Please join us Friday, October 19, when 2018 Fellow Scot McFarlane will give his lecture,”The City and the Countryside on Texas’ Trinity River,” from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon in Willis Library room 250H.

According to McFarlane, his project uses the history of the Trinity River to explore Texas’ ongoing transition from a rural to an urban state. While the pollution from North Texas always flowed down the Trinity into East Texas, politics and patronage meant both regions depended on each other. Furthermore, the power of the flooding Trinity River helped people resist the elite’s attempts to control their lives from within and beyond East Texas.

Scot McFarlane grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, and Palestine, Texas near the Trinity River. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate at Columbia University, his work has appeared in The Journal of Southern History and Environmental History. At Columbia, Scot has helped teach Mexican History, the History of the South, the History of New York, and is currently drafting a syllabus for a seminar on the history of rivers in North America. Prior to moving to NYC, Scot taught writing and history at high schools in the Willamette River Valley of Oregon. You can follow his research on his blog.

The Portal to Texas History Research Fellowships recognize and support outstanding scholarship or creative work which incorporates unique digital collections. Fellows are invited to present a brief overview of their work with the Portal through an informal lecture on their research or an exhibit of their creative output.