Eugene Allen Smith's Alabama
How a Geologist Shaped a State
Title Details
Pages: 272
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Formats
Hardcover
Pub Date: 04/01/2011
ISBN: 9-781-5883-8243-6
List Price: $34.95
Imprint
NewSouth BooksRelated Subjects
Eugene Allen Smith's Alabama
How a Geologist Shaped a State
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- Description
- Reviews
In 1871 when the University of Alabama reopened after its destruction by federal troops, Eugene Allen Smith returned to his alma mater as professor of geology and mineralogy. After persuading the legislature to appoint him state geologist in 1873, he spent his summers enduring chills, fevers, and verbal abuse as he searched for industrial raw materials that could bring about better lives for destitute Alabamians. What he accomplished became the catalyst that transformed Alabama from an aimless and poverty-stricken agricultural state to an industrial giant to be reckoned with. The story of “Little Doc,” as told in Eugene Allen Smith’s Alabama, is drawn from many sources: Smith’s transcribed field notes, countless numbers of letters he received and the carbon copies of his replies, his published reports over a period of fifty years, wills, genealogical records, histories of the state and of the University of Alabama, and contemporary newspapers.
Students and faculty at the University of Alabama all know Smith Hall. Now Aileen Henderson’s commendable study, based mainly on Dr. Eugene Allen Smith’s field notebooks and letters, as well as newspapers of the era, will tell readers the full story of Alabama’s first state geologist.
—Don Noble, Tuscaloosa News
Aileen Kilgore Henderson has done her research well and gives us a very engaging picture of one of Alabama’s most remarkable men. The reader comes away from this book feeling that Smith knew everyone and was universally respected for his intellectual drive and curiosity and his many talents. In many ways he was a Renaissance man, devoting his long life to his native state’s progress. Henderson’s book captures his active, adventurous, and scholarly life. Smith would have enjoyed reading it, and so will anyone interested in Alabama.
—Michael Thomason, The Mobile Press-Register
Like Eugene Allen Smith, Aileen Henderson has done her state a service. Eugene Allen Smith's Alabama reintroduces a preeminent Alabamian who in his own time had a positive influence in shaping his native state and who left an enduring legacy of science and service.
—Lewis Dean, Geological Survey of Alabama