Cornelia F. Mutel

Occupational Health Problems of the Rural Work Force

Just as rural was historically synonymous with farm, so the rural worker commonly is thought of as a farmer. However, the number of persons employed in agriculture has been steadily decreasing. This decrease has been paralleled by a continuing diversification of rural employment possibilities, resulting from the decentralization of American manufacturing and the movement of many plants to rural locations, as well as from increases in the size of other rural occupations (such as rural professional services, defense activities, and recreational services).

The Rural Population

A physician establishes a new rural clinic. What kinds of people can be expected to walk in the door? Will patients differ significantly from those seen in an urban area? Will their health problems differ from those seen among urban populations? Will their cultural or economic characteristics significantly affect how they interact with the physician?

Environmental Health Problems of Rural Populations

The Natural Environment is often cited as one of the major advantages of rural over urban life, and many a migrant to the city has yearned for the sight of green fields, the smell of fresh-cut hay, the sound of a clear running brook, or simply a deep breath of clear country air.... By and large, rural residents have been little more beneficent in their relations with nature than the denizens of our concrete and asphalt jungles. Indeed, profligate waste and destructiveness have marked the exploitation of our land and other natural resources since the earliest white settlements in America. [1]

Hans Albert Einstein: His Life as a Pioneering Engineer

Rivers have always shaped the development of human society, their flows of water and sediment influencing food production, transportation, industrial activity, and power generation. Extreme flows that cause flood and drought, erosion, and sedimentation have brought widespread damage and untold misery. Since ancient times, people have known that river flows transport sediment, but not until the start of the twentieth century did engineers and scientists begin to understand the complex interaction of flowing water and sediment.

Iowa's Waters: A Mirror of the Land

In June 2008, floods of historic proportions raged across the Iowa landscape. For weeks, rivers rose to leave their banks, in many eastern Iowa locations spreading farther and deeper than at any time in recorded history. Hardest hit were towns along the Cedar and Iowa Rivers. In Cedar Rapids, floodwaters rose to a stage of 31.12 feet, 11 feet above the previous historic high and 19 feet above the flood stage of 12 feet, and flows crested at 140,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). Discharges of the next largest floods here (in 1961 and 1993) had been about half that size; the average Cedar River flow in Cedar Rapids is a mere 3,807 cfs. More than nine square miles of downtown business and residential buildings, or 1,300 city blocks, went underwater; 25,000 people were evacuated in Linn County alone. Twenty miles to the south, Iowa City felt the largest floods since the construction of the Coralville Dam sev eral miles upstream on the Iowa River. At the University of Iowa, nestled along the Iowa River in downtown Iowa City, twenty-two major buildings?including the entire School of Music and most of the Art and Art History complex?took on water. University flood damages were estimated at

Hunter Rouse's Historical Writings and the History of Hydraulics Rare Book Collection

232 million. For the state as a whole, losses of physical property (including crop losses) were estimated at

Hans Albert Einstein in South Carolina

3.5 billion, fema declared eighty-five of Iowas ninety-nine counties federal disaster areas. Even before the floodwaters peaked, Iowans began asking why. Why now, why here? Cloaked in that question were feelings of anger as well as self-recrimination: What did we do to deserve this? But also, what have we done to cause this? Some clung to the fact that Iowa has always flooded, long before the states transformation to one of the worlds most intensively managed agricultural land scapes. Others stated that a flood was inevitable given the years weather conditions?rivers running high with snowmelt from the unusually cold, wet, long winter; the cool wet spring preventing planting of crops that would have helped to dry soaked soils; and the intense May and June rainstorms that fell on a saturated land

Floyd Nagler, Founding Director of IIHR

As Hunter Rouse matured, he became increasingly involved in studies of the history of fluid mechanics and hydraulics. Rouse’s interest led him to produce two books on the subject, many articles, numerous lectures, and an unusual collection of rare historic books. The collection holds over 500 volumes and spans approximately 500 years. Housed at the University of Iowa, the collection remains a valuable resource for historical research. This paper describes Rouse’s history research and writing, as well as the History of Hydraulics Rare Book Collection that he created.

Rural Practitioner, Rural Practice

The opportunities Hans Albert Einstein obtained while working at the U.S. Soil Conservation Services Greenville Sediment Load Laboratory in South Carolina (1938 to 1943) helped him to become a leading authority on alluvial-sediment transport by rivers. This paper describes Einsteins work while in South Carolina.

An Extended Role for the Rural Physician

Floyd Nagler, the founding director of the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research (IIHR, now IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering), was granted a brief 13 years to leave his imprint on this fledgling institute. Yet in that period, he managed to construct a substantial physical research structure, establish an innovative administrative scheme, and bring considerable stability to IIHR by embracing governmental substations that brought in research projects and financial support. Nagler also imbued IIHR with his spirit of enthusiasm and energy. In these many ways, he laid the groundwork for an institute that would become world-renowned for its contributions to hydraulic education and research, and which continues to reflect the diversity of subject matter and approach modeled by its colorful and multi-talented founder.