Ted Ownby

Ted Ownby is Professor Emeritus of History and Southern Studies, who taught courses in history and Southern Studies.

Ownby had a joint appointment in Southern Studies and History from 1988-2023. In history, he taught courses in southern history since 1900, southern religious history, Mississippi history and graduate courses in a range of topics. In Southern Studies, he taught undergraduate survey and seminar courses, graduate courses, and special topics courses such as “Southern Autobiography” and “Peace in Southern Culture.”

Ownby has written three books, Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865–1920, American Dreams in Mississippi: Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, 1830–1998, and Hurtin’ Words: Debating Family Problems in the Twentieth Century South. With Nancy Bercaw, he coedited the Gender volume of the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and with Charles Reagan Wilson, he coedited the recently released Mississippi Encyclopedia. With John T. Edge and Elizabeth Engelhardt, he coedited The Larder. His specialties include gender, religion, family life, consumers, and the twentieth-century South.

He is the former Director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

Education

Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University
M.A. Johns Hopkins University
B.A. Vanderbilt University

Publications

• Hurtin’ Words: Debating Family Problems in the Twentieth-Century South (2018) 
• The Mississippi Encyclopedia (2017) 
• The Larder: Food Studies Methods from the American South (2013) 
• American Dreams in Mississippi: Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, 1830-1998 (1999) 
• Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920 (1990)