The University of North Texas Libraries invite applications for the 2017 The Portal to Texas History Research Fellowship. Research using the Portal is relevant to studies in a variety of disciplines including history, journalism, political science, geography, and American studies. We encourage applicants to think creatively about the opportunities that research with large digital library collections can enable. Preference will be given to applicants who demonstrate the greatest potential for publication and the best use of The Portal to Texas History.

The Portal to Texas History 2018 Research Fellowship Awardee

Scot McFarlane

Project Title

The City and the Countryside on Texas’ Trinity River

Project Description

This project uses the history of the Trinity River to explore Texas’s 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.

Biography

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.