Brenda Eagles
Brenda Eagles
Designed by Brenda Eagles, research librarian and bibliographer at the Center, the massive volume will focus exclusively on scholarly works in Mississippi history and will provide a brief annotation to each of the cited works in the comprehensive bibliography.
Six specialists in Mississippi history are writing interpretative essays to introduce each section of the bibliography. Patricia Galloway of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History will survey writings on the prestatehood era, and an essay by Bradley G. Bond of the University of Southern Mississippi will cover the antebellum period.
Michael Ballard of Mississippi State University will appraise scholarship on the Civil War and Reconstruction, while West Virginia Wesleyan College s Stephen Cresswell will analyze works on the period from 1876 through World War I. Writings on the era from World War I to the 1954 Brown decision will be assessed by Chester Morgan of Delta State University. John Dittmer of DePauw University will evaluate studies of Mississippi's recent past.
The Bibliography of Mississippi History project has been under way since 1988, when the American Association for State and Local History awarded the Center a start-up grant that allowed Eagles to devote a year to collecting citations. The Phil Hardin Foundation of Meridian has provided recent funding for the project.
Eagles, who holds master s degrees in both history and library science, has been bibliographical editor of the Journal of Mississippi History since 1986. This editorial work convinced Eagles of the need for a bibliographical work to guide students and scholars in their work in Mississippi history.
The bibliography will focus on published sources such as books, articles, essays, and unpublished theses and dissertations. Restricted to secondary works, it will be a comprehensive, annotated guide to the historical literature on Mississippi.
Raj Betapudi
Contents