Francis Butler Simkins

Francis B. Simkins (c. 1963)

Francis Butler Simkins (December 14, 1897 – February 8, 1966) was a historian and president of the Southern Historical Association. He is best known for his highly praised history of Reconstruction in South Carolina, that gave fair coverage to all sides, and for his widely used textbook The South, Old and New (1947) and his monographs on South Carolina history. He was a colorful if eccentric professor at a small college in Virginia. He was a leading progressive in the 1920s and 1930s regarding race relations, but became more conservative in the 1950s and 1960s.[1]

Career

Born in Edgefield, South Carolina, Simkins received his B.A. from the University of South Carolina in 1918 and his M.A. (1921) and Ph.D. (1929) from Columbia University in New York.[2] He spent most of his academic career as a professor of history at the small Longwood College in Farmville, Virginia.

Simkins also taught at Louisiana State University, where he was a mentor of Charles P. Roland, another historian of the South and the Civil War.[3]

Scholarship

Simkins published eight history books, numerous scholarly articles, and an abundance of miscellaneous work including book reviews and encyclopedia articles. His obituary in The Journal of America History [4] in 1966 said that Simkins was "an emancipated critic of the old order" and that "he came to stress the distinctive characteristics of 'the everlasting South', and to question the validity of much that passed for progress in the modern South."

Simkins' most famous work covers South Carolina history. In South Carolina During Reconstruction (with Robert Hilliard Woody) (1931) he broke with the Dunning School and gave a well-balanced history. Howard K. Beale praised it: "With refreshing freedom from prejudice and special pleading, the authors picture honest, unselfish carpetbaggers, respectable, well-meaning scalawags, and Negroes with intelligence and political ability."[5] W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that the book "does not hesitate to give a fair account of the Negroes and of some of their work."[6]

In Pitchfork Ben Tillman (1944) Simkins covered the highly controversial politician Benjamin Tillman who served as the violently anti-black white supremacist governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894 and as a United States Senator from 1895 until his death in 1918, known for his numerous speeches.

Simkins in the 1920s could cross racial lines in his scholarship, and challenge the "Lost Cause" theme in the 1930s, Yet when desegregation began in the 1950s Simkins discovered much he thought should be preserved, and he became a spokesman for preserving it as a tradition. By 1964 David Potter says he was, "almost the only practicing historian of the South who defends the major and historic Southern institution of segregation."[7] In 2015 after Harper Lee released her novel Go Set a Watchman, historian David B. Parker called him "The Historian Who Evolved the Same Way as Atticus Finch".[8]

Major works

The contributions of Simkins in the field of southern history were extensive:

Honors

The triennial Francis B. Simkins Award is awarded by the Southern Historical Association for best first book about the South.[10]

In addition to the Dunning Prize, Simkins held research fellowships at the Social Science Research Council and the John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, delivered the Fleming Lectures at LSU, and the Centennial Lectures at the University of Mississippi. He was president of the Southern Historical Association in 1953-1954.

References

  1. ↑ James S. Humphreys, Francis Butler Simkins: A Life (2008)
  2. ↑ historynewsnetwork.org
  3. ↑ "Roland, My Odyssey Through History". lsu.edu. Retrieved February 3, 2011.
  4. ↑ The Journal of American History
  5. ↑ Howard K. Beale in The American Historical Review (1933) 38#2 p. 345 in JSTOR
  6. ↑ historynewsnetwork.org
  7. ↑ Potter (1964) p 458
  8. ↑ historynewsnetwork.org
  9. ↑ Dunning Prize - Book Help Web
  10. ↑ Southern Historical Association | Awards

Further reading

External links

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