Charles A. McCallum, D.M.D., M.D., RIP

I would like to note the passing on January 16 of Charles A. "Scotty" McCallum, Jr., dentist, physician, UAB's third President from April 1987 until September 1993, two-term Mayor of Vestavia Hills and much more at UAB: professor, vice president for health affairs, dean of the School of Dentistry, and chair of the Department of Oral Surgery. But wait--there's more! See the plaque below. 

For more details on his remarkable life and career, see his entry at the Alabama Academy of Honor and the extensive obituary at AL.com The UAB Archives also has some material about him. 

I had two minor encounters with Dr. McCallum in the late 1980's that were helpful to me and indicated the scholar and gentleman he was. When I first started researching the life and career of Alice McNeal, MD, the first Chair of UAB's Department of Anesthesiology, Dr. McCallum took the time to meet with me and let me pick his brain about her years in the School of Medicine. He didn't know her that well, but gave me some details and names of others to contact. 

In 1988 I served as Vice-President of the Alabama Health Libraries Association and was responsible for organizing the annual meeting to be held in Birmingham. Dr. McCallum graciously agreed to be the luncheon guest speaker and regaled us with a talk on the remarkable history and growth of UAB. I remember vividly that he noted the university then occupied 84 [or close to that!] blocks in the city. I wonder what the number is now?

RIP, Dr. McCallum....

Source for this photo and one below: BhamWiki

UAB Continues to Expand

Big news, right? When I started work at UAB in August 1983, I soon noticed  new construction and mentioned it to someone. That person's response? "Get used to it. It never stops." That observation was certainly true until I retired in December 2015 and continues to be the case. I can understand why the initials "UAB" are often said to stand for the "University that Ate Birmingham." 

UAB recently announced plans to demolish seven campus buildings over the next year to make way for future projects. The university had previously announced eventual demolition plans for an eighth building. Let's investigate.

Worrell Building – 924 18th Street South

This building opened in 1960 as the Doctor's Center where a number of physicians and dentists had offices. The BhamWiki article on the structure has a tenants' list and gives this description: "The modern curtain-wall building with exposed concrete frame and cantilevering floor slabs contained four doctor's suites on each floor, with the ground floor opened up for valet parking service. Construction of the building cost $500,000." A second 10-story companion was designed but never constructed.

Update 11 August 2019: This building has been demolished.

Fritz Woehle in 1966 with a model of the building never constructed 

Source: BhamWiki

The architect for the project was Fritz Woehle, who moved to Birmingham in 1958 and remained in the city until his death in 2017. When the Doctor's Center opened, Woehle moved his office to the penthouse on the seventh floor. 

In the 1970's he bought the property at 10th Terrace South containing several abandoned garage stalls. The site was converted and now houses his antiques collection and the legendary The Garage Cafe. 

UAB purchased the building in 1985 with a gift from optometrist Paul Worrell and his wife Sylvia. Renovated to house the Vision Sciences program, the structure was dedicated in Worrell's honor in 1988.

You can read a long article about his Mountain Brook home with wonderful photos here. 

The entrance to the building features some of the public sculpture seen around campus.

The Doctor's Center in 1962

Source: BhamWiki

Worrell Building Annex – 924 18th Street South

Jefferson County Department of Human Resources Building (former)
1301 5th Avenue South

Like many large universities, UAB is constantly purchasing property that comes available near campus. I imagine that happened when this county department moved downtown. I have no idea about the history of this building. The two photos below offer additional views.

Cancer Research Center – 550 11th Street South

This building on the western edge of campus would seem to date from the 1980's, but UAB obviously has other plans for the site.

711 Building – 711 11th Street South

This building and the one below housed the UAB football program offices and locker rooms for some years. 

UPDATE 11 August 2019: These two buildings were recently demolished. According to the AL.com article, the building above was once a dentist's office.

Dowdy Building – 1109 7th Avenue South

1200 Building – 1200 6th Avenue South

UAB's bookstore moved here temporarily a few years ago while the new student center was built. Before UAB bought the property it was a grocery or drug store, I think. 

UPDATE 11 August 2019: This building has been demolished. 

That "Lunch Buffet" sign belongs to the Sitar Indian Cuisine restaurant at the corner of University Boulevard and 20th Street. When I started work at UAB in 1983 and for some years afterward a drug store was located in that space. 

Purchased by UAB in 1985, the building was constructed in 1950-51 as apartments with retail space on the ground floor. Other business tenants have included Tracy's Cafeteria--I ate there a number of times over the years. 

UAB has used the facility for extended-stay patients from out of town who require ongoing care. Improved facilities will be provided for those patients. UAB is assisting Sitar in finding a new location.

Source: UAB Reporter

The Town House in the 1950's.

Source: UAB Reporter via the UAB Archives

Who Was Joseph H. Woolf, M.D.?

For some years now I've been seeing a family doctor at the UAB Family Medicine practice on 20th Street near Five Points South in the Community Health Services building. On recent visits I actually took note of the plaque below and wondered about Dr. Woolf. Let's investigate. 

The Department of Family and Community Medicine was established at UAB in 1975. The May 22, 1981, issue of the UAB Reporter noted the dedication on May 17 of the Family Practice Center in Dr. Woolf's name. The building is not named after him, just the FPC. Got that? Universities do things that way...

So, who was Dr. Woolf and what was his connection to UAB? The UAB Reporter article explained only that he was a doctor in rural Alabama. 

I did some research at Ancestry.com and elsewhere, but also found him included in an obscure reference book I have, Frank L. Grove's Library of Alabama Lives [1961]. Here's the entry:

"Woolf, Joseph Henry, physician, 403 Riddle Avenue, Piedmont. Born on April 29, 1901, in Calhoun County, at Piedmont, Alabama, he is the son of John P. and Nell (Kiernan) Woolf. Dr. Woolf attended Auburn University; University of Alabama; Tulane University, and the University of Illinois, earning the M.D. degree from the last named. On July 31, 1930, he married Maye Chew of Macon, Georgia. Dr. Woolf served his internship at Hillman Hospital, Birmingham, spending the following year at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He began his practice of medicine in Piedmont in 1929, and is still thusly engaged. He served as the first Chief-of-Staff of the Piedmont Hospital which opened in June of 1957, and is presently a member of that Staff. Dr. Woolf holds the following professional memberships: American and Southern Medical Associations, Calhoun County Medical Society, Association of Southern Railway Surgeons, and State Medical Association. Politically, he is a Democrat; and his religious affiliation is Catholic. Reading is Dr. Woolf's recreation."

This material neatly sums up Dr. Woolf's life until the time of publication in 1961. Via Ancestry.com I found his  February 1942 registration for the draft in World War II. That document tells us he was 6'1" tall at the time, weighed 158 pounds and had hazel eyes and black hair. I have been unable to locate a photograph. He died on November 23, 1967.

Going by the biographical entry above, Dr. Woolf did his internship at Hillman Hospital probably in 1927. As noted below, the hospital is now part of the UAB Medical Center, and seems to be Dr. Woolf's only connection with UAB. Anyone with further specifics please tell us in the comments section. 

Additional notes are below some of the photographs. 


UPDATE October 27, 2018: In the summer of 2018 the UAB Family & Community Medicine Clinic moved to UAB Highlands Hospital on the other side of campus. The Clinic opened in its new location on July 31. What has happened to the Woolf facility name and this building on Southside is currently unknown.

Here's the view from inside the building lobby looking out at 20th Street. 

Dr. Woolf is buried in Highland Cemetery in Piedmont. 

Source: Find-A-Grave

Piedmont Hospital in 2017; the facility closed in the 1990's. There was some hope in 2012 of turning it into an adult day care facility, but that plan never materialized. In June 2017 a local doctor purchased the site for a future primary and urgent care clinic.

Source: WEIS Radio

The Hillman Hospital complex, ca. 1929. The original structure on the right was erected in 1902 and the annex, in the middle, was added in 1913. On the left is the 1928 addition, or “new” Hillman. The buildings today are part of the UAB Medical Center.

Source: Birmingham Public Library

A Plaque in UAB's Jefferson Tower

I've written a number of blog posts and other items devoted to some aspect of medical history in Birmingham, and this one is another in that series. 

Past the main entrance of the Jefferson Tower building on the UAB campus, near the public elevators, is the plaque you see below. Let's investigate.

In the 1930's the growing number of indigent patients in Jefferson County began to overwhelm the facilities at Hillman Hospital. The county and Birmingham agreed on a joint funding mechanism in 1939. The year before the U.S. Public Works Administration offered two million dollars in a grant and loan to fund the building of a new hospital that would charge patients based on their ability to pay. 

The new facility was a modern one, sixteen stories that could hold almost 600 patients. The maternity ward occupied the entire fifth floor, and eight operating rooms filled the seventh floor. The top two floors provided living space for numerous nurses and interns. 

The first patients were accepted at Jefferson-Hillman Hospital in February 1941. In December 1944 the county gave the hospital to the University of Alabama. This donation was part of the two-year Medical College of Alabama's move from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham to become a four-year school. Students entered the first class in October 1945. 

The building was renamed Jefferson Tower in 1979. UAB's new hospital building, the North Pavilion, opened in late 2004 and most clinical services were moved out of Jefferson Tower.

My original purpose for this blog post involved the local names on this plaque. I've spent some time researching all of them, but found nothing much online about the six commissioners listed. The same goes for half the men listed on the Building Committee. However, Cooper Green was a well-known businessman and politician and the namesake for Cooper Green Mercy Hospital. Dr. Harry L. Jackson was apparently a prominent local surgeon.

James S. McLester, MD, had served on the faculty of the Birmingham Medical College from 1902 until 1915 when the school closed. He was Professor of Medicine at the Tuscaloosa school and then at the new one in Birmingham from 1920 until 1945. He was head of the Hillman Hospital medical staff. An expert on nutrition, McLester published two books on the topic. He also served as President of the American Medical Association in 1934.

The Birmingham Public Library has this information about the architect in it's introduction to the collection of his firm's papers:



"Charles H. McCauley (1893 – 1970) was born in Chicago and studied architecture at the University of Illinois. McCauley practiced architecture in Chicago before moving to Birmingham in 1919 where he worked for William Leslie Welton before opening his own practice in 1925. McCauley and his firm, Charles H. McCauley Associates, designed many important buildings in Birmingham including Temple Beth-El (1926), Medical Arts Building (1931), Birmingham City Hall (1950), Boutwell Auditorium Entry Pavilion (1957), U.S. Post Office and Vehicle Maintenance Facility (1968), and First National – Southern Natural (1968-1971, with Welton Becket & Associates). At the time of McCauley’s death in 1970, Charles H. McCauley Associates was one of the largest architectural practices in the South. "




These individuals, agencies and companies created an important part of what became the medical and university behemoth UAB is today.

Cooper Green in 1947

Source: BhamWiki

James S. McLester, MD

Source: UAB Digital Collections

1939 architect's rendering of Jefferson Hospital

Source: BhamWiki

1945 aerial view of Jefferson Tower. The Kracke Building is in the lower right and Hillman Hospital on the upper right of the block. I've written a blog post about "Birmingham's Heaviest Medical Block."

Source: BhamWiki

UAB's Anesthesiology Library 1980-2015

From August 1983 until December 2015 I worked as librarian for the Anesthesiology Department in the University of Alabama at Birmingham's School of Medicine. The library originated in the late 1970's as a reading room on the seventh floor of Jefferson Tower maintained by secretary Patsy Byrd. In May 1980 the department hired a full time librarian, Beth Owens, and soon after the library moved to the fifth floor of the Kracke Clinical Services Building along with chairman and faculty offices. Ann Hester became librarian in October 1981, and the library collection expanded under her tenure. Emma O'Hagan is the current librarian.

For some years this description of the library appeared in the Directory of History of Medicine Collections maintained by the National Library of Medicine's History of Medicine Division:



"This library exists primarily to serve the faculty, residents, and staff of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Anesthesiology. However, others are welcome to use materials in-house. The library provides reference services and will photocopy from its collections. Interlibrary Loan services are available; the library is a DOCLINE participant. 

The library holds more than 3,000 monographs, 500 audio and video tapes, 1,700 bound journal volumes, and many items of ephemera (company literature, organizational publications, etc.). The collection includes more than 200 pre-1970 monographs related to anesthesia and pain management, more than 100 monographs related to the history of anesthesia and pain (secondary literature), and numerous subject and individual files related to anesthesia and pain history. Inventories available online: journal holdings, CD & DVD holdings, and historical files.

Collection Subject Strengths: History of Anesthesiology and Anesthesia;
History of Pain Management"

Serving the clinical information needs of departmental faculty, residents and staff
is the primary purpose of the library. A reconfiguration of the facility took
place in 2014 and 2015. Space was reduced, the journal collection removed
and new computer terminals added. Some of the historical books went to the
Reynolds-Finley Historical Library, and historical files related to departmental
history were accepted by UAB Archives. 

The following photos show the library during its "print" days and as materials were
boxed for removal. I've made comments below some of the pictures.

Departmental libraries have been a feature of colleges and universities around
the world since the late 19th century. At the end of this post I've included a
brief bibliography of some of the literature available on the topic. Such libraries
appeared not only in medical departments, but the humanities and sciences as
well. 

In 1994 Bronte Moran at the Department of Surgery Library, University of
Wisconsin-Madison did a survey of medical departmental libraries in the U.S.,
which was published two years later. He found a total of 24, with only 2 in
anesthesiology. Due to costs and the changing information landscape over the
past two decades, I would imagine many of those two dozen no longer exist.
Departmental libraries in other academic areas are probably also very rare
these days. 

Most of the books seen here pertained to the history of anesthesia, pain medicine, and critical care medicine as well as the history of medicine generally.

Yes, the library still had its card catalog. 

This photo and the two below it show some of the main book collection. 

The library became more crowded as space was reduced. 

Looking through the big door you can barely see the door to my office on the left of the small table. 

A portion of the journal collection is shown in these two photographs.

Another view of some of the journals and the big table. 

This bookplate was used in library books for many years and featured the department's logo, also in use for a number of years.

In the photos below the library contents are being packed up and finally the library is completely empty. My understanding was that books would return and journals would not. No matter what happened, the library no longer exists as I knew it for so many years. But the new facility will continue to serve the department's contemporary needs.

Here I am in the summer of 1983 in the library on Kracke 5.



Constructed in 1928 as a student nursing dormitory for Hillman Hospital, the building was renovated and opened as the Roy R. Kracke Clinical Services Building in 1965. The Anesthesiology Department Library was on the fifth floor of this building until 1993. 

Source of photo: Holmes, History of the University of Alabama Hospitals [1974]

This aerial view of Jefferson Tower from 1945 also shows the Kracke Building on the right. The front of Jefferson Tower looks very different today.
Source: BhamWiki

SOME REFERENCES ON DEPARTMENTAL LIBRARIES

Kasses, Carol D. et al. Departmental libraries: curse or blessing? Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1978 April; 66(2): 177-184

Moran, Bronte. The role of the medical departmental library. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1996 January; 84(1): 25-31

Stefanacci, Michal A. et al. Departmental libraries: why do they exist? Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1977 October; 65(4): 433-437

Stokes, Janet H. et al. The Dripps Library of Anesthesia University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Anesthesia History Association Newsletter 1992 January; 10(1): 13

Thompson, Lawrence. The historical background of departmental and collegiate libraries. Library Quarterly 1942 January; 12: 49-74