Pulitzer-nominated visiting scholar focuses on race, families in old West at MTSU

An acclaimed visiting scholar and author who’s been focusing her studies on race and family history in the 19th-century American West will discuss her discoveries Tuesday, Oct. 24, in a free public lecture at MTSU.

Dr. Anne Hyde, a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and MTSU’s first Strickland Visiting Scholar in History for the 2017-18 academic year, will speak on “George’s Letters and Louise’s Land: Uncovering a ‘Half-Breed’ History of North America” Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. in the State Farm Lecture Hall in MTSU’s Business and Aerospace Building, Room BAS S-102.

Click on the poster to learn more about the Strickland Scholar Program.

A campus parking map is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParkingMap.

Hyde, who also serves as editor-in-chief of the Western History Association’s “Western Historical Quarterly,” specializes in the American West of the 1800s. Before joining the Oklahoma faculty, she spent two decades at Colorado College and chaired its Race and Ethnic Studies Program.

Dr. Anne Hyde

She’s the author of several books, including “Empires, Nations, and Families: A New History of the North American West, 1800-1860,” which earned the 2011 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

“Empires, Nations, and Families” retells the story of the American West in the decades before the Civil War by focusing on the Native empires, trappers, traders, bankers and politicians who built a global fur trade. Hyde was particularly praised for using letters and business records to document the broad family associations that crossed national and ethnic boundaries.

The professor is currently writing a history of mixed-race families in 19th-century North America. Her MTSU lecture will be followed by a book-signing session and preceded by a 5 p.m. open reception in Room BAS S-326.

The Strickland Visiting Scholar program allows MTSU students to meet with renowned scholars whose expertise spans a variety of historical issues. The Strickland family established the program in memory of Dr. Roscoe Lee Strickland Jr., a longtime professor of European history at MTSU and the first president of the university’s Faculty Senate.