NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Daniel Usner, who has taught and written
extensively about colonial America, American Indians and the
significance of the frontier, has been named chair of the Vanderbilt
University Department of History. Usner, the Holland M. McTyeire
Professor of History, has a strong research-based interest in the
American South during the colonial period and the early years of the
Republic and also in Indian-U.S. relations during the 19th century.
"It is a great honor to serve as chair of Vanderbilt’s history
department," Usner said. "My colleagues in this department
produce extraordinary scholarship in an impressive array of fields and,
moreover, are among the University’s most generous and effective
citizens." Usner is also grateful for inspiration and leadership
provided by his predecessor, Professor of History Marshall Eakin, who
guided the department through one of its most challenging and dynamic
phases.
Usner received his doctorate from Duke University in 1981. He came
to Vanderbilt in 2003 from Cornell University, where he taught for 22
years and helped found the American Indian Program. While there he
received the Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award.
He also spent one year as a Senior Fulbright Professor at the
Amerika-Institut of the University of Munich. In 2003-04, Usner
was the Los Angeles Times Distinguished Fellow at The Huntington
Library in San Marino, Calif.
Usner’s books include American Indians in the Lower Mississippi
Valley (University of Nebraska Press, 1998) and Indians, Settlers and
Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy (University of North
Carolina Press, 1992). The latter won the Omohundro Institute of Early
American History and Culture’s Jamestown Prize and the American
Historical Association’s John H. Dunning Prize. Usner has a forthcoming
book titled A Frontier History of Mississippi, and he is working on
another one about Louisiana Indians between 1800 and 1930.
Some of his previous activities include serving as guest curator for
a special exhibit at the Historic New Orleans Collection, sitting on
the council of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and
Culture, directing the American Indian Program during his last three
years at Cornell, and leading teacher workshops for the National
Council for History Education.
Media contact: Ann Marie Deer Owens, (615) 322-NEWS
Annmarie.owens@vanderbilt.edu