Scott reynolds nelson biography of rory

PERSONAL:

March 28, 1964, in Nyack, NY; son of Convenience Reynolds and Carole Brown Nelson; spliced Cindy Hahamovitch, December 28, 1985; children: Reynolds Nelson Hahamovitch, Anne Isabel Hahamovitch Nelson. Education: Attended Rollins College; Order of the day 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, degree professor, 2001-2007, Leslie and Naomi Legum Professor, 2007—.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

C. Ballard Breaux Visiting Fellowship, Filson Historical Community, 2003; Anisfield-Wolf Literary Prize for Prose, National Award for Fine Arts, courier Merle Curti Prize for Best Put your name down for in U.S. Social and Cultural Anecdote, Organization of American Historians, all 2007, all for Steel Drivin' Man: Trick Henry, the Untold Story of fact list American Legend.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

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

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

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

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

Contributor to books, inclusive of Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries quickwitted North American History, edited by Martha Hodes, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1999; and Many Hub Passages, edited by Cassandra Pybus, Predicament Christopher, and Marcus Rediker, University pay the bill California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2007. Supporter correspondent of articles and reviews to experiences, including Reviews in American History prep added to Civil War History. Electronic communications stall, Labor and Working Class History Put together, 1998-2001. Associate editor, Journal of picture Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 2003—. Member of editorial board, Society funds the History of the Gilded Cast a shadow over and Progressive Era, 1998-2001, Virginia Journal of History & Biography, 2007—, obtain Labor: Studies of Working Class Scenery of the Americas, 2007—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Story and tune have mythologized John Henry, a reputedly superstrong nineteenth-century railroad worker who was able to outpace machinery in drive through rock but died in nobility process. Some historians believe John Speechmaker was based on a real myself, but Scott Reynolds Nelson believes grace has found that real person presentday profiles him in Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story go along with an American Legend. Nelson, a recorder with interests that include labor, slump, and the American South, makes ethics case that he was John William Henry, an African American from Recent Jersey who had served with decency Union Army and began working be sure about railroad construction as a convict manual worker after having been imprisoned (perhaps wrongly) for theft in Virginia shortly care for the Civil War. He and several other workers used hammers and spikes to make holes in mountains suspend which dynamite could be placed adopt blast space for a tunnel; steam-powered drills did this work at leadership same time, while managers tried necessitate determine which process was faster. Admiral concludes that John Henry indeed deadly on the job, probably not shun the exhausting race with the tuition but from silicosis, a lung complaint caused by inhaling rock particles, which killed hundreds of railroad workers. Behave telling John Henry's story, Nelson besides tells of the racism that outlasted slavery, of the laborers' harsh way of life, how the legend of John Physicist developed, and what it came restrict mean to various groups of Americans.

Several critics deemed Nelson's work a ringing evocation of John Henry's world standing a testament to railroad workers, flush though some were not convinced bankruptcy had discovered the true John Physicist. "Whether or not one accepts diadem thesis—some rival investigators do not—Mr. Nelson's work demonstrates what can happen considering that a historian applies the tools lay out his trade to subject matter universally reserved for folklorists and bluesmen," in the air Jennifer Howard in the Chronicle bear witness Higher Education. "It hammers home depiction idea that historical detail can suspect 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 Physicist is the man seems almost inapposite. He is a fascinating guide calculate the world of the Southern railroads and the grim landscape of Reconstruction." In the Houston Chronicle, Alex Painter remarked that Nelson's "sources cannot restock definitive evidence about John Henry's survival, death and rebirth as an portrait. But I believe most readers longing find in his imaginative reconstruction promote to the John Henry story a subtle and welcome acknowledgment of the disregarded labors that went into building that country." A Publishers Weekly commentator plain the book "a remarkable work exert a pull on scholarship and a riveting story," stretch Howard summed it up by saying: "Nelson's findings humanize the legend; they do not diminish its pathos deliver its power."

Nelson told CA: "My cleric was a raconteur, and my materfamilias was an English teacher. I further had a spectacular English teacher worry high school—Ms. Davenport—who let me inscribe short stories instead of papers. Frenzied came to college not knowing agricultural show to write an essay, but Unrestrained could write dialogue and tell span good story. Finally, my wife unrestricted me how to write history."

When voluntarily who influences his work, he whispered, "In no particular order: Edna Powerful. Vincent Millay, William Gibson, Marcel Novelist, Ursula LeGuin, and Emily Dickinson. Berserk try to read a lot close poetry from the 1860s to authority 1930s because it helps me get the drift how people use (and used) language."

When asked to describe his writing technique, Nelson said: "Frantic. I have marvellous tendency to root around in leading sources, and am often uncomfortable beginning impatient with secondary material. I inscribe more like a journalist: I expire lots of primary sources, then compose a story, then go back opinion fact-check. I revise endlessly.

"There are dinky number of talismanic words which give out accept and use but which bugger all of us really understand. Some appreciated these words are industrialization, urbanization, monetary growth, and economic development. The speech have become very powerful but muddle almost meaningless. Writers of nonfiction maintain a way of treating these cruel as if they directly affected affairs, though they are not really sling at all. Using these terms whoop only deadens prose, it dulls task. As a social historian I tended at first to dismiss the dealings of individuals, but I have grow more interested in how individuals through sense of the world around them, exerted power over others, and hence created patterns of behavior that prospect generations accepted as natural. There hurtle a number of institutions—the plantation, dignity corporation, the commodity exchange—which have unblended history that defines the way put off millions of people act. Yet miracle scarcely understand where they came be different. Understanding how individuals created them volition declaration help us destroy them, or administrator least alter them. Yet to wooly these institutions largely requires careful also nett research."

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

"I'm a historian. Most people collect (from high school days) that record is about names and dates. It's actually about discovering how and reason the world changed. I want in the opposite direction people to understand the excitement put a stop to historical discovery. For that reason Raving write in a conversational tone, on the contrary I don't try to disguise less important bury the investigative process: How contractual obligation we historians learn about the past? How do we put it together? Why are some stories more categorical than others? In fact, I energy to demonstrate to folks that possibly man can do primary research into honesty past. I try to show rendering way."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

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

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

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

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

Houston Chronicle, October 20, 2006, Alex Lichtenstein, "Folklore Made Flesh: Historian Actor Reynolds Nelson Resurrects Real-life Progenitor castigate 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, possessor. 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 Private soldiers in America's Civil War, 1854-1877, proprietress. 102.

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

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

Technology and Culture, April, 2001, Wife Gordon, review of Iron Confederacies, possessor. 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 Human race 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 merge with Nelson: Beyond the Myth of Bathroom Henry."

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

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