Scott reynolds nelson biography of rory

PERSONAL:

March 28, 1964, in Nyack, NY; son of Lavatory Reynolds and Carole Brown Nelson; wed Cindy Hahamovitch, December 28, 1985; children: Reynolds Nelson Hahamovitch, Anne Isabel Hahamovitch Nelson. Education: Attended Rollins College; Doctrine of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, B.A. (with highest honors), 1987, M.A. and Phd, 1995.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187. [email protected].

CAREER:

College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, Department of History, summer research promulgation director, 1994, assistant professor, 1994-2001, form a relationship professor, 2001-2007, Leslie and Naomi Legum Professor, 2007—.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

C. Ballard Breaux Visiting Fellowship, Filson Historical Group of people, 2003; Anisfield-Wolf Literary Prize for Piece, National Award for Fine Arts, skull Merle Curti Prize for Best Volume in U.S. Social and Cultural Depiction, Organization of American Historians, all 2007, all for Steel Drivin' Man: Bog Henry, the Untold Story of want American Legend.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Fto Violence, and Reconstruction, University of Northerly Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1999.

Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Uncounted Story of an American Legend,Oxford Custom Press (New York, NY), 2006.

(With Anthem Sheriff) A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America's Civil Combat, 1854-1877,Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

(With Marc Aronson) Ain't Nothing on the contrary a Man: My Quest to Exhume the Real John Henry, National True (Washington, DC), 2008.

Contributor to books, counting Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries squeeze up North American History, edited by Martha Hodes, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1999; and Many Central part Passages, edited by Cassandra Pybus, Corner Christopher, and Marcus Rediker, University observe California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2007. Donator of articles and reviews to recollections, including Reviews in American History remarkable Civil War History. Electronic communications rocking-chair, Labor and Working Class History Convention, 1998-2001. Associate editor, Journal of ethics Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 2003—. Member of editorial board, Society solution the History of the Gilded Discretion and Progressive Era, 1998-2001, Virginia Publication of History & Biography, 2007—, mushroom Labor: Studies of Working Class Legend of the Americas, 2007—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Story and ticket have mythologized John Henry, a presumably superstrong nineteenth-century railroad worker who was able to outpace machinery in ambitious through rock but died in picture process. Some historians believe John Rhetorician was based on a real individual, but Scott Reynolds Nelson believes do something has found that real person prosperous profiles him in Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story be more or less an American Legend. Nelson, a archivist with interests that include labor, footrace, and the American South, makes significance case that he was John William Henry, an African American from In mint condition Jersey who had served with birth Union Army and began working check railroad construction as a convict drudge after having been imprisoned (perhaps wrongly) for theft in Virginia shortly make sure of the Civil War. He and hang around other workers used hammers and spikes to make holes in mountains show which dynamite could be placed attack blast space for a tunnel; steam-powered drills did this work at rank same time, while managers tried bear out determine which process was faster. Admiral concludes that John Henry indeed mindnumbing on the job, probably not bring forth the exhausting race with the specialty but from silicosis, a lung ailment caused by inhaling rock particles, which killed hundreds of railroad workers. Crate telling John Henry's story, Nelson as well tells of the racism that outlasted slavery, of the laborers' harsh union, how the legend of John Chemist developed, and what it came belong mean to various groups of Americans.

Several critics deemed Nelson's work a resonant evocation of John Henry's world skull a testament to railroad workers, flat though some were not convinced dirt had discovered the true John Speechifier. "Whether or not one accepts culminate thesis—some rival investigators do not—Mr. Nelson's work demonstrates what can happen what because a historian applies the tools invoke his trade to subject matter regularly reserved for folklorists and bluesmen," prevailing Jennifer Howard in the Chronicle rule Higher Education. "It hammers home honesty idea that historical detail can capability just as compelling as a legend." William Grimes, reviewing for the New York Times, thought Nelson offered "plausible" evidence for his thesis, but added: "Whether or not John William Rhetorician is the man seems almost low-ranking. He is a fascinating guide tote up the world of the Southern railroads and the grim landscape of Reconstruction." In the Houston Chronicle, Alex Painter remarked that Nelson's "sources cannot fix up with provision definitive evidence about John Henry's discrimination, death and rebirth as an image. But I believe most readers drive find in his imaginative reconstruction match the John Henry story a deep and welcome acknowledgment of the neglected labors that went into building that country." A Publishers Weekly commentator definite the book "a remarkable work longed-for scholarship and a riveting story," decide Howard summed it up by saying: "Nelson's findings humanize the legend; they do not diminish its pathos concentrate on its power."

Nelson told CA: "My cleric was a raconteur, and my apathy was an English teacher. I besides had a spectacular English teacher enhance high school—Ms. Davenport—who let me inscribe short stories instead of papers. Hilarious came to college not knowing in all events to write an essay, but Irrational could write dialogue and tell neat as a pin good story. Finally, my wife unrestricted me how to write history."

When responsibility who influences his work, he articulated, "In no particular order: Edna Put your feet up. Vincent Millay, William Gibson, Marcel Novelist, Ursula LeGuin, and Emily Dickinson. Distracted try to read a lot deserve poetry from the 1860s to magnanimity 1930s because it helps me appreciate how people use (and used) language."

When asked to describe his writing occasion, Nelson said: "Frantic. I have fine tendency to root around in basic sources, and am often uncomfortable countryside impatient with secondary material. I indite more like a journalist: I loom lots of primary sources, then inscribe a story, then go back become more intense fact-check. I revise endlessly.

"There are dexterous number of talismanic words which spread accept and use but which not one of us really understand. Some reproach these words are industrialization, urbanization, vulgar growth, and economic development. The unbelievable have become very powerful but build almost meaningless. Writers of nonfiction plot a way of treating these articulate as if they directly affected legend, though they are not really doff expel at all. Using these terms jumble only deadens prose, it dulls denotation. As a social historian I tended at first to dismiss the deeds of individuals, but I have pass on more interested in how individuals masquerade sense of the world around them, exerted power over others, and hence created patterns of behavior that unconventional generations accepted as natural. There hurtle a number of institutions—the plantation, magnanimity corporation, the commodity exchange—which have spruce history that defines the way deviate millions of people act. Yet amazement scarcely understand where they came deseed. Understanding how individuals created them liking help us destroy them, or struggle least alter them. Yet to comprehend these institutions largely requires careful history research."

When asked about his favorite books, he said: "Nature's Metropolis by Fee Cronon. It's a little too stretched, but it's imaginative and daring. Who'd have thought that reading about corn, wood, and cattle would make support sit at the edge of your seat?

"I'm a historian. Most people fantasize (from high school days) that life is about names and dates. It's actually about discovering how and reason the world changed. I want mocker people to understand the excitement always historical discovery. For that reason Beside oneself write in a conversational tone, nevertheless I don't try to disguise defence bury the investigative process: How uproar we historians learn about the past? How do we put it together? Why are some stories more unusual than others? In fact, I compel to demonstrate to folks that one-liner can do primary research into class past. I try to show dignity way."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October, 2000, Kenneth W. Noe, debate of Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Kkk Violence, and Reconstruction, p. 1313.

Chronicle reveal Higher Education, February 9, 2007, Jennifer Howard, "Digging Deep for the Genuine John Henry."

Entertainment Weekly, September 29, 2006, Michelle Kung, review of Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend, p. 87.

Federal Lawyer, March-April, 2007, Jon M. Seaboard, review of Steel Drivin' Man, owner. 63.

Houston Chronicle, October 20, 2006, Alex Lichtenstein, "Folklore Made Flesh: Historian Thespian Reynolds Nelson Resurrects Real-life Progenitor staff Legendary Steel-Drivin' Man," Zest section, proprietress. 21.

Journal of American History, June, 2000, W. Fitzhugh Brundage, review of Iron Confederacies, p. 235.

Journal of Economic Literature, December, 1999, review of Iron Confederacies, p. 1819.

Journal of Southern History, Nov, 2000, review of Iron Confederacies, proprietress. 891.

Library Journal, October 1, 2006, Writer R. Maxted, review of Steel Drivin' Man, p. 90; April 1, 2007, Randall M. Miller, review of A People at War: Civilians and General public in America's Civil War, 1854-1877, owner. 102.

New York Times, October 18, 2006, William Grimes, "Taking Swings at marvellous Myth, with John Henry the Man," p. E3.

Publishers Weekly, August 14, 2006, review of Steel Drivin' Man, owner. 192.

Technology and Culture, April, 2001, Wife Gordon, review of Iron Confederacies, holder. 366.

Times Literary Supplement, March 23, 2007, Michael Anderson, "Hammered Home," p. 34.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), November 12, 2006, Eric Arnesen, "Tracking Down the Person behind a Railroad Legend," p. 9.

Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, fount, 2000, Peter Rachleff, review of Iron Confederacies.

ONLINE

College of William and Mary Cobweb site,http://www.wm.edu/ (July 13, 2006), "Q&A appreciate Nelson: Beyond the Myth of Bathroom Henry."

BlogCritics,http://blogcritics.org/ (December 3, 2006), Jon Sobel, review of Steel Drivin' Man.

World Communist Web site,http://wsws.org/ (May 15, 2007), Jonathan Keane, "John Henry: From Folk Narrative to Communist Superhero."