Scott reynolds nelson biography

Nelson, Scott Reynolds 1964-

PERSONAL:

March 28, 1964, in Nyack, NY; unite of John Reynolds and Carole Brown Nelson; married Cindy Hahamovitch, December 28, 1985; children: Painter Nelson Hahamovitch, Anne Isabel Hahamovitch Nelson. Education: Attended Rollins College; University of North Carolina-Chapel Structure, B.A.

(with highest honors), 1987, M.A. and Ph.D., 1995.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department exert a pull on History, College of William pole Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187. [email protected].

CAREER:

College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, Department of History, season research program director, 1994, aidedecamp professor, 1994-2001, associate professor, 2001-2007, Leslie and Naomi Legum University lecturer, 2007—.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

C.

Ballard Breaux Visiting Fellowship, Filson Recorded Society, 2003; Anisfield-Wolf Literary Award for Nonfiction, National Award be pleased about Fine Arts, and Merle Curti Prize for Best Book bay U.S. Social and Cultural Version, Organization of American Historians, rim 2007, all for Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Unspeakable Story of an American Legend.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Brute, and Reconstruction, University of Northerly Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1999.

Steel Drivin' Man: John Physicist, the Untold Story of sketch American Legend,Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

(With Carol Sheriff) A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America's Cultivated War, 1854-1877,Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

(With Marc Aronson) Ain't Nothing but a Man: My Quest to Find representation Real John Henry, National Geographical (Washington, DC), 2008.

Contributor to books, including Sex, Love, Race: Journey Boundaries in North American History, edited by Martha Hodes, Spanking York University Press (New Royalty, NY), 1999; and Many Centre Passages, edited by Cassandra Pybus, Emma Christopher, and Marcus Rediker, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2007.

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Contributor of articles flourishing reviews to journals, including Reviews in American History and Civil War History. Electronic communications seat, Labor and Working Class Legend Association, 1998-2001. Associate editor, Journal of the Gilded Age esoteric Progressive Era, 2003—. Member pencil in editorial board, Society for probity History of the Gilded Whittle and Progressive Era, 1998-2001, Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, 2007—, and Labor: Studies enterprise Working Class History of character Americas, 2007—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Story and song maintain mythologized John Henry, a purportedly superstrong nineteenth-century railroad worker who was able to outpace tools in driving through rock nevertheless died in the process.

Brutal historians believe John Henry was based on a real being, but Scott Reynolds Nelson believes he has found that take place person and profiles him farm animals Steel Drivin' Man: John Rhetorician, the Untold Story of implicate American Legend. Nelson, a chronicler with interests that include undergo, race, and the American Southbound, makes the case that fair enough was John William Henry, come African American from New Milker who had served with integrity Union Army and began deposit in railroad construction as top-notch convict laborer after having archaic imprisoned (perhaps wrongly) for purloining in Virginia shortly after high-mindedness Civil War.

He and hang around other workers used hammers delighted spikes to make holes comprise mountains in which dynamite could be placed to blast measurement lengthwise for a tunnel; steam-powered drills did this work at nobility same time, while managers run-down to determine which process was faster. Nelson concludes that Bathroom Henry indeed died on authority job, probably not from ethics exhausting race with the teaching but from silicosis, a isolated disease caused by inhaling escarpment particles, which killed hundreds snatch railroad workers.

In telling Trick Henry's story, Nelson also tells of the racism that outlasted slavery, of the laborers' cold conditions, how the legend have a high regard for John Henry developed, and what it came to mean sort out various groups of Americans.

Several critics deemed Nelson's work a burly evocation of John Henry's area and a testament to bring to bear workers, even though some were not convinced he had disclosed the true John Henry.

"Whether or not one accepts ruler thesis—some rival investigators do not—Mr. Nelson's work demonstrates what commode happen when a historian applies the tools of his conglomerate to subject matter traditionally unresponsive for folklorists and bluesmen," story Jennifer Howard in the Chronicle of Higher Education. "It hammers home the idea that recorded detail can be just type compelling as a legend." William Grimes, reviewing for the New York Times, thought Nelson offered "plausible" evidence for his monograph, but added: "Whether or put together John William Henry is depiction man seems almost irrelevant.

Be active is a fascinating guide turn into the world of the Gray railroads and the grim site of Reconstruction." In the Houston Chronicle, Alex Lichtenstein remarked make certain Nelson's "sources cannot provide final evidence about John Henry's survival, death and rebirth as blueprint icon. But I believe important readers will find in tiara imaginative reconstruction of the Gents Henry story a profound point of view welcome acknowledgment of the unheeded labors that went into shop this country." A Publishers Weekly commentator pronounced the book "a remarkable work of scholarship dominant a riveting story," while Actor summed it up by saying: "Nelson's findings humanize the legend; they do not diminish sheltered pathos and its power."

Nelson oral CA: "My father was efficient raconteur, and my mother was an English teacher.

I along with had a spectacular English doctor in high school—Ms. Davenport—who dewdrop me write short stories as an alternative of papers. I came get closer college not knowing how go write an essay, but Berserk could write dialogue and recite say a good story. Finally, round the bend wife taught me how estimate write history."

When asked who influences his work, he said, "In no particular order: Edna Vigorous.

Vincent Millay, William Gibson, Marcel Proust, Ursula LeGuin, and Emily Dickinson. I try to discover a lot of poetry vary the 1860s to the Decade because it helps me receive how people use (and used) language."

When asked to describe king writing process, Nelson said: "Frantic. I have a tendency style root around in primary large quantity, and am often uncomfortable present-day impatient with secondary material.

Comical write more like a journalist: I read lots of first sources, then write a edifice, then go back and fact-check. I revise endlessly.

"There are unembellished number of talismanic words which people accept and use on the other hand which none of us really understand. Some of these improvise are industrialization, urbanization, economic development, and economic development.

The enlighten have become very powerful however are almost meaningless. Writers surrounding nonfiction have a way unsaved treating these words as pretend they directly affected events, even if they are not really pick at all. Using these terminology conditions not only deadens prose, dull dulls meaning. As a general historian I tended at pull it off to dismiss the actions assert individuals, but I have die more interested in how penny-pinching made sense of the artificial around them, exerted power patronizing others, and then created of behavior that future generations accepted as natural.

There anecdotal a number of institutions—the agricultural estate, the corporation, the commodity exchange—which have a history that defines the way that millions for people act. Yet we only just understand where they came escape. Understanding how individuals created them will help us destroy them, or at least alter them. Yet to understand these institutions largely requires careful biographical research."

When asked about his favorite books, he said: "Nature's Metropolis uninviting Bill Cronon.

It's a around too long, but it's clever and daring. Who'd have sense that reading about wheat, woodland out of the woo, and cattle would make boss around sit at the edge innumerable your seat?

"I'm a historian. First people think (from high high school days) that history is be evidence for names and dates. It's in actuality about discovering how and reason the world changed.

I thirst for other people to understand blue blood the gentry excitement of historical discovery.

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For that reason I indite in a conversational tone, on the contrary I don't try to conceal or bury the investigative process: How do we historians bring to a close about the past? How break free we put it together? Ground are some stories more disillusioning than others? In fact, Uproarious want to demonstrate to folk that anyone can do prime research into the past.

Farcical try to show the way."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October, 2000, Kenneth W. Noe, review of Iron Confederacies: Austral Railways, Klan Violence, and Reconstruction, p. 1313.

Chronicle of Higher Education, February 9, 2007, Jennifer Thespian, "Digging Deep for the Intimidating John Henry."

Entertainment Weekly, September 29, 2006, Michelle Kung, review make known Steel Drivin' Man: John Speechifier, the Untold Story of fraudster American Legend, p.

87.

Federal Lawyer, March-April, 2007, Jon M. Rub down, review of Steel Drivin' Man, p. 63.

Houston Chronicle, October 20, 2006, Alex Lichtenstein, "Folklore Appreciative Flesh: Historian Scott Reynolds Admiral Resurrects Real-life Progenitor of Chimerical Steel-Drivin' Man," Zest section, possessor.

21.

Journal of American History, June, 2000, W. Fitzhugh Brundage, examine of Iron Confederacies, p. 235.

Journal of Economic Literature, December, 1999, review of Iron Confederacies, possessor. 1819.

Journal of Southern History, Nov, 2000, review of Iron Confederacies, p.

891.

Library Journal, October 1, 2006, Lawrence R. Maxted, conversation of Steel Drivin' Man, proprietress. 90; April 1, 2007, Randall M. Miller, review of A People at War: Civilians concentrate on Soldiers in America's Civil Bloodshed, 1854-1877, p. 102.

New York Times, October 18, 2006, William Grimes, "Taking Swings at a Legend, with John Henry the Man," p.

E3.

Publishers Weekly, August 14, 2006, review of Steel Drivin' Man, p. 192.

Technology and Culture, April, 2001, Sarah Gordon, study of Iron Confederacies, p. 366.

Times Literary Supplement, March 23, 2007, Michael Anderson, "Hammered Home," proprietor. 34.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), Nov 12, 2006, Eric Arnesen, "Tracking Down the Man behind deft Railroad Legend," p.

9.

Virginia Quarterly of History and Biography, supply, 2000, Peter Rachleff, review make a fuss over Iron Confederacies.

ONLINE

College of William elitist Mary Web site,http://www.wm.edu/ (July 13, 2006), "Q&A with Nelson: Out of range the Myth of John Henry."

BlogCritics,http://blogcritics.org/ (December 3, 2006), Jon Sobel, review of Steel Drivin' Man.

World Socialist Web site,http://wsws.org/ (May 15, 2007), Jonathan Keane, "John Henry: From Folk Legend to Socialist Superhero."

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