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Mark D. HerseyU.S. South, Environmental and Agricultural History, Rural America, African American
Education
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My principal research interests lie in the fields of environmental, rural, and agricultural history, with a particular emphasis on the American South, most especially on Alabama and Mississippi. At present, I am wrapping up my first book project—an examination of the environmental thought of George Washington Carver that situates Carver’s continued significance in his role as a conservationist and early proponent of ecological agriculture rather than his accomplishments as the “Peanut Man.” I have already begun working on the follow-up project: an environmental history of Alabama and Mississippi’s Black Belt region in which I will explore the connections between race, government policy, land use, and poverty in the region. I also have a broad interest in the rather amorphous field of public history, having served as the director of two public history projects in Kansas.Education:
PhD with Honors in U.S. Environmental History, University of Kansas, 2006.Dissertation: “My Work is That of Conservation”: The Environmental Vision of George Washington Carver Major Advisor: Donald Worster. Bachelor of Arts in History, University of Alabama, 1997. Publications:
Advance contract from the University of Georgia Press to publish My Work is that of Conservation: The Environmental Vision of George Washington Carver as part of its Environmental History and the American South Series.“Hints and Suggestions to Farmers: George Washington Carver and Rural Conservation in the South,”Environmental History (April 2006). “The Transformation of George Washington Carver’s Environmental Ethic, 1896-1918” in Jeffrey Jordan, ed., Black Environmental Thought: Land, Power, and Sustainability, forthcoming. “‘Their plows singing beneath the sandy loam’: African American Agriculture in the Late-Nineteenth Century South,” in Dixie Ray Haggard, ed., African Americans in the Nineteenth Century in the Social Perspectives in American History series, ABC-CLIO, Peter C. Mancall, series ed., forthcoming. “George Washington Carver,” in G. A. Cevasco and Richard Harmon, eds., Modern American Environmentalists: A Biographical Encyclopedia, forthcoming. “George Washington Carver,” in Kathleen A. Brosnan, The Encyclopedia of American Environmental History, forthcoming. “George Washington Carver” at Quintard Taylor’s BlackPast.org Website, accessible at http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/carver-george-washington-1864-1943. Presentations:
"Scientific Agriculture and the Roots of Ecology. Annual Meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Boise, Idaho, March 12-16, 2008. "The Care of the Earth: Ecology s Roots in Scientific Agriculture. Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 2007. "Noah B. Cloud, the Ruthless Hand of Mr. Carenot, and Antebellum Agricultural Reform. Annual Meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, March 2007. Public History Experience:
Interim Project Director for Kansas History Online and This Week in KU History, 2006-2008 Kansas History Online and This Week in KU History Associate Editor and Writer for Kansas History Online and This Week in KU History, 2001-2006, contributing well over 50 articles to the sites.
Honors and Awards:
2007 George L. Anderson Award for Excellence in History, given for the best doctoral dissertation, History Department, University of Kansas. 2006-2007 State Historical Society of Iowa Research Grant 2002 Robert L. Greaves Memorial Award, University of Kansas
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