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Timothy Johnson

U.S. South, Post-1865 U.S., Agriculture and Environment

Graduate Student
BA, Colorado College, 2005

Office: 103 LeConte
timjohns@uga.edu

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My dissertation looks at the emergence of input-intensive agriculture in America from the Civil War Era through the Cold War. In particular, I am interested in the environmental, political, and economic implications of the transition from local approaches to feeding plants to a vast, energy-intensive system built by the fertilizer industry. Farmers in the American South were the shock-troops of this new fertilizer-fueled agricultural regime, but since World War II, this new system has become the global standard.

Research and Teaching Interests

[African American]
[Capitalism]
[Environment & Agriculture]
[U.S. 19th & 20th Century]
[U.S. South]

Dissertation

"Growth Industry: Unearthing the Origins of Fertilizer-Fueled Agriculture in America, 1865-1950," supervised by Dr. Shane Hamilton (In Progress)

MA Thesis

"The Growth Industry: Fertilizer and the Politics of Agriculture on the Georgia Cotton Belt, 1840-1900," supervised by Dr. Shane Hamilton (2010)

Honors and Awards

Research Fellow, Philadelphia Area Center for the History of Science (2013-2014)

History Project Research Grant, Harvard Center for History and Economics, The Harvard History Project awards research funding to projects dealing with economic history, broadly construed (2013)

Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (Ecological History field), Social Science Research Council (2012)

Travel Grant, National Science Foundation, Provides travel funds for scholars presenting at the 2012 American Society of Environmental History Conference (2012)

Carl Vipperman Teaching Assistantship Award, UGA History Department (2012)

Bonner Award, Georgia College and State University, Best Thesis in Georgia History (2012)

Excellence in Student Research Using Historical Records, Secretary of State / Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board (2010)