Rable Selected as Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. George C. Rable, a history professor at The University of Alabama whose latest published work has won three national book awards, is the winner of the University’s Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor Award. He will be honored in a ceremony at the UA President’s Mansion at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 19.

The award is one of the highest honors bestowed on UA faculty and is presented annually to a faculty member whose, “singular, exceptional, or timely work, whether in the form of research, a product, a program or published material, has brought national recognition to the faculty member and The University of Alabama.”

“Your eminent colleagues at other universities believe you are one of the finest historians of the Civil War era and that your work will be cited a century from now,” wrote UA President Robert E. Witt in notifying Rable of the award. “You are a most deserving winner of the Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor Award.”

The honor was created by Frederick Moody Blackmon of Montgomery to honor the memory of his grandmother, Sarah McCorkle Moody of Tuscaloosa.

Rable’s latest book, “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” won the 2003 Lincoln Prize, the Jefferson Davis Prize of the Museum of the Confederacy, the Douglas Southall Freeman Book Award and was a History Book Club Selection. Rable, who joined UA’s College of Arts and Sciences in 1998, is the Charles G. Summersell Professor of Southern History.

“George tells how the Union’s spectacular military failure at Fredericksburg affected politics, economics, society and culture,” wrote Dr. Lawrence Kohl, UA associate professor in history, in his nomination of Rable for the UA award. “George’s work will permanently change the way historians write about the Civil War.”

Rable’s nomination drew letters of support from across the country. Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, the founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, wrote that the book, published by the University of North Carolina Press, is “an unsurpassed view into the intersections of military, social, political and cultural history.”

In referring to Rable’s career, Faust wrote, his “ability to deal with so many different sorts of subjects is quite remarkable, and his level of productivity daunting to the rest of us who cannot match his pace of output.”

Dr. James M. McPherson, the George Henry Davis Professor of American History at Princeton, wrote, “George is without question one of the finest historians in my field in this generation…”

Dr. Lawrence Clayton, professor and chair of UA’s history department, cited Rable’s “amazing display of commitment” in working with students. “I don’t know of anyone here in my career at Alabama,” Clayton wrote, “who better personifies the model teacher and scholar, with an immense heart for service to the profession, University, and community to boot.”

Rable earned his doctoral and master’s degrees from Louisiana State University and his bachelor’s degree from Bluffton College. His previous books include “Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism,” “The Confederate Republic: A Revolution Against Politics,” and “But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction.” He is currently researching the role of religion in the Civil War.

Dr. Ronald Rogers, assistant vice president for academic affairs and dean of UA’s graduate school, chaired the selection committee recommending Rable for the Blackmon-Moody Award.