I am a second year graduate student in American history at Western Carolina University. My interests in history include the South in the Gilded Age, Regional Identity, and Environmental history. My thesis is a study of southern identity and Confederate nationalism based on the diaries of David Schenck. This summer I will be leading students in a research project designed to investigate the history of environmental issues in western North Carolina, patterns of land use, industrialization of southern Appalachia, and the delicate balance between culture and environment in western North Carolina.
Environmental history is a relatively new field of study.
It offers a diverse and fascinating look at the ways in which man has related to the environment. It traces the historiography of environmental issues and places them in a historical context. Environmental history is a unique combination of history and science, and provides students with a thorough knowledge of the existing discourse on a variety of environmental issues. Southern Appalachia was settled in the mid-eighteenth century by Scotch Irish and German immigrants moving south from Pennsylvania. They carved out communities in coves, meadows, holows, gaps and along ridges.