USC History Department Welcomes Four New Faculty

Don H. Doyle, McCausland Professor of History, comes to USC after teaching for 30 years at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Doyle received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at Davis and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He is presently at work on a collection of essays co-edited with Marco Pamplona, Nationalism in the New World, which will appear in English and Portuguese. He is also working on a book that will interpret nationalism in the United States from the Revolution into the twentieth century.

Ann Johnson comes to USC from Fordham University. She received her B.A. from the College of William and Mary, her M.F.A. from Yale University, and a joint Ph.D. in the History of Science from Princeton University. Dr. Johnson's main area of research is the History of Contemporary Science and Technology. Recent publications include: "From Boeing to Berkley: Civil Engineers, The Cold War, and the Origins of Finite Element Analysis" published in Growing Explanations by Duke University Press and edited by M. Norton Wise. She also expects to publish "End of Pure Science? Science Policy from Bayh-Dole tot he NNI" in Discovering the Nanoscale, edited by Alfred Nordmann, in 2004.

Marjorie J. Spruill comes to USC from Vanderbilt University where she served as Associate Provost and Research Professor in History. Dr. Spruill received her B.A. in American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her M.A.T. from Duke University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Dr. Spruill's main concentration in research is United States Women and Gender History since 1865 and United States Southern History. Best known for her work on the woman suffrage movement, Spruill is currently working on cultural conflicts between feminists and antifeminists in the 1970s and the role of gender issues in the right turn in American politics. Spruill is a member of the Executive Council of the Southern Historical Association (SHA) and is a past president of the Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH).

Lauren Sklaroff will be joining the USC History Department at the beginning of the Spring 2005 semester. She received a B. A. in English and History from Wellesley College in 1995. Dr. Sklaroff earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Virginia in January 2003. Her main concentration in research is 20th Century Cultural and Intellectual History. Sklaroff was also the recipient of the 2002 Loius Pelzer Memorial Award, granted by the Organization of American Historians, for her article, "Constructing G.I. Joe Louis: Cultural Solutions to the 'Negro Problem' During World War II."

The Tennesean, July 13, 2004:

VU educator leaving for S. Carolina
By MICHAEL CASS
Staff Writer

Noted historian has written on history of Nashville
A noted historian of Nashville is leaving the city's top university to teach in another state, saddening local history lovers.Don Doyle, who has held an endowed chair at Vanderbilt University since 2000 and taught at the university since 1974, will move to the University of South Carolina this fall and hold a new endowed chair there.

Doyle has written a two-volume city history, Nashville in the New South, 1880-1930 and Nashville Since the 1920s, as well as New Men, New Cities, New South: Atlanta, Nashville, Charleston, Mobile, 1860-1910, and books on William Faulkner, nationalism and other subjects.

USC has been building a strong American history program in recent years and stole away another top Southern historian, Dan T. Carter, from an endowed chair at Emory University in 2000. The addition of Doyle, who will be the first McCausland Professor of History, is ''quite a feather in our history department's cap,'' USC spokeswoman Peggy Binette said yesterday.
Doyle could not be reached for comment.

Doyle's wife, Vanderbilt professor and associate provost Marjorie Spruill, also is moving to South Carolina's flagship university. Spruill is an expert on women's history and the South.

Vanderbilt officials declined to say much about Doyle's move, calling it a personnel matter. But Richard McCarty, dean of the College of Arts and Science, did say the university regretted the loss of its Nelson Tyrone Jr. Professor of History.

''He has been an outstanding faculty member for 30 years,'' McCarty said.
Nashville history buffs said they, too, were sorry to hear Doyle was departing the city he wrote about with greater skill than most. ''There are not that many names that are recognized,'' said Sue Loper, special collections/Nashville Room manager at the Nashville Public Library. ''His was one of those names that was.''