The University of Georgia, Department of History

Keri Leigh Merritt

19th C. America; U.S. South; Class and Race

Graduate Student
BA, Emory 2003; MA UGA 2007; PhD UGA in progress

klm13@uga.edu

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Research and Teaching Interests

[African American]
[Capitalism]
[Cultural & Intellectual]
[Political & Legal]
[U.S. 19th & 20th Century]
[U.S. South]
[War and Diplomacy]

Dissertation

"A Second Degree of Slavery: How Black Emancipation Freed the South's Poor Whites," supervised by Dr. James C. Cobb (In Progress)

MA Thesis

"'A Vile, Immoral, and Profligate Course of Life': Poor Whites and the Enforcement of Vagrancy Law in Antebellum Georgia," supervised by Dr. John Inscoe (2007)

Selected Publications

"Class Crisis and the Civil War: Poor Whites, Slavery, and the Southern Labor Problem," in And the War Came: Essays on the Coming of the Civil War, ed. John Neff (Mississippi, forthcoming)

"'A Vile, Immoral, and Profligate Course of Life': Poor Whites and the Enforcement of Vagrancy Law in Antebellum Georgia," in Southern Society and Its Transformations, 1780-1860, ed. Delfino, Gillespie, and Kyriakoudes (University of Missouri Press, 2011) More Info

Honors and Awards

Dean's Award, UGA Graduate School (2012)

Gregory Fellowship, UGA History Department (2010)

James C. Bonner Master's Thesis Award, Georgia Historical Society (2009)

Thomas Pleasant Vincent Sr. Award, Department of History, University of Georgia, to a distinguished student with interest in Georgia history (2008)

Award for Excellence in Student Research Using Historical Records, Graduate Level, The Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board (GHRAB), for MA thesis (2007)

Courses Taught

HIST2112: U.S. History 1865 to Present [Syllabus]

HIST3090: The American South [Syllabus]