Mississippi Encyclopedia

The Mississippi Encyclopedia will embrace Mississippi’s past and present and will include entries on each of the state’s regions, on every county in the state, on the state’s writers, artists, and musicians, and a full treatment of state and local politics. The volume will illustrate the reality of multiple perspectives on events in the state’s history and the relationships that bind all Mississippians together. In an effort to ensure that it will be an encyclopedia of the people, the editors will be attending public meetings around the state to encourage suggestions from citizens, particularly nonacademics. Its A to Z format will facilitate use by a wide cross section of society, from students and scholars to local history buffs and curious coffee table readers. 

A team of staff from the Center is working to make the Mississippi Encyclopedia a reality. Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the Center and professor of history and Southern Studies at the University, is editor in chief of the volume. Wilson was coeditor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and is the author of two books, the editor or coeditor of several others, and a consultant on several encyclopedias. Two other Center staffers, Ann Abadie and Ted Ownby, are serving as consulting editors. Abadie, associate director of the Center, was associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Ownby is a professor of history and Southern Studies, teaches classes in Mississippi history, and is the author of two books on Southern history. His role is to consult on matters of style and interpretation and to provide guidance on primary and secondary sources in Mississippi history and culture. Both consulting editors are assisting with the suggestion of topics, scholars, resources, and both will help edit text. The editor in chief and consulting editors identified 28 topic areas and asked associate editors with subject expertise in that area to help organize entries on those topics. The associate editors suggested lists of topics and contributors and will also be writing a long introductory essay on their topics. Andrea Finley was recently hired as managing editor of the volume. (See her comments following this text.)

A list of all entries is now available on the Center’s Web site at www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/index.html. We encourage interested parties to contact the Center to volunteer to write unassigned entries, to suggest topics for inclusion, or to recommend colleagues, graduate students, and others who might be interested in contributing. Dozens of authors have accepted invitations to write entries, and we receive more acceptances almost every day.