Dr. Matthew O'Neal is an Assistant Professor of History and Southern Studies in the Department of History and Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.
Research Interests
Dr. O'Neal researches race, labor, and migration in Appalachia. He investigates why some places became all-white sundown towns in the midst of the first phase of the Great Migration, while others went on to foster strong Black communities.
“Making the Appalachian South in Black and White” Seminar
Biography
Dr. O’Neal is a historian of race, labor, and migration in the U.S. South and Appalachia. As a native Kentuckian, he attended undergraduate and graduate schools all over the South. He is working on turning his dissertation – on the Great Migration and the making of sundown towns in Appalachia – into a book. He is the author of two forthcoming articles, in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. He was also featured in a documentary produced by Black in Appalachia as well as public conversations on the local legacies of racial violence.
Compositions
Dissertation:
Home and Hell: The Great Migration and the Making of Sundown Towns in Appalachia (2023, University of Georgia)
Courses Taught
- HIST 1310 Intro to U.S. History Since 1877
- HIST 4900 The Second World War in the South
- SSTU 1010 Introduction to Southern Studies I
- SSTU 1030 Southern Mythologies and Popular Culture
- SSTU 5980 The Second World War in the South
Education
Ph.D. History, University of Georgia (2023)
Recognitions
- Robert H. Zieger Prize, Southern Labor Studies Association, 2022
- Henry Belin Du Pont Research Grant, Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society, 2021
- Research Grant, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University, 2021
- Research Fellow, Kentucky Historical Society, 2020
- Graduate School Travel Award, University of Georgia, 2019
- Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award, Auburn University Graduate School, 2016