The Contemporary History Institute lecture series presents Dr. Drew Swanson on “Isolated by Nature? Environments and the Idea of Appalachian Exceptionalism,” on Nov. 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Baker 231.
Dr. Drew SwansoSwanson is Associate Professor of History at Wright State, where he directs the Public History concentration. He also teaches classes in American, environmental, food, and 19th century history. Born in rural Virginia, he is a graduate of the University of Georgia and worked as a farmer, zookeeper, and natural resource manager before turning to academia.
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This talk explores how the environmental history of Appalachia can inform old debates about the region’s isolation. Scholars over the past 40 years have gradually debunked old stereotypes about Appalachian cultural exceptionalism. But they have largely left intact durable ideas about mountain nature. In this trope, Appalachia’s rugged terrain proved a topographic obstacle that worked against the full integration of the region into the national economy. Swanson argues that Appalachian environments historically proved a force of connection more than one of isolation, and makes his case through a series of studies of commodity flows, from deer skins to gold to federal aid.
Swanson’s research examines the intersections of nature and culture in the American South. He is the author of a number of journal articles and book chapters, as well as two books: A Golden Weed: Tobacco and Environment in the Piedmont South (Yale University Press, 2014) and Remaking Wormsloe Plantation: The Environmental History of a Lowcountry Landscape (University of Georgia Press, 2012). He is currently working on two books: an environmental history of Appalachia, and a study of the agrarian roots of Reconstruction violence.
Interest in the history of environment, science, agriculture, and the South has led Swanson to serve in a range of professional organizations, and he is currently co-editor of H-Rural, an online academic community of more than 1,200 scholars. Swanson’s research and teaching has won a number of awards, including prizes from the Agricultural History Society, the Southern Historical Association, the Georgia Historical Society, the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council, the Forest History Society, the Ohio Academy of History, WSU’s College of Liberal Arts, the Southwestern Ohio Council on Higher Education, and the University of Georgia History Department. Most recently he received the Theodore Saloutos Memorial Book Prize from the Agricultural History Society and the University’s Presidential Early Career Achievement Award.
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