar institution," caused complicated social and cultural patterns to evolve in the state, the effects of which are still felt in Alabama. Plantations varied in size and aimed to be self-sufficient, but most farmers in the state worked small farms and owned no slaves.
In the 1830s, Alabama politicians aligned with President Andrew Jackson and his criticisms of the Bank of America and the idea of centralized wealth and power. European settlement continued to expand, and during Clement C. Clay's tenure as governor, the Creeks were exiled from the state. In 1832 the state's first railroad, the Tuscumbia Railway, opened. Its two miles of track ran from the Tennessee River to Tuscumbia. In 1854 the Alabama Public School Act was passed, creating a statewide education system.
As an agriculturally centered state, Alabama's politics were tied to the land. The dominant political parties were the Democrats and the Whigs, with the Democratic Party generally predominating. A fundamentally Jeffersonian and proslavery philosophy guided the Alabama government in the prewar years.
The debate over states' rights became more heated through the 1850s and early 1860s, and Alabama's leading advocate was William L. Yancy. Henry W. Hillard and supporters of sectional reconciliation could not dissuade those advocating secession. On 11 January 1861, the Alabama Secession Convention passed an Ordinance of Secession, making Alabama the fourth state to secede from the Union. The influence of Jacksonian democracy on the state was profound. Alabamians generally supported individualism and a steadfast perseverance for independence, combined with perceptions that hard work was a virtue and that education and wealth lead to corruption.
After the formation of the Confederate States, a government was built in Montgomery in central Alabama, creating the "Cradle of the Confederacy" (and the "Heart of Dixie"). Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the Confederate States of America there on 18 February 1861.
During the Civil War, 202 land and naval events occurred within Alabama's borders and Alabama civilian involvement was great. Not only did 90,000 to 100,000 white men fight for the Confederacy, an estimated 2,700 white men from north Alabama and as many as 10,000 blacks from the Tennessee Valley area enlisted in the Union army. During the war, as in most other Southern states, women and children assisted the Confederacy by supplying as many goods as possible, even as they maintained homes and farms while a significant portion of the working white male population was gone. Women also established clinics in communities and on the battlefield to care for wounded soldiers all across the state.
Beyond the Civil War
After the war, Alabama rewrote its constitution. In February 1868, the constitution was ratified and Alabama was readmitted to the Union. The state was put under Federal control as congressionally warranted, and the new constitution allowed blacks suffrage for the first time.
When the political and social order of the Confederacy fell in spring 1865, Alabama entered a period of upheaval and was forced to redefine itself. Tensions grew between the planter class and the small farmers, between the races, and between political factions. Alabama was riddled with losses from the war—political, financial, and social loss, as well as loss of human life. Alabamians resented the Federal troops that came into the state under President Andrew Johnson's plan of Reconstruction. The state was politically split: the anti-Confederacy contingency in northern Alabama opposed the conservatives in the south, and the racial divide created a great chasm in the state. No group in the state wanted to lose power or status. There was a period of accommodation by white southerners toward blacks, but reactions against the Civil Rights Act of 1866—granting equal rights to people of every race and color—were violent. The freed black population complicated the political structure of the state, and the acts of violence and terror reflected whites' fear that blacks and a federal presence in the state would crumble the old Alabama power. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) moved into north Alabama after its birth in Tennessee and gradually moved through the state. Although federal response to Klan actions effectively stopped the group's activity for a while, the KKK would reappear later in Alabama's history.
Bourbon Democrats, claiming to have redeemed the people of Alabama from federal Reconstructionist rule by carpetbaggers and scalawags, passed a new constitution on 16 November 1875. Political dissension and corruption, along with animosity toward federal involvement in the welfare and control of the state, made Alabama a hotbed for trouble. While slavery had been abolished, sharecropping and farm tenancy systems—established to continue the state's agricultural production—were forms of legalized slavery. After the Civil War came the first movement of blacks away from Alabama: while some former slaves chose to stay where there was work, many immediately left the land and people that had held them in bondage.
Industry emerged in Alabama in the early 1870s. The textile industry made its start in the Chattahoochee River Valley and near Huntsville. North Alabama, especially around Birmingham, was dotted with an ever-growing expanse of coal and iron mines. Birmingham would for many years be the industrial center of the state. All the resources needed to make steel were available within twenty miles of the city, drawing investors like Henry DeBardeleben and James Sloss to the area. The Tennessee Coal and Iron Company (TCI) moved its headquarters to Birmingham.
With the boom in industry, Alabama needed to strike a balance between the long-established agricultural constituency and the new industrial one. The level of poverty was intense, especially for farmers: it cost more to produce agricultural goods than they were worth. The Farmers' Alliance quickly gained ground in Alabama, creating cooperatives and becoming a voice of reform. Interest in the Populist Party grew along with reformist sentiments. The established Bourbon hegemony was threatened by the Populists' appeals to the working classes, including blacks.
The Democrats even used legal means to step around the Fifteenth Amendment, disenfranchising blacks and poor whites—thus setting in motion the widely accepted practice of legalized discrimination and violence toward blacks and, to a much lesser extent, other minority groups. In 1901 delegates from across the state met at the Constitutional Convention. They established suffrage requirements of residency, literacy, land ownership, and taxation that disenfranchised most black voters, as well many poor whites. The new Constitution of the State of Alabama was adopted on 3 September 1901.
War and the Great Depression
Alabamians rallied to the World War I effort. The state sent 86,000 men to combat; 6,400 of these were casualties. Military bases throughout the state offered training facilities to prepare soldiers for war.
As in the rest of the country, black and white women in Alabama were seriously advocating for their right to vote in the 1910s. When Tennessee ratified the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, it was made law. Alabama ratified after that point, even though it was unnecessary. Women played a significant role in Alabama during the Progressive Era, leading education reforms, prohibition, child welfare, and prison reform. Both black and white women fought to improve the social and moral well-being of the state's inhabitants. Julia S. Tutwiler was one such reformer; she is remembered for advancing the educational opportunities for women and girls.
Although the early 1920s postwar era offered riches for some, most of the state remained poor. The boll weevil had come to Alabama in 1909, eventually forcing farmers to diversify crop production because of its devastating effects on cotton. While industry was a definite presence in the state, agriculture still reigned in the years between the World Wars. Because of poor conditions for crop production, the 1920s were a stark time for farmers all across the south. These conditions were echoed throughout the country during the Great Depression.
During the depression, some Alabama politicians played a significant role in the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, including the New Deal. Alabama's Senator Hugo C. Black, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, was appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 1937. One New Deal program in particular had an enormous effect on the state: the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
The Great Depression was a time of such upheaval for families that many relocated to try to find work and stability. There was a mass migration of blacks leaving the state during this time and into the 1940s, when World War II's production demands offered work opportunities. New York, Chicago, Detroit, and other industrial cities offered blacks an opportunity for a better life.
World War II brought a measure of prosperity to the state. Most folks who wanted a job could find one. The Mobile Bay housed companies that built ships, and Childersburg was the home of the Alabama Ordnance Works, one of the nation's largest producers of smokeless gunpowder. Alabama sent 250,000 enlisted men to the war effort, with over 6,000 casualties.
Civil Rights
A shift occurred in Alabama's political allegiance to the Democratic Party starting in the 1940s, resulting mostly from questions and conflicts over civil rights.
As soon as federal troops left Alabama after Reconstruction, racial segregation was the understood, and eventually written, law of the state. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites were legal. But separate was not equal in Alabama, and the modern history of the state would be formed by the black struggle for equality.
When the KKK returned to Alabama in 1915, its actions were not solely directed toward blacks. Reacting to the heavy influx of immigrants into the state and the Progressive social movement, the Klan struck out against any one that seemed to threaten "traditional American values." By 1924, around 18,000 of Birmingham's 32,000 registered voters were Klan members, making the group a formidable presence.
The 1931 Scottsboro Boys incident placed Alabama and its politics in the international spotlight, raising questions about civil rights, the presence of the Communist Party, and northern political and social influence on the state. The incident started in March, when two white teenage girls riding a freight train near Scottsboro told police they had been raped by some black men on the train. Within fifteen days, nine young black men were arrested, charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced to die for the alleged rapes. The sentences met with international outrage over the mob atmosphere, and many activists called for a reversal of the rulings. This incident started a social and racial revolution in Alabama that would affect the racial dynamics of the entire country.
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that separate but equal schools were illegal. Alabama's officials chose not to enforce or even recognize this mandate. In 1955 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the University of Alabama to admit two black women who had been denied admission.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s presence in the state started when he began preaching at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. He later wrote "Letter from the Birmingham Jail" after being arrested for his involvement in nonviolent protests. On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the middle of a public bus to a white man. Her action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which crippled the city of Montgomery economically. The boycott was the first significant civil rights victory in Alabama. Black voter registration became an intense focus in the state, bringing Freedom Riders from all over the country to help with the cause.
Violence erupted in response to the civil rights movement, including bombings directed toward King and other prominent nonviolent leaders. In 1963, a bomb killed four girls at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in downtown Birmingham, possibly the most infamous act of violence during the civil rights movement. That same year, police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor turned his intimidation tactics, fire hoses, and attack dogs on the peaceful protesters in Birmingham.
Forced federal integration was ordered in 1963. Governor George C. Wallace stood on the stairs at the University of Alabama and professed, "Segregation now; segregation tomorrow; segregation forever." Driven by what he thought people in the state wanted to hear, Wallace was vocally racist for most of his political career. He was first elected as governor of Alabama in 1962 and served four terms in that position over the next twenty years, with several unsuccessful bids at the White House.
The Selma to Montgomery March, led by King and other civil rights leaders, began in Selma on 21 March 1965 and ended four days later at the state capital. After the conclusion of the march and the speeches, Klansmen murdered a Detroit housewife as she helped take members of the march back home. This act, and others associated with voter registration drives, created a constellation of activism and violence.
The time was one of conflict, but black Alabamians and thousands of their supporters successfully birthed the movement that instigated change. The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and other federal interventions, made discrimination based on race illegal.
After the Civil Rights Movement
Divided into sixty-seven counties, the land area of Alabama is 32.5 million acres. In 2000, 28 percent was used as farmland. Although cotton was no longer the dominant crop in Alabama at the end of the twentieth century, it still figured prominently. Cotton is predominantly grown in the Tennessee Valley area, and some is grown in the Black Belt, Mountain, and Plateau regions. Peanuts, soybeans, corn, peaches, and pecans are also important crops. Cattle and poultry are major agricultural assets as well.
Forests are one of Alabama's most important agricultural resources. The timber industry is influential throughout all regions of the state, and it is vital to the state's economy. Other natural resources that figure into the state's economy are natural gas, sand and gravel, lime, clay, and coal.
Alabama has also made historic contributions to space exploration. The first U.S. satellite, Explorer I (launched on 31 January 1958), was developed in Huntsville. The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, established in 1960, has played a significant role in the development of the space shuttle program and the space station.
At the end of the twentieth century, Alabama's rich resources made the state attractive to new industry. Tuscaloosa is known for electronics manufacturing, and Birmingham is home to cutting-edge biomedical research and engineering, and to telecommunications firms. New car manufacturing industries continued to come to the state. In 1989, the manufacturing sector of the state's economy employed 24 percent of Alabama's total workforce.
Alabama's rivers continue to be important to the state, especially for waterborne commerce. Alabama has more than 1,500 miles of navigable inland waterways. The Port of Mobile is a point of international shipping.
Alabama's population grew throughout the last thirty years of the century: 1970's population was 3,444,165, and 1990's population was 4,040,587. According to the 2000 Federal Census, there were 4,447,100 people living in Alabama, with the largest portion of the population aged 35 to 44 years old (685,512). There were 3,162,808 Alabamians who identified as white, 1,155,930 as black, 75,830 as Hispanic or Latino, 31,346 as Asian, 22,430 as American Indian and Alaska Native, and 1,409 as Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders.
Bibliography
Flynt, J. Wayne. Poor but Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989.
Jackson, Harvey H., III. Rivers of History: Life on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba, and Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995.
Kelley, Robin D. G. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
Letwin, Daniel. The Challenge of Interracial Unionism: Alabama Coal Miners, 1878–1921. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Litwack, Leon F. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow. New York: Knopf, 1998.
McKiven, Henry M., Jr. Iron and Steel: Class, Race, and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875–1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Rogers, William Warren, Robert David Ward, Leah Rawls Atkins, and Wayne Flynt. Alabama: The History of a Deep South State. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994.
—Kyes Stevens
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Alabama
(ăləbăm'ə), state in the southeastern United States. It is bordered by Tennessee (N), Georgia (E), Florida and the Gulf of Mexico (S), and Mississippi (W).
Facts and Figures
Area, 51,609 sq mi (133,677 sq km). Pop. (2000) 4,447,100, a 10.1% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Montgomery. Largest city, Birmingham. Statehood, Dec. 14, 1819 (22d state). Highest pt., Cheaha Mt., 2,407 ft (734 m); lowest pt., sea level. Nickname, Heart of Dixie. Motto, We Dare Defend Our Rights. State bird, yellowhammer. State flower, camellia. State tree, Southern (longleaf) pine. Abbr., Ala.; AL
Geography
Except for the mountainous section in the northeast (the southern end of the Cumberland Plateau) Alabama is a rolling plain with an average elevation of c.500 ft (150 m) in two geologic regions—the Appalachian Piedmont above the fall line and the coastal plain below. These plains, drained by the Alabama and the Tombigbee rivers and their tributaries, are primarily devoted to agriculture. Montgomery is the capital and
Economy
The central Black Belt, formerly a principal cotton-growing area, is now employed largely for raising poultry (the state ranks third in U.S. broiler chicken production) and cattle, Alabama's most valuable agricultural products. Cotton is still the chief crop; greenhouse plants, peanuts, and vegetables are also important.
Although about half of Alabama's area is devoted to agriculture, manufacturing accounts for a larger share of the state's income. Where the Tennessee River loops across the north, hydroelectric power from the Tennessee Valley Authority has converted much agricultural land to industrial uses. Alabama has the second most extensive (after Georgia) forests in the contiguous United States, and pulp and paper products lead manufactures. Other major industries produce chemicals, electronics, textiles, processed foods, and automobiles. Oil and gas, cement, and stone lead mineral production; the state's once-prominent coal industry is gradually declining. The Marshall NASA Space Flight Center, Redstone Arsenal, Maxwell Air Force Base, and Forts Rucker and McClellan contribute significantly to the economy.
Government, Politics, and Higher Education
Alabama's constitution, adopted in 1901, provides for an elected governor and a bicameral legislature that is made up of a 35-member senate and a 105-member house of representatives. The state elects two senators and seven representatives to the U.S. Congress and has nine electoral votes.
Alabama politics was dominated by the Democratic party from Reconstruction until the 1980s, when Harold Guy Hunt became (1986) the first Republican to be elected governor in over a century. Since then, the two parties have tended to alternate control of the governorship. In 1998, Democrat Don Siegelman was elected governor, but he narrowly lost the office to Republican Bob Riley in 2002. Riley was reelected in 2006.
Among Alabama's educational institutions are the Univ. of Alabama, at Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Huntsville; Auburn Univ., at Auburn; Birmingham-Southern College and Howard College, at Birmingham; Huntingdon College, at Montgomery; the Univ. of Montevallo, at Montevallo; and Tuskegee Univ., at Tuskegee.
History
Early History to Statehood
Agriculture was practiced by groups such as the Creeks and Cherokee in the east, and the Choctaws and Chickasaws in the west when Spanish explorers arrived. Cabeza de Vaca (and possibly Pánfilo de Narvaez) visited Alabama in 1528, and Hernando De Soto spent some time in the region in 1540. European settlement was begun, however, not by the Spanish but by the French in the Mobile area in 1702. The French and British contended for the furs gathered by Native Americans. In 1763 the region passed to the British, who were victorious over France and Spain in the French and Indian Wars.
At the close of the American Revolution, Great Britain ceded (1783) to the United States all lands east of the Mississippi except the Floridas (see West Florida Controversy). The Territory of Mississippi, which included parts of present-day Alabama, was set up in 1798, but the land was still largely a wilderness with a considerable fur trade, centered at Saint Stephens, and with only the beginnings of cotton cultivation.
Both the fur trade and cotton production were interrupted during the War of 1812, when part of the Creek Confederacy began attacking under William Weatherford. Andrew Jackson defeated a group of Native Americans at Horseshoe Bend on Mar. 27, 1814. That victory, coupled with the British demand for cotton, ushered in a period of heavy settlement. New settlers poured into the Alabama region, especially from Georgia and Tennessee. The wealthy newcomers settled in the fertile bottomlands and established large plantations based on slave labor, which helped to produce cotton for the markets of Southern ports. Poorer newcomers took over less fertile uplands, where they eked out a living. The population grew to such an extent that the Territory of Alabama, taking Saint Stephens as its capital, was set up in 1817 with William W. Bibb as governor; two years later it became a state.
Civil War and Reconstruction
In Alabama the slave-owning planters were dominant because of the prosperous cotton crop, and as the Civil War loomed closer, the support of Southern rights and secession sentiment grew under the urging of “fire-eaters” such as William L. Yancey. Alabama broke away from the Union on Jan. 11, 1861, when its second constitutional convention passed the ordinance of secession. The government of the Confederacy was organized at Montgomery on Feb. 4, 1861. Union troops held the Tennessee valley after 1862. One of the principal naval battles of the war was won by Admiral D. G. Farragut in Mobile Bay in 1864, but most of the state was not occupied in force until 1865. Alabama ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, but in 1867 it refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and was placed under military rule. That rule ended the following year when a new state legislature operating under a new constitution approved the Fourteenth Amendment. However, federal troops did not leave Alabama until 1876, and African Americans continued to suffer enormous oppression for decades.
In the Reconstruction era Alabama's government was dominated by the so-called carpetbaggers and scalawags, and corruption was widespread. Few reforms emerged during the period; but the mining of coal and iron was expanded by Daniel Pratt and his successor, H. F. De Bardeleben, marking the rise of industry in Alabama.
Industrialization
The railroads built during Reconstruction were a major impetus to the industrialization of Alabama's economy. Birmingham was founded in 1870, and its first blast furnace began operations in 1880. The cotton textile industry developed in the 1880s. At that time farming was still dominant, and the fortunes of the state rose and fell with the market price of cotton. Constant use and erosion, however, began to exhaust the land.
Diversification of crops, much advocated in the 20th cent., was accelerated in 1915 when the boll weevil invaded the cotton fields and the demand during World War I brought high prices for food crops. The Great Depression and the agricultural program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal caused more farmers to produce subsistence crops and took more land away from the wasting cotton culture. Beginning in the 1920s, there was a large migration of African Americans out of the state to northern manufacturing centers.
Industrialization was greatly increased during World War II with the appearance of factories producing machines, munitions, powder, and other war supplies.
The Integration Years to the Present
In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision ruling racial segregation in public elementary and secondary schools unconstitutional, and the decision was followed by an intensification of racial tension (see integration). Alabama has witnessed many civil-rights protests, including a year-long black boycott of public buses in Montgomery in 1955–56 to protest segregated seating and a Freedom March from Montgomery to Selma led by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965.
George C. Wallace, a Democrat elected governor in 1962, fought the federally ordered integration of schools in Alabama. He was reelected three times: 1970, 1974, and 1982, the final time with substantial African-American support. In 1968 he entered the U.S. presidential race as the candidate of the American Independent party. He ran for the presidency twice more—in 1972 and 1976.
Since the late 1970s, public attention has largely shifted to economic issues, and major efforts have been made to achieve growth by encouraging further diversification of manufacturing industries. A notable success in this campaign was the building by Mercedes-Benz of auto assembly plant in Alabama. The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, connecting the port of Mobile with the industries that have developed in N Alabama and elsewhere along the Tennessee, opened in 1985. In 1995 Hurricane Opal caused extensive damage in Alabama as far north as Montgomery, and parts of the state suffered again in 2004 from Hurricane Ivan and in 2005 from Katrina.
Bibliography
See C. P. Denman, The Secession Movement in Alabama (1933, repr. 1971); L. Griffith, Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900 (rev. ed. 1972); Federal Writers' Project, Alabama: A Guide to the Deep South (1941, repr. 1973); N. G. Lineback and C. T. Traylor, ed., Atlas of Alabama (1973); R. A. Thigpen, Alabama Government Manual (7th ed. 1986); S. W. Wiggins, ed., From Civil War to Civil Rights, 1860–1960 (1987).
Geography:
Alabama
State in the southeastern United States bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Its capital is Montgomery, and its largest city is Birmingham.
- One of the Confederate states during the Civil War.
Maps:
Alabama
Local Time:
Alabama
Local Time: Oct 15, 6:53 PM
Stats:
Alabama
 |
- Abbreviation: AL
- Capital City: Montgomery
- Date of Statehood: Dec. 14, 1819
- State #: 22
- Population: 4,447,100
- Area: 52,423 sq.mi. Land 50,750 sq. mi. Water 1673 sq.mi.
- Economy:
Agriculture: poultry and eggs, cattle, nursery stock, peanuts, cotton, vegetables, milk, soybeans.
Industry: paper, lumber and wood products, mining, rubber and plastic products, transportation equipment, apparel. - Where the name comes from: Means "tribal town" in the Creek Indian language
- State Bird: Yellowhammer
- State Flower: Camellia
- About the Flag: Adopted in 1895 and patterned after the Confederate Battle Flag, the flag shows a crimson St. Andrew's cross on a white field. The bars forming the cross must not be less than six inches broad and must extend diagonally across the flag from side to side.
- State Motto: Audemus jura nostra defendere -- We Dare Defend Our Rights
- State Nickname: Yellowhammer State
- State Song: Alabama
Parks:
Alabama
Wikipedia:
Alabama
This article is about the U.S. State. For other uses, see Alabama (disambiguation).
| State of Alabama | |||||||||||
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| Official language(s) | English | ||||||||||
| Spoken language(s) | English 96.17%, Spanish 2.12% |
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| Capital | Montgomery | ||||||||||
| Largest city | Birmingham (229,424, est. 2006)[1] |
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| Largest metro area | Greater Birmingham Area | ||||||||||
| Area | Ranked 30th | ||||||||||
| - Total | 52,419 sq mi (135,765 km²) |
||||||||||
| - Width | 190 miles (306 km) | ||||||||||
| - Length | 330 miles (531 km) | ||||||||||
| - % water | 3.20 | ||||||||||
| - Latitude | 30° 11′ N to 35° N | ||||||||||
| - Longitude | 84° 53′ W to 88° 28′ W | ||||||||||
| Population | Ranked 23rd | ||||||||||
| - Total (2000) | 4,447,100 | ||||||||||
| - Density | 84.83/sq mi 33.84/km² (26th) |
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| Elevation | |||||||||||
| - Highest point | Mount Cheaha[2] 2,407 ft (734 m) |
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| - Mean | 499 ft (152 m) | ||||||||||
| - Lowest point | Gulf of Mexico[2] 0 ft (0 m) |
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| Admission to Union | December 14, 1819 (22nd) | ||||||||||
| Governor | Bob R. Riley (R) | ||||||||||
| U.S. Senators | Richard Shelby (R) Jeff Sessions (R) |
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| Congressional Delegation | List | ||||||||||
| Time zone | Central: UTC-6/DST-5 | ||||||||||
| Abbreviations | AL US-AL | ||||||||||
| Web site | www.alabama.gov | ||||||||||
The State of Alabama (IPA: /ˌæləˈbæmə/), is located in the southern region of the
From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern states, suffered economic hardship. In the years following the war, Alabama experienced significant recovery as the economy of the state transitioned from agriculture to diversified interests in heavy manufacturing, mineral extraction, education, and high technology. Today, the state is heavily invested in the aerospace, education, health care, banking, and various heavy industries including automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication.
Alabama is officially nicknamed the Yellowhammer state, which is also the name of the state bird. Alabama is also known as the "Heart of Dixie." The capital of Alabama is Montgomery, and the largest city is Birmingham (in Jefferson County).
Etymology of state name
The Alabama, an Upper Creek tribe which resided just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers on the upper reaches of the Alabama River,[4] served as the etymological source of the names of the river and state. The word Alabama is believed to have originated from the Choctaw language[5] and was later adopted by the Alabama tribe as their name.[6] The spelling of the word varies significantly between sources.[6] The first usage appears in three accounts of the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540 with Garcilasso de la Vega using Alibamo while the Knight of Elvas and Rodrigo Ranjel wrote Alibamu and Limamu, respectively.[6] As early as 1702, the tribe was known to the French as Alibamon with French maps identifying the river as Rivière des Alibamons.[4] Other spellings of the appellation have included Alibamu, Alabamo, Albama, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou, Alabamu, and Allibamou.[6][7][8] The use of state names derived from Indian languages is common with an estimated 27 states having names of Indian origin.[9]
Although the origin of Alabama was evident, the meaning of the tribe's name was not always clear. An article without a byline appearing in the Jacksonville Republican on July 27, 1842 originated the idea that the meaning was "Here We Rest."[6] This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek.[6] Experts in the Muskogean languages have been unable to find any evidence that would support this translation.[4][6] It is now generally accepted that the word comes from the Choctaw words alba (meaning "plants" or "weeds") and amo (meaning "to cut", "to trim", or "to gather").[6][5][10] This results in translations such as "clearers of the thicket"[5] or even "herb gatherers"[10][11] which may refer to clearing of land for the purpose of planting crops[7] or to collection of medicinal plants by medicine men.[11]
Geography
- See also: List of Alabama counties
Alabama is the 30th largest state in the United States with 52,423 square miles (135,775 km²) of total area: 3.19% of the area is water, making Alabama 23rd in the amount of surface water, also giving it the second largest inland waterway system in the United States.[12] About three-fifths of the land area is a gentle plain with a general descent towards the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The North Alabama region is mostly mountainous, with the Tennessee River cutting a large valley creating numerous creeks, streams, rivers, mountains, and lakes.[13] Another natural wonder in Alabama is "Natural Bridge" rock, the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies, located just south of Haleyville, in Winston County.
Alabama generally ranges in elevation from sea level,[2] down at Mobile Bay, to over 1,800 feet (550 m) in the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast. The highest point is Mount Cheaha[13] (see map), at a height of nearly 2,405 ft (733 m).
States bordering Alabama include Tennessee to the north; Georgia to the east; Florida to the south; and Mississippi to the west. Alabama has coastline at the Gulf of Mexico, in the extreme southern edge of the state.[13]
National Parks in Alabama include Horseshoe Bend National Military Park near Alexander City; Little River Canyon National Preserve in Fort Payne; Russell Cave National Monument in Bridgeport; Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Tuskegee; and Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site near Tuskegee.[14]
Alabama also contains the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail, and the Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail.
Baldwin County, along the Gulf Coast, is the largest county in the state in both land area and water area.[15]
A 5-mile-wide meteorite impact crater is found in Elmore County, just north of Montgomery. This is the Wetumpka crater, which is the site of "Alabama's greatest natural disaster."[16] A 1,000-foot-wide meteorite hit the area about 80 million years ago.[17] The hills just east of downtown Wetumpka showcase the eroded remains of the impact crater that was blasted into the bedrock, with the area labeled the Wetumpka crater or astrobleme ("star-wound") because of the concentric rings of fractures and zones of shattered rock that can be found beneath the surface.[18] In 2002, Christian Koeberl with the Institute of Geochemistry University of Vienna published evidence and established the site as an internationally recognized impact crater.[19]
Urban areas
- See also: List of cities in Alabama
| Rank | Metropolitan Area | Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman CSA | 1,184,212 |
| 2 | Mobile-Daphne-Fairhope CSA | 588,246 |
| 3 | Montgomery MSA | 469,268 |
| 4 | Huntsville MSA | 374,557 |
| 5 | Tuscaloosa MSA | 196,885 |
| 6 | Decatur MSA | 149,549 |
| 7 | Florence-Muscle Shoals MSA | 142,657 |
| 8 | Dothan MSA | 138,234 |
| 9 | Auburn-Opelika MSA | 125,102 |
| 10 | Anniston-Oxford MSA | 108,633 |
| 11 | Gadsden MSA | 104,782 |
Climate
The climate of Alabama is described as temperate with an average annual temperature of 64°F (18°C). Temperatures tend to be warmer in the southern part of the state with its close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, while the northern parts of the state, especially in the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast, tend to be slightly cooler.[20] Generally, Alabama has very hot summers and mild winters with copious precipitation throughout the year. Alabama receives an average of 56 inches of rainfall annually and enjoys a lengthy growing season of up to 300 days in the southern part of the state. [21]
Summers in Alabama are among the hottest in the United States, with high temperatures averaging over 90 °F throughout the summer in the entire state. Alabama is also prone to tropical storms and even hurricanes. Areas of the state far away from the Gulf are not immune to the effects of the storms, which often dump tremendous amounts of rain as they move inland and weaken.
South Alabama reports more thunderstorms than any part of the US outside of Florida. The Gulf Coast, around Mobile Bay, averages between 70 and 80 days per year with thunder reported. This activity decreases somewhat further north in the state, but even the far north of the state reports thunder on about 60 days per year. Occasionally, thunderstorms are severe with frequent lightning and large hail - the central and northern parts of the state are most vulnerable to this type of storm. Alabama ranks seventh in the number of deaths from lightning and ninth in the number of deaths from lightning strikes per capita. [22] Sometimes tornadoes occur - these are common throughout the state, although the peak season for tornadoes varies from the northern to southern parts of the state. Alabama shares the dubious distinction, with Kansas, of having reported more F5 tornadoes than any other state - according to statistics from the National Climatic Data Center for the period 1 January 1950 to 31 October 2006. An F5 tornado is the most powerful of its kind.[23] Several long - tracked F5 tornadoes have contributed to Alabama reporting more tornado fatalities than any other state except for Texas and Mississippi. The Super Outbreak of March, 1974, badly affected Alabama. The northern part of the state - along the Tennessee Valley - is one of the areas in the US most vulnerable to violent tornadoes. The area of Alabama and Mississippi most affected by tornadoes is sometimes referred to as Dixie Alley, as distinct from the Tornado Alley of the Southern Plains. Alabama is one of the few places in the world that has a secondary tornado season (November and December) in addition to the Spring severe weather season.
Winters are generally mild in Alabama, as they are throughout most of the southeastern United States, with average January low temperatures around 40 °F in Mobile and around 32°F in Birmingham. Snow is a rare event in much of Alabama. Areas of the state north of Montgomery may receive a dusting of snow a few times every winter, with an occasional moderately heavy snowfall every few years. In the southern Gulf coast, snowfall is less frequent, sometimes going several years without any snowfall.
| Monthly normal high and low temperatures for various Alabama cities | ||||||||||||
| City | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham | 53/32 | 58/35 | 66/42 | 74/48 | 81/58 | 88/65 | 91/70 | 90/69 | 85/63 | 75/51 | 64/42 | 56/35 |
| Huntsville | 49/31 | 55/34 | 63/41 | 72/48 | 80/58 | 86/65 | 89/70 | 89/68 | 83/62 | 73/50 | 62/41 | 52/34 |
| Mobile | 61/40 | 64/42 | 71/49 | 77/55 | 84/63 | 89/69 | 91/72 | 91/72 | 87/68 | 79/56 | 70/48 | 63/42 |
| Montgomery | 58/36 | 62/39 | 70/45 | 78/51 | 85/60 | 91/67 | 93/71 | 92/70 | 88/65 | 79/52 | 69/44 | 60/38 |
| [2] | ||||||||||||
History
| Historical populations | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Census | Pop. | %± | |
| 1800 |
—
|
||
| 1810 | 623.7% | ||
| 1820 | 1313.9% | ||
| 1830 | 142.0% | ||
| 1840 | 90.9% | ||
| 1850 | 30.6% | ||
| 1860 | 25.0% | ||
| 1870 | 3.4% | ||
| 1880 | 26.6% | ||
| 1890 | 19.9% | ||
| 1900 | 20.8% | ||
| 1910 | 16.9% | ||
| 1920 | 9.8% | ||
| 1930 | 12.7% | ||
| 1940 | 7.1% | ||
| 1950 | 8.1% | ||