Dr. David R. Davies to Present Lecture on the First Newspapers in Mississippi
News item published on: 2017-04-11 10:12:18Dr. David R. Davies, director of the School of Mass Communication and Journalism, will deliver a talk about the pioneering printers and newspapers in the Mississippi Territory on April 20 at 6:30 p.m. in the Cook Library Art Gallery. This event is part of “Lectures, Lore and Lessons: Mississippi at the Bicentennial,” an event and lecture series celebrating Mississippi’s bicentennial, hosted by The University of Southern Mississippi University Libraries’ Special Collections.
In his talk, Davies will discuss how historians have generally ignored the early Mississippi press, even though state histories of early printers and newspapers can provide valuable insights into the unique circumstances of press development on the frontier. He will also explore the unique circumstances of press development in the Mississippi Territory, particularly the territory’s pioneering printers and newspapers and their political entanglements.
Davies, the former dean of the University’s Honors College, teaches media history in the School of Mass Communication and Journalism. His research specialties are the press and the Civil Rights Movements and trends in American newspapers since World War II. He is the author of two books, The Press and Race: Mississippi Journalists Confront the Movement and The Postwar Decline of American Newspapers.
He is a graduate of the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Reporting at Ohio State University, where he earned a master’s degree in journalism. He also holds a master’s degree in American History from Southern Miss and a Ph.d. in mass communication specializing in media history from the University of Alabama. Before entering academia, he was a reporter in Arkansas, working for both the Arkansas Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette.
For more information about, contact Jennifer Brannock at 601.266.4347 or . To view a list of upcoming events relating to Mississippi’s Bicentennial, visit https://lib.usm.edu/about_us/news/msbicentennial.html.
This lecture was made possible by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council, through support from the Mississippi Development Authority.