Welcome! You have reached the home page of Elijah Gaddis where you’ll find information about my research, teaching, and other pursuits–professional, academic, and otherwise. I’m a spatial, material, and cultural historian with a deep commitment to publicly-engaged work. I did my PhD in American studies at UNC Chapel Hill, and am currently an assistant professor of history at Auburn University.
My scholarly and personal interests are wide-ranging, but generally fall somewhere at the intersections of material culture, place and space, and everyday life in the American South. You can read excerpts of my dissertation and other things at my infrequently updated blog, and learn more about some of my public history work at the website of the Community Histories Workshop, which I co-founded. Email me at ejgaddis AT auburn.edu or ejgaddis AT gmail.com.
Header image is from a Rocky Mount, NC parade in 1936. Digitized as part of the Rocky Mount Mills Digital History Project, it demonstrates a juxtaposition between cotton and tobacco cultures (the building is a tobacco warehouse,) in segregated, pre-war Rocky Mount.
Elijah:
This is GREAT!!! You are the BEST!!!
Not sure what to do here: this is an amazing award – Brown Hudson for
Folklore. They are a lot of talented folks in North Carolina.
Our thanks,
Parnell Family Weavers
Freddie Parnell Reich
Brenda Parnell Willis
Fred Douglas Parnell
Elijah,
I recently read your article “A Working Vacation” in Our State Magazine, and was very intrigued. I currently own the property pictured in the article. I would love to talk to you about your research and what you know about the history, and people who used to vacation there. Any knowledge would be much appreciated. This was the only way to contact you, I would prefer to talk or email in the future.Thanks!
Jim
My father, Earl Crooks, was the caretaker of Camp Firestone mentioned in the article.”A Working Vacation” My brother and I still own his house there. Our grandparents were living there when the lake was built. I notice a reader “Jim” requested information on the property. Please forward info to him if you like.
Hi Elijah,
Betty Honeycutt from mount pleasant, NC
just opened my State magazine to see you name and picture. Could not wait to read, so proud of you and couldn’t wait to call your mom.
Mr Gaddis, We read your article in Sept. 2017 OUR STATE Magazine.
As we looked at front cover, my Husband mentioned the fact that the little guy in the middle was his great uncle Archie Melody he was a wing man.