Recently retired curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and an award winning historian of the American South. He is the first full-time public historian to serve as President of the Organization of American Historians. His award-winning books include Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures since 1880 (1985), Standing at the Crossroads: Southern Life in the Twentieth Century (1986), Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s (2000), and others. He served as President of the Southern Historical Association in 2005-2006. He has curated many major exhibits, including the exhibit of the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum in 2000.
