Archived News
Gerber to Speak on U.S. Industrial Relations for Discover Auburn Series
January 17. 2008
Dr. Larry G. Gerber, professor of history at Auburn University and author of The Irony of State Intervention: American Industrial Relations Policy in Comparative Perspective, 1914-1939, will speak on Thursday, January 17, 2008, at 3 p.m. in the Special Collections and Archives Department of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library.
“An important and unduplicated contribution to the historical literature on U.S. industrial relations,” according to one reviewer, The Irony of State Intervention compares the labor histories of Great Britain and the United States between World War I and the Great Depression and argues that in the development of industrial relations policies, ideology was secondary to economic realities.
Gerber’s lecture is the first spring semester lecture in the Discover Auburn lecture series.
The series is co-sponsored by the Auburn University Libraries, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and the Auburn University Bookstore. Other “Discover Auburn” programs scheduled for the semester include Angela Lakwete on “Inventing the Cotton Gin: Alabama Perspectives” on Feb. 12 and Tim Dodge on “The Influence of Gospel Music on Early Rock 'n' Roll” on April 16.
A reception will follow the program, and copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. For more information on the program and the series, contact the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center at 334-844-4946.
Carter to Speak on President Johnson and the Civil Rights Movement for King Week Lecture
January 14, 2008
Dr. David Carter, associate professor of history at Auburn University, will speak on President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the civil rights movement on Monday, Jan. 14, at 3 p.m. in the Special Collections and Archives Department of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library.
The lecture is a part of AU’s Martin Luther King Jr. Week activities, a series of events and programs held January 13-23, 2008, to pay tribute to and explore Dr. King's legacy of leadership and service.
In addition to essays and articles on grassroots civil rights movements in North Carolina and Mississippi and on noted activists Andrew Young and Julian Bond, Dr. Carter is the author of a forthcoming study from the University of North Carolina Press examining shifting relationships between the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights movement in the three years following passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
The lecture is sponsored by Auburn University Libraries and the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts. A reception will follow the program. For more information on the program, contact the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center at 334-844-4946.
David Lewis Memorial Service
Auburn University will hold a memorial service at 4 p.m. Nov. 28 in the University Chapel for W. David Lewis, Distinguished University Professor, who died Sept. 28. Lewis served for 35 years in Auburn University's Department of History, where he founded an internationally recognized program in the history of technology. In 2005 the Johns Hopkins University Press published his most recent book, "Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century." Lewis played the leading role in building the Auburn University Libraries' history of flight collection.
Jimmy Carter Legacy Discussed by Writer Gaillard
Jimmy Carter Legacy Discussed by Writer Gaillard
November 14, 2007
On November 14 at 3 p.m. in the Auburn University Draughon Library’s Archives and Special Collections Department, author Frye Gaillard will discuss his new book, Prophet From Plains: Jimmy Carter and His Legacy.
Gaillard, author of more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from civil rights to southern music, first profiled the former president for the Charlotte Observer in the mid -1980s. Expanding his research to survey Carter’s role on the national and global stage in his post-presidency years, his new book interprets the former president’s life and work.
Praised for its insight and honesty, Prophet from Plains has been described as a “warts and all portrait of a politician who still stirs strong feelings among his detractors as well as adulation among his supporters.”
Dr. David Carter of the Auburn University Department of History wrote the introduction for Prophet from Plains and will speak at the program on the 14th.
The program is co-sponsored by the Auburn University Libraries, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and the Auburn University Bookstore. AU History department chair Dr. Tony Carey will introduce the speakers and moderate discussion.
Copies of Prophet from Plains will be available for purchase and signing. Refreshments will be served following the program. For more information please call 334-844-4946 or go to www.auburn.edu/cah.
Reception to Honor Kicklighter
September 22, 2007
A reception to honor Joseph Kicklighter, professor of History and History Department undergraduate program officer in the College of Liberal Arts, is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 22, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Alumni Center. Kicklighter has been teaching at Auburn since 1975. All alumni, faculty and staff are invited to attend to honor Kicklighter and support the Dr. Joseph Kicklighter Endowed Professorship in History. The endowment was established in 2006 to ensure that future generations of AU students experience the ideals of student service and a passion for learning that Kicklighter embodies. For more information, contact Olivia Davis at 844-1483 or oad0001@auburn.edu.
Constitution Day Program Features British Historian
September 17, 2007
Auburn University will recognize Constitution Day on Monday, Sep. 17 at 4:00 p.m. with a lecture by Jeremy Black titled “Framing the New Nation: Responding to the International Challenge, 1775 to 1815,” in the Special Collections and Archives Department of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library.
Jeremy Black, professor of history at the University of Exeter in England, is an expert on post-1500 military history, 18th-century British history and international relations. Professor Black is a prolific author whose books include “War: Past, Present, and Future” (2000), “War in the New Century” (2001), “America as a Military Power, 1775-1882” (2002), “The British Seaborne Empire” (2004), and “Rethinking Military History” (2004).
His latest book, “George III: America’s Last King,” is a comprehensive biography of King George, as one reviewer notes “a literate and carefully crafted portrait of the well-intentioned man who was our last sovereign ruler.” Refreshments will follow the lecture, and copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. Black will also visit a number of classes and be available to students during his visit.
On September 17, 1787, the Constitutional Congress held its final meeting to sign the Constitution of the United State of America. A law sponsored by Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVA) requires schools receiving federal funds and all federal agencies to conduct educational events about the Constitution on or about September 17.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the Auburn University Office of the Provost, AU History Department, Army ROTC Department, Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts, AU Libraries, and the AU Bookstore. For more information, call 334-844-4948.
2007
December 21, 2007:
Dr. Angela Lakwete to Give Lecture on the Cotton Gin
Dr. Angela Lakwete, associate professor of history at Auburn University and author of Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America, will speak at 3 p.m. on Feb. 12 in the Special Collections and Archives Department of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library. Lakwete explores the myths surrounding Eli Whitney's cotton gin and shows that gins existed for centuries before his 1794 invention. Lakwete's compelling and revisionist book on the cotton gin is a major contribution to the history of Southern technology, notes Pete Daniel of the National Museum of American History. Inventing the Cotton Gin won the prestigious Edelstein Prize from the Society of the History of Technology in 2004.
The Discover Auburn series is cosponsored by the Auburn University Libraries, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and the Auburn University Bookstore. A reception will follow the program, with copies of the book available for purchase and signing. For more information, contact the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center at 844-4946.
December 11, 2007:
Dr. Carter and Dr. Gerber to Give Public Lectures
Two of our faculty members will be giving public lectures at the Ralph Brown Draughon Library in January. Both are sponsored by the AU Libraries and the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities.
Dr. David Carter will commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. week with his talk "'Oh My God ... I Wish He Was There Now': Lyndon Johnson and Civil Rights." The lecture will take place on Monday, January 14, 2008, at the Special Collections and Archives room of the RBD Library. The program starts at 3:00 p.m. and will be followed with refreshments. In addition to essays and articles on grassroots Civil Rights movements in North Carolina and Mississippi and on noted activists Andrew Young and Julian Bond, Carter is the author of a forthcoming study from the University of North Carolina Press examining shifting relationships between the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights movement in the three years following passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Dr. Larry Gerber will participate in Discover Auburn: A Lecture Series by discussing his new book, The Irony of State Intervention: American Industrial Relations Policy in Comparative Perspective, 1914-1939. The lecture will take place on Thursday, January 17, 2008, at the Special Collections and Archives room of the RBD Library. The program starts at 3:00 p.m. and will be followed with refreshments. “An important and unduplicated contribution to the historical literature on U.S. industrial relations,” according to one reviewer, The Irony of State Intervention compares the labor histories of Great Britain and the United States between World War I and the Great Depression and argues that in the development of industrial relations policies, ideology was secondary to economic realities.
For more information, call (334) 844-4946.
December 7, 2007:
Dr. Guy Beckwith to be Inducted Into CLA Academy of Teaching and Outstanding
Teachers
Dr. Guy Beckwith has been selected for induction into the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Academy of Teaching and Outstanding Teachers. The honoree could not be more deserving, and he has once again reflected honor upon the department. Please plan to join us for the awards ceremony, which will take place at the Jule Collins Smith Museum on April 17, 2008, at 4:00 p.m.
The CLA established the Academy in 2002 to recognize those individuals who have made outstanding or otherwise significant contributions of lasting impact to the undergraduate teaching mission of the CLA and Auburn University. More information about the Academy and other CLA awards can be found here.
November 19, 2007:
David Lewis Memorial Service to be Held Nov. 28
Auburn University will hold a memorial service at 4 p.m. Nov. 28 in the University Chapel for W. David Lewis, Distinguished University Professor, who died Sept. 28. Lewis served for 35 years in Auburn University's Department of History, where he founded an internationally recognized program in the history of technology. Lewis played the leading role in building the Auburn University Libraries' history of flight collection.
October 2, 2007:
Dr. W. David Lewis
Distinguished University Professor of History
(1931-2007)
Dr. W. David Lewis passed away on September 28, 2007.
He was born on June 24, 1931, in Towanda, Pennsylvania. He took his BA and MA degrees from the Pennsylvania State University, and he completed his PhD at Cornell University in 1961. He was never slow to point out the glories, past and present, of the Keystone State.
Dr. Lewis came to Auburn in 1971 as the Hudson Professor of History & Engineering. He founded Auburn's History of Technology program and pioneered the teaching of Technology & Civilization in the core curriculum. He also helped found what became the Human Odyssey program, and he was instrumental in the creation of an Honors program that has grown into an Honors College. It is to Dr. Lewis, more than any other single person, that the department owes its excellence today in the History of Technology. He was since 1994 a Distinguished University Professor. Over several decades, David played a critical role in hiring department heads and faculty who have led History and built its reputation. As Athletic Director Emeritus David Housel wrote, "David was a good man, and I have always thought that in many ways he revolutionized the teaching of history at Auburn."
Dr. Lewis authored, coauthored, or edited thirteen books and published dozens of smaller pieces, as well as giving scores of talks around the globe. Among his best-known books were acclaimed studies of New York prisons in the early nineteenth century, of Delta Airlines, of Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, and of aviator Eddie Rickenbacker. His honors and awards are too numerous to mention in full. He was the Charles A. Lindbergh Professor of Aerospace History at the National Air and Space Museum, and he won the Leonardo da Vinci Medal from the Society for the History of Technology.
Saying that David was enthusiastic about his work is like saying that Mount Everest is high. He once said that he became involved in the History of Technology through "serendipity," because it did not exist as an organized field at the time he attended graduate school. Early in his career he associated with giants such as Alfred D. Chandler and Melvin Kranzberg, the former a famous historian of business and the latter the recognized founder of the field of the History of Technology. Whatever research or teaching David was doing at the moment was the most exciting project ever undertaken. His friends vividly recall papers that he delivered thirty or forty years ago; they describe him jumping up and down, gesticulating broadly, and generally acting like a man who had discovered the best stories ever and could not wait to tell them.
His friends and colleagues will miss many things about David, but probably his energy and devotion to history most of all. He remains an example to us all. Our thoughts are with his wife, Pat, and all of the family.
September 19, 2007:
Reception to Honor Kicklighter Scheduled for Saturday
A reception to honor Joseph Kicklighter, professor of History and History Department undergraduate program officer in the College of Liberal Arts, is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 22, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Alumni Center (317 South College Street). Kicklighter has been teaching at Auburn since 1975. All alumni, faculty and staff are invited to attend to honor Kicklighter and support the Dr. Joseph Kicklighter Endowed Professorship in History. The endowment was established in 2006 to ensure that future generations of AU students experience the ideals of student service and a passion for learning that Kicklighter embodies. For more information, contact Olivia Davis at (844) 1483 or oad0001@auburn.edu.
August 20, 2007:
AU Alum David Alsobrook Becomes Director Mobile's History Museum
David Alsobrook (PhD '83) has said goodbye to a long career serving former presidents at their libraries in order to become the director of the Museum of Mobile, the port city's history museum. Alsobrook has worked with Presidents Jimmy Carter, George Herbert Walker Bush, and Bill Clinton to create and shape their presidential libraries, and spent the last three years as the director of Clinton's $165 million presidential library in Little Rock, Ark. He had been director of the Clinton Presidential Materials Project, processing millions of documents prior to the opening of the library.
The Museum of Mobile seeks to interpret the cultural, social, economic, and political history of the Mobile Bay area and Southwest Alabama , and its diverse population through the collection, exhibition, research, and conservation of artifacts, from pre-history to the present and through related educational programs. It is housed in the 1857 Southern Market/Old City Hall.
"I was ready to go on to something new and different," Alsobrook says. "This (museum) is a whole different set of challenges (that) involves taking an older museum already established and trying to see what we do next with it."
For a feature-length article from the Mobile Press-Register on Alsobrook's move to Mobile, visit al.com.
August 20, 2007:
AU Alum Christian Gelzer at NASA's Dryden Center
Christian Gelzer (PhD '98) serves as chief historian at The Dryden Flight Research Center, NASA's primary center for atmospheric flight research and operations. NASA Dryden is critical in carrying out the agency's missions of space exploration, space operations, scientific discovery, and aeronautical research and development.
Photo by Tom Tschida.
NASA Dryden historian Christian Gelzer explains functions of the high-altitude pressure suit he is wearing to (left to right) Brandon Blankenship and Garrett Clay of Lancaster and Eddie Patterson of Tehachapi during Take Your Children to Work Day activities at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center June 22.
June 1, 2007 [from the AU Daily]:
Historian and AU Alumna Atkins Elected to Alabama Academy of Honor
The Alabama Academy of Honor has elected Birmingham native and Auburn University alumna Leah Rawls Atkins as one of four new members for 2007. AU professor emeritus of history Wayne Flynt, who nominated Atkins for membership in the Academy, paid tribute to her contributions and achievements as an educator, historian and world-class athlete. Flynt cites her work in establishing the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities in AU’s College of Liberal Arts as her greatest contribution to the state. A public induction ceremony will be held August 20 in the old House chambers of the Alabama Capitol.
The State Legislature created the Alabama Academy of Honor on October 29, 1965, to bestow honor and recognition upon living Alabamians for their outstanding accomplishments and service. Persons elected to membership are distinguished citizens of Alabama whose accomplishments and service have greatly benefitted or reflected great credit on the State.
Recent inductees have included U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ambassador William J. Cabaniss, Senator Richard Shelby, Rosa Parks, and Harper Lee.
April 1, 2007:
Jennifer Newman Wins AHA Research Grant
Graduate student Jennifer Newman was awarded the Alabama Historical Association's Clinton Jackson and Evelyn Coley Research Grant Fund at the AHA's sixtieth annual meeting. The $400 grant is open to any graduate student conducting research on an Alabama-related topic. This marks the second time an Auburn graduate student has received the Jackson-Coley grant. Jennifer's topic is "religious beliefs and identity of Alabama and Georgia women during the Civil War."
January 23, 2007 [from the AU Daily]:
AU PROFESSOR'S BOOK ON NEIL ARMSTRONG HONORED BY CHOICE MAGAZINE
Professor James R. Hansen's book, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, has been named by Choice magazine as one of the Outstanding Academic Books of 2006. Choice, the publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, listed Hansen's book in its January issue among the top 10 percent of more than 7,000 works reviewed last year. It spent two weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and has also won the Gardner-Lasser Aerospace Literature Award, presented by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronauts, and the Eugene M. Emme Prize in Astronautical Literature, awarded by the American Astronautical Society. Choice magazine editors selected its Outstanding Academic Books based on a variety of criteria, including overall excellence in presentation and scholarship, value to undergraduate students, and importance in building undergraduate library collections.
James Hansen, biographer of astronaut Neil Armstrong.