Campus News

Historical group honors UGA Press, professor

In a ceremony held Oct. 21, the Georgia Historical Society presented two of its most prestigious awards to a UGA faculty member and the University of Georgia Press.

John C. Inscoe received the John Macpherson Berrien Award for Lifetime Achievement in and service to Georgia history. Established in 2000, the award is named for one of the founders of GHS, who also was the organization’s first president. Berrien also served in the U.S. Senate and as a U.S. attorney general.

A faculty member in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Inscoe is the Albert B. Saye Professor of History and University Professor at UGA, where he has taught for 32 years. He is the author of four books, editor of 10 others and the writer of 46 articles, essays and book chapters.

He has served as the editor of the online New Georgia Encyclopedia since 1999. He edited the Georgia Historical Quarterly for 11 years and was secretary-treasurer of the Southern Historical Association from 2000 through 2014.

The Lilla M. Hawes Award is given for the best book in Georgia county or local history published in the previous year. This year it was presented to author Ashley Callahan and the University of Georgia Press (publisher) for Southern Tufts: The Regional Origins and National Craze for Chenille Fashion.

Callahan has a master’s degree in the history of American decorative arts from Parsons School of Design and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of the South. An independent scholar and former curator of decorative arts at the Georgia Museum of Art, Callahan is the author of Georgia Bellflowers: The Furniture of Henry Eugene Thomas, Modern Threads: Fashion and Art by Mariska Karasz and Enchanting Modern: Ilonka Karasz.

Since its founding in 1938, the primary mission of the University of Georgia Press has been to support and enhance the university’s place as a major research institution by publishing outstanding works of scholarship and literature by scholars and writers throughout the world.