Whayne Doubly Honored

Photo Submitted

Jeannie Whayne signing copies of Delta Empire at That Bookstore in Blytheville, Ark., in January.

Jeannie Whayne's new book book, Delta Empire: Lee Wilson and the Transformation of Agriculture in the New South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011) has been awarded the Arkansas Historical Association's J.G. Ragsdale Award for best book-length (non fiction) historical study published on any Arkansas history topic. On another front, Whayne has been elected vice president and president elect of the Agricultural History Society. 

The J.G. Ragsdale Book Award is given in honor of J.G. Ragsdale, a 1919 graduate of the University of Arkansas, a former chair of the board of trustees of the University of Arkansas, and a founding member of the Arkansas Historical Association.  The award will be presented at the annual conference of the Arkansas Historical Association in April 2012. The Association dates its founding to February 22, 1941, when one hundred people assembled at the Hotel Marion in Little Rock. Those people included a future senator (J. William Fulbright) and other leaders of the state.  The following year the Association commenced publishing the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, the primary vehicle for scholarly articles on the history of Arkansas.

Whayne, who was designated a "Fellow of the Society" by the Agricultural History Society in 2010 in recognition of her scholarship and service to the organization, will commence her vice-presidency in June 2012 and her presidency in June 2013. The Agricultural History Society, founded in Washington, D.C., in 1919, is an international and interdisciplinary society of scholars who focus on the field of agricultural history, broadly defined.  Initially affiliated with the American Historical Association, the Agricultural History Society is the third oldest, discipline-based professional organization in the United States.  Currently the membership includes, historians, agricultural economists, anthropologists, economists, environmentalists, historical geographers, rural sociologists, and a variety of independent scholars.