Randall L. Patton

Professor of History &

Shaw Industries Distinguished Chair

 

Contact Information

 

Department of History & Philosophy                                                                               office phone:  770-423-6714

Kennesaw State University                                                                                                office fax:       770-423-6432

1000 Chastain Road                                                                                                             e-mail:  rpatton@kennesaw.edu

Kennesaw, GA  30144

 

Teaching Experience

 

·         Kennesaw State University (Kennesaw, GA  30144), 1993-Present.   

·         Radford University, (Radford, VA  24171), 1990-1993.  

 

Education

 

·         Ph.D., History, University of Georgia, 1990;  M.A., History, University of Georgia, 1985;  B.A., History, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 1982.

 

Teaching Interests

 

Upper-Division Courses Taught

 

·         U.S. Business & Economic History (HIST 3345)

·         Georgia History (HIST 3304)

·         Recent America, 1939-Present (HIST 4471)

·         The New South (HIST 3311)

 

New Courses Developed

 

·         U.S. Business and Economic History

·         Economy and Society (HIST 7740; new graduate course for M.A. in Adolescent Education)

 

Scholarship & Creative Activity

 

Books

 

·         Shaw Industries: A History, University of Georgia Press, 2002.

 

·         Carpet Capital:  The Rise of a New South Industry (with David B. Parker), University of Georgia Press, 1999.

·          

Work in progress

 

·         “Enterprise in a New South,” advance contract with Univ. of Georgia Press. 

 

Book Chapters/Articles

 

·         “Regional Advantage in the New South,” in Philip Scranton, editor, The Second Wave:  Southern Industrialization, 1940-1970, (University of Georgia Press, 2001), 81-113. 

·         "The Popular Front Alternative:  Clark H. Foreman and the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, 1938-1948," in John C. Inscoe, editor, Georgia in Black and White:  Explorations in the Race Relations of a Southern State, 1865-1950 (University of Georgia Press, 1994), 225-245.

·         “Mining the Gold Coast:  The Development of Shaw Industries in Georgia’s Carpet Capital,” Atlanta History:  A Journal of Georgia and the South 34 (Summer 2001):  5-19. 

·         “E.T. Barwick and the Rise of Northwest Georgia’s Carpet Industry,” Atlanta History:  A Journal of Georgia and the South 32 (Winter 1999):  5-18.  This article received the Atlanta History Center's Bealer Award for the best article on a non-Atlanta topic over a two-year period. 

·         "Textile Organizing in a Sunbelt South Community:  Northwest Georgia's Carpet Industry in the Early 1960s," Labor History 39 (August 1998):  291-309.

·         "'A World of Opportunity':  Labor Relations in North Georgia's Carpet Industry," Georgia Historical Quarterly 81 (Summer 1997):  426-51. 

·         "Lillian Smith and the Transformation of American Liberalism, 1945-1950," Georgia Historical Quarterly 76 (Summer 1992):  373-392.

·         "A Southern Liberal and the Politics of Anti-Colonialism:  The Governorship of Ellis Arnall," Georgia Historical Quarterly 74 (Winter 1990): 655-676.

·         "The CIO and the Search for a 'Silent South,'" Maryland Historian 19 (Fall/Winter 1988, Number 2):  1-14.

 

 

Book Reviews/Print Journals:

 

·         Denise von Herrmann, editor, Resorting to Casinos: The Mississippi Gambling Industry (Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 2006, in  Enterprise & Society 8 (June 2007), 470-72. 

·         Robert Michael Smith, From Blackjacks to Briefcases:  A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking and Unionbusting in the United States (Athens: Ohio University press, 2003), in Enterprise and Society, 5 (June 2004):  329-332. 

·         Timothy J. Minchin, Forging a Common Bond: Labor and Environmental Activism during the BASF Lockout (Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida, 2003), The Journal of Economic History 64 (March 2004), 276-78.

·         Clete Daniel, Culture of Misfortune:  An Interpretive History of Textile Unionism in the United States (Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press, 2001), Business History Review 77 (Spring 2003): 117-119.  

·         Clifford Kuhn, Contesting the New South Order:  The 1914-1915 Strike at Atlanta’s Fulton Mills (University of North Carolina Press, 2001), Journal of Southern History.

·         Cynthia D. Anderson, The Social Consequences of Economic Restructuring in the Textile Industry:  Change in a Southern Mill Village (New York:  Garland, 2000), in Business History Review 75 (Winter 2001, Number 4):  850-853.

·         David L. Sjoquist, editor, The Atlanta Paradox (Russell Sage Foundation, 2000), in The Journal of Economic History 61 (June 2001):  556-57. 

·         Lee J. Alston and Joseph P. Ferrie, Southern Paternalism and the American Welfare State:  Economics, Politics, and Institutions in the South, 1865-1965 (Cambridge University Press, 1999), in Enterprise and Society:  The International Journal of Business History 1 (September 2000):  654-56 (this is the new journal of the Business History Conference, the principle professional organization in this field). 

·         Richard Hyatt, Zell:  The Governor Who Gave Georgia Hope (Mercer University Press, 1998), in the Journal of Southern History 65 (Nov. 1999):  913-914.

·         R. Douglas Hurt, ed., The Rural South Since World War II (Louisiana State University Press, 1999), in North Carolina Historical Review 76 (No. 4, 1999):  458-459.

·         Glenn Feldman, From Demagogue to Dixiecrat:  Horace Wilkinson and the Politics of Race (University Press of America, 1995), in North Carolina Historical Review 73 (No. 2, 1996):  246-247.

·         Gary Fink and Merl Reed, Race, Class, and Community in Southern Labor History (University of Alabama Press, 1994), in Georgia Historical Quarterly 79 (Jan. 1995):  293-294.

·         Allen Tullos, Habits of Industry:  White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont (University of North Carolina Press, 1989), in the Maryland Historian 21 (Fall-Winter 1990):  64-66.

 

Book Reviews/H-Net Reviews

 

·         Bryant Simon, A Fabric of Defeat:  The Politics of South Carolina Millhands, 1910-1948 (University of North Carolina Press, 1998), for H-South, March 1999.

·         Patricia Sullivan, Days of Hope:  Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era (University of North Carolina Press, 1996), for H-Review, July 1997. 

·         Ann Durkin Keating, Invisible Networks:  Exploring the History of Local Utilities and Public Works (Krieger, 1994), for H-Local, June 1995.

 

(The above reviews may be found by searching the H-Net Reviews database at

http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/)

 

Manuscript Reviews

Mercer University Press, 2005.  Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, University of Georgia Press, 2003.

 

Article manuscript review, Business History Review, 2003. 

·         Book proposal review, Oxford University Press, June 2002. 

·         Article manuscript review, Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1994.

 

 

Encyclopedia Entries

 

·         “The American Carpet Industry EH.NET’s Online Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History (EH.NET is an economic history discussion network affiliated with H-Net). 

·         "Carpet Mill Workers," in Jean Haskell Speer and Rudy Abramson, eds., Encyclopedia of Appalachia (University of Tennessee Press, 2003).

·         "Business and Industry as Local History Topics," in Carol Kammen and Norma Prendergrast, eds., The Encyclopedia of Local History, (Lanham, Md.:  AltaMira Press, 2000). 

·         "Carpet Industry," “Interface, Inc.,” and “Shaw Industries,” “Governor Ed Rivers,” for John Inscoe, ed., The New Georgia Encyclopedia, online. 

·         Entries on "Southern Conference for Human Welfare," "Southern Regional Council," and "Southern Negro Youth Congress," in John Marszalek and Charles Lowery, eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights (Westport, Conn.:  Greenwood Press, 1992).

 

Major Paper Presentations

 

  • “Mills B. Lane and Enterprise in a New South,” Economic and Business Historical Society, Montgomery, Alabama, April 19, 2008. 
  • “From Cabin Craft to Carpet Capital:  The Transformation of an Appalachian Handcraft,” Appalachian Studies Association Annual Meeting, Unicoi State Park, Georgia, March 26, 2002. 

·         "A History of Shaw Industries," The Sunbelt Revisited, conference sponsored by the Center for Society and Industry in the Modern South, Georgia Institute of Technology, March 24, 2000.

·         "The Creation of Northwest Georgia's Carpet Industry," Business History Conference Annual Meeting, Chapel Hill, NC, March 1999

·         "Indigenous Industrialization in the New South:  Georgia's Carpet Industry," The Second Wave:  Southern Industrialization, 1940-1970, conference held at Georgia Institute of Technology, June 6, 1998.

·         "The Southernization of the American Carpet Industry," Economic and Business Historical Society Annual Meeting, Savannah, Georgia, April 1996.  

·         "Dixie Belle Mills versus the TWUA: Labor-Management Relations in Georgia's Carpet Industry," Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, November 1995.  An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Georgia Association of Historians Annual Meeting in April 1995, Jekyll Island, Georgia.  

 

Editorial Boards/Experience

 

·         Co-editor (with KSU colleagues Tom Scott, David Parker, and Ann Pullen), 20th century history section, New Georgia Encyclopedia, forthcoming online through Galileo.

·         Editorial Board, Atlanta History:  A Journal of Georgia and the South (appointed for a three year term, 2001-2003). 

·         Editorial Assistant, Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1987-88.

 

Comments at Professional Meetings

 

·         Commentator, Southern Industrialization Project session, Southern Historical Association, Birmingham, Alabama, Nov. 4, 2006.   

·         Chair and commentator, session on “Liberals and Conservatives in the Mid-Twentieth Century South,” Organization of American Historians Southern Regional Meeting, July 10, 2004, Atlanta, Georgia.  

·         Comment on session, “Entrepreneurship in the Twentieth Century Southern Economy,” Southern Industrialization Project Annual meeting, Vanderbilt University, Sept. 6, 2003. 

·         Invited commentator for Tami Friedman (Columbia University), "'Trying to Fill Up a Sieve': The Response to Capital Migration in Northern Carpet Communities, 1955-1995," Research Seminar, Feb. 8, 2001, Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware. The Hagley Museum paid for my travel for this meeting.   

·         Commentator, session on Farmers and Workers in 1890s Georgia, Southern Labor Studies Conference, Georgia State University, Oct. 12, 1999.

 

Professional Service Activities

 

Leadership Roles in Professional Organizations/Activities

 

 

·         Executive Committee, Southern Industrialization Project, 2001-present.  SIP is now affiliated with the Southern Historical Association and will hold a concurrent session with SHA beginning with the 2004 annual meeting. 

·         Member, Bennett H. Wall Award Committee (2001-2002) Southern Historical Association (This new book prize was awarded for the first time in November 2002 to the best book in southern business or economic history over a two-year period).    

·         President, Georgia Association of Historians, 2001-2002

·         Program Committee Chair, Georgia Association of Historians (GAH), 2000-2001

·         Co-coordinator for new Consortium on Georgia History, a cooperative effort of KSU’s Center for Regional History & Culture, Augusta State University’s Center for the Study of Georgia History, Georgia College & State University’s Center for Georgia Studies, and several other departments of history and centers throughout the state.  

·         Helped organize annual symposia on Georgia history (sponsored by the Consortium), 2001 (held in Savannah) and 2002 (Milledgeville).  Each symposium featured an invited keynote speaker and several lectures solicited through a traditional call for papers

·         President, Georgia-Florida Region, The Historical Society (THS), 1999-2000

·         Organized conference, "C. Vann Woodward and the Idea of a New South," for THS regional meeting, Oct. 6, 2000.

·         Georgia Association of Historians Executive Council, 1997-2000

·         Chair, Georgia Association of Historians Promotion of History Committee, 1995-97