George B. Ellenberg
- Position: Professor
- Department: History and Philosophy
- Office Location: Building 86, Room 112
- GEllenberg@uwf.edu
- Campus: 850.474.2680
Biography
Dr. George B. Ellenberg, professor of history, conducts research on history of the Old and New South, and agrarianism in American history.
Growing up in the South, Ellenberg gained an appreciation for his agricultural roots, and this background guided his scholarly interest in historical agriculture and agrarianism. He has published numerous book reviews, articles, and encyclopedia entries on various aspects of agricultural mechanization and modernization in the context of the American South. Two of those articles, “Debating Farm Power: Draft Animals, Tractors, and the United States Department of Agriculture,” and “African Americans, Mules, and the Southern Mindscape, 1850-1950,” were published in Agricultural History, the journal of the Agricultural History Society. The latter article was also presented as a paper at a meeting of the Agricultural History Society held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ellenberg’s book, “From Mule South to Tractor South: Mules, Machines and the Transformation of the Cotton South,” describes the adoption of the mule as the preeminent draft animal in the American South and its ultimate displacement by the mechanical tractor. The book also focuses on subsequent cultural and economic shifts in the southern mind and the region’s culture. His book received the University of Alabama Press Faculty Editorial Board’s Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize, as the manuscript “most deserving in Alabama or Southern history or culture.”
A faculty member in the UWF history department since 1994, Ellenberg has been recognized by students and his peers for his dedication to teaching excellence. He has received UWF’s Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as a State University System of Florida Teaching Incentive Program Award.
Ellenberg attended the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education seminar at Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2015. In 2007, he was named an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow. During the 2007-2008 academic year, he worked with executive leadership at Georgia State College and University. Ellenberg was a member of the 2000-2001 UWF Leadership Enhancement and Development Program. He was also selected as a participant in the Summer Seminar in Military History West Point, New York. Additionally, he has taught a graduate-level course in strategy and warfare at the Naval War College in its distance education program.
Degrees & Institutions
Ellenberg received his bachelor’s degree in secondary education (history) and a master’s degree in history from Clemson University, and a doctorate in history from University of Kentucky, where he was a recipient of the Thomas D. Clark and Dissertation Year Fellowships.
Research
Ellenberg's research includes draft animal use in the South and the shift from draft animals to mechanized agriculture in the South.
Classes Taught:
History of the Old South (undergraduate and graduate), History of the New South (undergraduate and graduate), Civil War and Reconstruction, American History, 1877-1919, American Military History and Strategy and Policy of Warfare
Special Interests
American South, Agricultural History, Late-19th and Early-20th Century America
Publications
"Tractors" in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (Indiana University Press, 2007).
“Horses and Mules” in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (Indiana University Press, 2007).
“Debating Farm Power: Draft Animals, Tractors, and the United States Department of Agriculture,” In Agricultural History, 74 (Summer 2000): 545-568.
“African Americans, Mules, and the Southern Mindscape, 1850-1950,” In Agricultural History, 72 (Spring 1998): 381-398.
“ ‘May the Club Work Go On Forever’: Home Demonstration and Rural Progressivism in 1920s Ballard County,” InThe Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 96 (Spring 1998): 137-166.
“An Uncivil War of Words: Indian Removal in the Press, 1830.” In Atlanta History 23 (Spring 1989): 49-59.
Mule South to Tractor South: Mules, Machines, and the Transformation of the Cotton South
(University of Alabama Press, 2007), recipient of the Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize
"Mules" in Encyclopedia of Alabama History, November 2008
Affiliations:
Southern Historical Association
The Historical Society
Agricultural History Society
Society for Military History
Phi Alpha Theta
Phi Kappa Phi
Awards and Honors:
Numerous teaching awards such as the University of West Florida Student Government Association Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Arts and Sciences, 1999-2000.
American Council on Education Fellow, Class of 2007-2008
Alumnus of the Summer Seminar in Military History, United States Military Academy at West Point, 2001
Keywords: agrarianism, Old South, New South, Naval War College, strategy and warfare