The 11^th Cotton & Rural History Conference
April 21, 2007, 9:30 AM-1:30 PM
Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum, Greenville, Texas

Keynote Speaker Don Graham
"Cotton Fields Forever: An Informal Commentary on Life, Cotton, and Art"

Dr. Graham is J. Frank Dobie Regents' Professor in American Literature at The University of Texas and award-winning author and columnist for Texas Monthly

Graham, a regular contributor to Texas Monthly, has written numerous works on Texas literature, folklore and history. In addition to too many scholarly and popular articles to count, Graham has written or edited over ten books, including  Kings of Texas: The 150-Year Saga of an American Ranching Empire (2003), with Larry McMurtry, Lone Star Literature: From the Red River to the Rio Grande (2003), Giant Country: Essays on Texas (1998) and Cowboys and Cadillacs: How Hollywood Looks at Texas (1983). Among his many other accolades is the Chancellor's Council Outstanding Teaching Award.

Conference goers also will hear from scholars presenting the fruit of their research in cotton and rural history.  Sam Tullock will present "Churching the Unrepentant: Rural Church Discipline in the Collin Baptist Association, 1880-1920."  Dr. Tullock is Professor and Chair of the Department of History, Collin College.  His research has focused on both early American church history and nineteenth century and early twentieth century Texas Baptists. 

Carol Taylor will present “Rural Women and the Great War in Hunt County, Texas : Feeding the Army and Families.”  Ms. Taylor, Director of the Northeast Texas Genealogical Center and graduate student in History at Texas A&M University - Commerce, is the co-author of "The Devil’s Triangle: Ben Bickerstaff, Northeast Texans, and the War of Reconstruction in Texas" (forthcoming from ETHA Press). 

The conference is sponsored each year by the Department of History, Social and Behavioral Sciences Division, Collin College, and the Archives and Oral History Program, Texas A&M University - Commerce  A $10 registration fee includes lunch.  Advance reservations may be made by contacting the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum, 600 Interstate 30 East, P.O. Box 347, Greenville, Texas 75403.  The museum can be reached by telephone at (903) 454-1990 or (903) 450-4502.  

Directions to the Museum                       

To learn more about the annual conferences, read below.  To contact the conference organizers, scroll to the end of the page.   

Past Cotton and Rural History Conferences

For the past ten years the conference has benefited from the generosity of notable and award-winning scholars working in the fields of social, agricultural and rural history, folklore and the oral narrative.  They have included J. Brett Adams, Jacques D. Bagur, D. Clayton Brown, Walter Buenger, the late Robert A. Calvert, Jr., Randolph B. Campbell, Adrienne Caughfield, Edward Countryman, John Hanners, Paul Harvey, Jr., Karen Gerhardt, Eric Gruver, Melissa LaPrelle, Gwendolyn Lawe, Kay Mizell, Lois E. Myers, Kristopher Paschal, Jeri Reed, Debra Reid, Rebecca Sharpless, Thad Sitton, Susanne Summers, Sam Tullock, Keith Volanto, Jeannie Whayne, Patricia Wingate, Lee Winniford and Dan K. Utley.