Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Bimal K. Paul / This research set out to better understand the impact of socioeconomic characteristics, environmental risk, and the built environment on health in Mobile County, Alabama. A multilevel statistical analysis was used to identify those characteristics that had the greatest impact on health. The variables determined to be the most significant in defining health in Mobile County were used in the development of a health inequity index (HIQ). The index was used to identify the zip code tabulation areas (ZCTAs) in Mobile County that were likely to exhibit greater health inequality, and as a result, a higher potential for health inequity. In this study, a mailed survey on the built environment and health was conducted to gain a better understanding of the characteristics of individual residences, perceptions of individuals in regards to neighborhood health, citizen activism, and the environmental justice movement. Because there was a low response rate for the mailed surveys, fieldwork with face-to-face interviews was conducted in July, 2009. In conjunction with the survey data, mortality data obtained from the Alabama Department of Public Health was incorporated into the multilevel analysis. Using crude death rate, cause-specific death rate for cancer, and cause-specific death rate for heart disease as dependent variables and factors associated with socioeconomic status, environmental risk, and the built environment as independent variables, multiple linear regression was performed. The results of the multiple linear regression identified factors of socioeconomic status, environmental risk, and the built environment that had the greatest impact on health in Mobile County. Geographically weighted regression was performed to test local model strength by ZCTA in Mobile County. It was determined that the health inequity index developed as a result of the multilevel analysis was a reasonable measure of population health. Calculations of HIQ for each ZCTA in Mobile County helped to identify those ZCTAs most in need of intervention. The ZCTAs with high HIQ values were also those where the built environment was extremely poor, indicating that health is impacted by the places where people live.

Transverse zones are important syn-kinematic components of thrust belt development. Various scales of data were utilized to develop three-dimensional geometric and kinematic models for the Bessemer transverse zone (BTZ) of the Alabama Alleghanian thrust belt. Regional analysis of the BTZ began with the examination of geologic maps (1:250,000, 1:48,000, and 1:24,000 scales), seismic reflection profiles, well data, and previous stratigraphic research. All Paleozoic-age stratigraphic contacts, major thrust faults and associated folds, and various unnamed minor structures were compiled to create two strike-perpendicular, and five-strike parallel, cross sections transecting the extent of the BTZ at a scale of 1:100,000. The balanced and viable cross sections were used to create palinspastic maps of the BTZ. The deformed cross sections and geologic maps, and the restored cross sections and palinspastic maps, model the post- and prekinematic geometry of the transverse zone, respectively. Additional geological fieldwork in the northwestern part of the BTZ permitted the construction of geologic maps (1:24,000 scale) documenting cross-strike links (the fundamental unit of transverse zones) exposed at the present erosional surface (Concord and McCalla 7.5 quadrangles). Balanced and viable geologic cross sections (1:24,000 scale) were constructed from these data and placed parallel and perpendicular to strike of cross-strike links. The cross sections were restored and used to create 1:24,000-scale palinspastic maps of the cross-strike links in this part of the BTZ. The cross sections and maps model the three-dimensional geometry of the cross-strike links comprising the BTZ. Sub-allochthon basement structures are present beneath the thrust transport vectors of cross-strike links in the BTZ, indicating genetic relationships between transverse zone structures and underlying basment structures. Basement-graben related changes in the stratigraphic thickness of the decollement-host horizon are interpreted as having localized and facilitated growth of the Bessemer mushwad, a ductile duplex in the allochthon. The muswad localized the structural position of two thrust sheets and several cross-strike links in the BTZ. Geologic map patterns of the transverse zone indicate a break-back deformation sequence for the BTZ, interpreted as a response to decollement propagation through an allochthon-spanning weak decollement-host horizon, which had large stratigraphic thickness variations in basement grabens.

This thesis explores the municipal politics and race relations in Birmingham, Alabama, from October 1963 to November 1979. While Birmingham is a centerpiece of the traditional Civil Rights Movement for its staging of the Bull Connor and Martin Luther King, Jr., confrontation in 1963, there has been little examination of the continuing struggles between the black and white communities in the years after the media spotlight. Of particular concern are the battles between the black community, white power structure, and the city’s police department over black policemen, professionalization and modernization, and police brutality. The changing role and tactics of black leadership in the city is also a major interest.

Several studies have examined the life of William Small but only in respect to certain phases of his life, particularly Small's connections to Thomas Jefferson, James Watt, or the Birmingham Lunar Society. In 1758 William Small was recruited for the post of professor of mathematics at the College of William and Mary. From 1760 through 1762, he was Thomas Jefferson's only professor at the College of William and Mary. In 1764 Small returned to England and, with the assistance of Benjamin Franklin and others, became physician and scientific advisor to Matthew Boulton, a wealthy industrialist. Small, Boulton, and Erasmus Darwin established the celebrated Birmingham Lunar Society, which played an important role in the industrialization of Britain in the late eighteenth century. In 1767, Small met James Watt and thus began a collaboration that produced the steam engine. While American scholars have concentrated on Small's influence on Thomas Jefferson, British scholars have focused on Small's role in the Birmingham Lunar Society or his role in the development of the steam engine. This study examines Small's life in its entirety. Areas of Small's life overlooked by previous studies include his early life and education, the substance of his teaching career at the College of William and Mary, and his medical career. The true extent of Small's influences and the connections that he maintained between British and American intellectuals can only be seen by examining his life in its entirety. This study sought to bring together the disparate elements of Small's life in order to make clearer his place in history.

Technology integration, the incorporation of technology resources and technology-related practices into the daily routines, work, and management of schools, is an essential component of 21st century schools. One of the most important aspects of technology integration is the role that principals play. Despite the importance of this role, many principals report that their preparation programs did not fully prepare them to lead a technology integration effort. One program designed to assist principals is the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI). Using International Society for Technology in Education's National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A) as a guide, AMSTI provides training to principals in technology integration. In an effort to describe the role of the principal in leading a technology integration initiative in 21st century schools, five AMSTI principals who exhibited excellence in technology integration were selected. Data were collected through interviews and observations and then transcribed, coded, and analyzed. From the analysis four themes emerged: lead by example, provide technology opportunities, minimize hindrances, and train regularly. Research questions were answered based on analysis of data. Several conclusions were formed by answering the research questions. Principals who were successful in leading a technology integration initiative had a shared vision that included a plan and goals for an initiative. They led by example and got faculty to believe in the merits of the initiative. Principals also showed a willingness to learn and provided resources such as training and technology for students and faculty. The final report serves as a resource for those charged with leading a technology integration initiative in 21st century schools.

Lightless Mornings: A Fine Legacy represents a personal interrogation and historical account of my great-great -great grandfather, W.D. McCurdy’s use of forced labor in his coalmines and cotton plantations in the Black Belt region of Alabama during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through personal research including interviews with other descendents of McCurdy, as well as scholarly research about the practice of convict leasing in Alabama, I explore dynamics of inheritance, economics, power, privilege, race, class, geography, history, family, and identity.

"This study was designed to seek out and explore the range of problems as reflected in parents whose circumstances lead to the care of their children apart from the family. The children represented in the study were admitted to a children's institution which provided for their physical and supervisory care. Major attention throughout the study was focused on the parental problems as reflected in the impairment in ability of the parents for continued care of their children. The study does not endeavor to isolate or define the specific causalities of parental impairment. It does propose to show categorically the types of problems existing with the break-down of parental care of the children"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August 1959." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work." / Advisor: Douglas Brown, Professor Directing Study. / Includes bibliographical references.

In the first half of the twentieth century in the segregated South, Black laboratory schools began as "model," "practice," or "demonstration" schools that were at the heart of teacher training institutions at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Central to the core program, they were originally designed to develop college-ready students, demonstrate effective teaching practices, and provide practical application for student teachers. As part of a higher educational institution and under the supervision of a college or university president, a number of these schools evolved to "laboratory" high schools, playing a role in the development of African American education beyond their own local communities. As laboratories for learning, experimentation, and research, they participated in major cooperative studies and hosted workshops. They not only educated the pupils of the lab school and the student teachers from the institution, but also welcomed visitors from other high schools and colleges with a charge to influence Black education A case study of Alabama State College Laboratory School, 1920-1960, demonstrates the evolution of a lab high school as part of the core program at an HBCU and its distinctive characteristics of high graduation and college enrollment rates, well-educated teaching staff, and a comprehensive liberal arts curriculum. The collected oral histories from former graduates testify to the perception that a laboratory high school education was considered a privilege. The history of Alabama State College Laboratory High School provides evidence that Lab High offered a "Class A" education to Black youth in Alabama despite the oppressive White social policies and practices in the South and contrary to the plentiful historical accounts of inferior secondary education during legalized segregation. As a progressive laboratory for learning, Alabama State College Lab High played a role in the development of education for African Americans in Alabama and throughout the South.

This thesis examines the history and results of investigations at 1Cv32, the Mitchell Site, in Covington County, Alabama. The Mitchell Site is perhaps the largest recorded Middle Woodland mound center in southeast Alabama. Data from limited testing are examined here with particular emphasis on the ceramic assemblage. Ceramic data indicate that the portion of this site investigated is predominately Middle Woodland, with distinct Weeden Island attributes.

This dissertation contends that efforts to reduce air pollution in Birmingham, Alabama, from the 1940s through the early 1970s relied on citizens who initially resisted federal involvement but eventually realized that they needed Washington's help. These activists had much in common with clean air groups in other U.S. cities, but they were somewhat less successful because of formidable industrial opposition. In the 1940s the political power of the Alabama coal industry kept Birmingham from following the example of cities that switched to cleaner-burning fuels. The coal industry's influence on Alabama politics had waned somewhat by the late 1960s, but U.S. Steel and its allies wielded enough political power in 1969 to win passage of a weak air pollution law over one favored by activists. Throughout this period the federal government gradually increased its involvement in Alabama's air pollution politics, culminating in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the enactment of environmental laws that empowered federal officials to pressure Alabama to pass a revised 1971 air pollution law that met national standards. After the passage of this law, but before the appointment of an air pollution control board to enforce it, a federal judge temporarily shut down Birmingham-area industries at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, the first time that the agency had used such emergency powers. Over time, grassroots activists in Birmingham came to the realization that their efforts were doomed to fail, or at least to be significantly delayed, without the aid of the federal government. For nearly twenty-five years after the enactment of the 1945 smoke ordinance, supporters of air pollution control wanted the state government to deal with the problem of air pollution, with the federal government only providing technical expertise and funding for scientific research. But with their defeat in the 1969 legislative session, when the industry-backed air pollution bill passed, clean air campaigners in Alabama realized--and publicly stated--that only pressure from Washington would force Montgomery to clean up Alabama's air.