Dr. George B Ellenberg

Dr. George B. Ellenberg, professor of history, conducts research on history of the Old and New South, and agrarianism in American history.

Growing up in the South, Ellenberg gained an appreciation for his agricultural roots, and this background guided his scholarly interest in historical agriculture and agrarianism. He has published numerous book reviews, articles, and encyclopedia entries on various aspects of agricultural mechanization and modernization in the context of the American South. Two of those articles, “Debating Farm Power: Draft Animals, Tractors, and the United States Department of Agriculture,” and “African Americans, Mules, and the Southern Mindscape, 1850-1950,” were published in Agricultural History, the journal of the Agricultural History Society. The latter article was also presented as a paper at a meeting of the Agricultural History Society held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ellenberg’s book, “From Mule South to Tractor South: Mules, Machines and the Transformation of the Cotton South,” describes the adoption of the mule as the preeminent draft animal in the American South and its ultimate displacement by the mechanical tractor. The book also focuses on subsequent cultural and economic shifts in the southern mind and the region’s culture. His book received the University of Alabama Press Faculty Editorial Board’s Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize, as the manuscript “most deserving in Alabama or Southern history or culture.”

A faculty member in the UWF history department since 1994, Ellenberg has been recognized by students and his peers for his dedication to teaching excellence. He has received UWF’s Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as a State University System of Florida Teaching Incentive Program Award.

Ellenberg attended the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education seminar at Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2015. In 2007, he was named an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow. During the 2007-2008 academic year, he worked with executive leadership at Georgia State College and University. Ellenberg was a member of the 2000-2001 UWF Leadership Enhancement and Development Program. He was also selected as a participant in the Summer Seminar in Military History West Point, New York. Additionally, he has taught a graduate-level course in strategy and warfare at the Naval War College in its distance education program.