91传媒 author honored with Southern Historical Association award
Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擜 2015 book by a Mississippi State researcher examining regional relationships among early 20th century religion, politics and a struggling U.S. economy has received the Southern Historical Association鈥檚 Charles S. Sydnor Award for the best book in southern history published in 2015.
Alison Collis Greene鈥檚 鈥淣o Depression in Heaven: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta鈥 (Oxford University Press) describes how poverty, malnutrition and lack of basic needs long had smothered poor residents of the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta regions. When churches there proved incapable of meeting parishioners鈥 needs during the Great Depression, leaders of the religious bodies sought help from the federal government.
According to Greene, 91传媒 assistant professor of history and specialist in American religious history, this shift from local to nationally provided assistance represented a dramatic break for both white and African American evangelicals that continued after President Franklin Roosevelt鈥檚 New Deal programs had ended. The metamorphosis also generated considerable anti-government backlashes from religious and political leaders because it threatened their authority鈥攁nd the traditional and widespread system of racial dominance.
Greene joined the 91传媒 faculty in 2010. In addition to a doctorate from Yale University, she holds degrees in religious studies and anthropology from the University of North Carolina, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
In presenting the Sydnor Award, SHA selection committee members cited Greene鈥檚 鈥渟tunning analysis of cultural, political and religious transformations in the Depression-era South.鈥
In its review of the book, the Journal of Southern Religion praised Greene for creating 鈥渁 powerful addition to the growing literature on the relationship between religion and political economy in the South, and in the United States in general, in the modern era.鈥
Among other kudos for her research and writing accomplishments:
鈥擪evin M. Kruse, a Princeton University professor and author of 鈥淥ne Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America,鈥 noted that, while he and other historians have considered the Great Depression a decade of political and economic upheaval, 鈥淎lison Collis Greene brilliantly demonstrates that it sparked a revolution in American religion too.鈥
鈥擱eading Religion, review website of the Georgia-based American Academy of Religion, described 鈥淣o Depression鈥 as a history that also is 鈥渁 framework for understanding contemporary arguments about the current and future state of the social safety net and an argument for the study of history for today鈥檚 politicians and church leaders.鈥
Organized in 1939, the Southern Historical Association works to promote an 鈥渋nvestigative rather than a memorial approach鈥 to regional history. With offices at Texas鈥 Rice University and the University of Georgia, the organization also seeks to encourage teaching and study in all areas of the academic field. For more, see .
Greene鈥檚 book shares its title with a famous gospel song first recorded in the 1930s by the original Carter family, pioneers of country music. As it was covered by various other groups over the decades, the tune (鈥. . . I'm going where there's no depression, To a better land that鈥檚 free from care . . .鈥) became known to audiences by the shortened title of 鈥淣o Depression.鈥
Additional biographical information on Greene is found at .
The 91传媒 Department of History website is .
91传媒 is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .