UAH History Alum Joseph T. Richardson Receives John W. Odom Memorial Prize in Southern History from the University of Mississippi

The history department congratulates our alumnus Joseph T. Richardson on receiving the John W. Odom Memorial Prize in Southern History at the University of Mississippi. The prize is named in honor of Mr. Odom of DeSoto County, Mississippi, who was a benefactor of the university.

The purpose of the prize is to recognize outstanding scholarship in the field of Southern history. The prize is awarded annually to the student at the university who presents the best paper dealing with a topic in Southern history, as determined by a faculty committee.

Joseph's paper was entitled "'Discovering' the Plain Folk: Frank Lawrence Owsley and History from Manuscript Census Returns." It examined the methodological breakthrough of Southern historian Frank Lawrence Owsley, who in the 1940s became the first social historian to make a large-scale, systematic use of the United States manuscript census returns to study the southern "plain folk," or yeomanry.

Congratulations, Joseph!