It is an understatement that being so close to one’s topic is not ideal-far from it. Others on the accuracy of my evolving viewpoints. So close to recent elements of the story, I found myself constantly intrigued by matters of objectivity, often after consulting with Hence the theme of urban life and Southern change provides the backdrop for what in other ways is a narrative institutional history of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).2 To be a teacher and administrator at UAB while tackling this project, as well as joining with others (especially those of Alabama’s Higher Education Partnership) to seek change in Alabama’s general approach to public policy, produced some curious dynamics of perspective, not to mention time management. Indeed, as the post– World War II South evolved out of an era of material capital as the key to modernity (e.g., cotton and iron ore) and into a time of social capital (intellectual development and networked approaches to social change), one of the most historic components of urban life, the university, emerged as both a creator and a reflector of such modernization. Such institutions are key components of life in most major urban areas. Yet one of the highest-profile components of the urban South, as David Goldfield has suggested, remains essentially unexplored: the role of urban research universities. And it was not until the mid-1970s that the historians Blaine Brownell, David Goldfield, and Raymond Mohl, through the collection of essays The City in Southern History (1977), legitimated the idea of the “urban South.” Goldfield expanded on this compelling idea in Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers (1982).1 Today, from those writings and others, the urban South offers some of the most fruitful frontiers for understanding not only this section of America but many other places, too.
Only in the last half of the twentieth century did American urban history move beyond relatively narrow studies of a few venerable old cities-New York City, Boston, Chicago. Reach for Maturity: The Bennett Years, 1993–96 Coda: Prospect Reach for Maturity: The McCallum Years, 1987–93 10. Reach for Maturity: The Hill Years, 1977–86 9. University of Alabama at Birmingham-History. Includes bibliographical references and index. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McWilliams, Tennant S., 1943– New lights in the valley : the emergence of UAB / Tennant S. Typeface: Stone Serif and Stone Sans ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. McWilliams All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America The University of Alabama Press TuscaloosaĬopyright © 2007 Tennant S. New Lights in the Valley The Emergence of UAB
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