I.

Introduction

Alabama, one of the southern states of the United States, bordered 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.

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 and cotton cultivation, 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 after the Alabama, or Alibamon, people, who belonged to the Creek confederacy.