In This Section:
Mark Cheathem
Degrees
Office Location: Labry Hall, 212
Office Hours: M 5-6; TR 11-12; W 9-4
Phone: 615.547.1341
E-mail: mcheathem@cumberland.edu
A Cumberland graduate (B.A., History, 1995), Dr. Cheathem obtained his M.A. in history from Middle Tennessee State University in 1998 and his Ph.D. in history from Mississippi State University in 2002. He served as an assistant professor of history at Southern New Hampshire University from 2004 to 2008. Dr. Cheathem enjoyed the experience of living in New England, but he was looking to move closer to his family and his research. Cumberland offered not only those opportunities but also the chance to mentor its students in the way that his Cumberland professors, Dr. Jim Dressler and Mr. Monty Pope, invested in him.
Dr. Cheathem's areas of teaching and research interest are nineteenth-century American history, southern history, African-American history, presidential history, and the history of American conspiracy theories. He regularly teaches courses on Jacksonian America, the Old South, the Civil War, and historical methods.
Dr. Cheathem is the author of Old Hickory's Nephew: The Political and Private Struggles of Andrew Jackson Donelson (2007) and editor of Jacksonian and Antebellum Age: People and Perspectives (2008). His published articles include: “The Failure of a Moderate Southern Voice: Andrew Jackson Donelson’s Role as Editor of the Washington Union, 1851-1852,” in David B. Sachsman, S. Kittrell Rushing, and Roy Morris, Jr., eds., Words at War: The Civil War and American Journalism (2008); “Slavery, Plantation Life, and Debt in Antebellum Tennessee and Mississippi: The Example of Andrew Jackson Donelson,” West Tennessee Historical Society Papers (2007); “‘The High Minded Honourable Man’: Honor, Kinship, and Conflict in the Life of Andrew Jackson Donelson,” Journal of the Early Republic (2007); and “‘I Shall Persevere in the Cause of Truth’: Andrew Jackson Donelson and the Election of 1856,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly (2003). Two additional essays will be published in the near future: “The Presidency of Andrew Jackson,” Encyclopedia of the U.S. Presidency, edited by Nancy B. Young; and “The Shape of Democracy: Jacksonian History and Historians,” Jacksonian America, edited by Brian D. McKnight and James S. Humphreys. Dr. Cheathem has received research grants and fellowships from the Filson Historical Society, the Tennessee Historical Society, the White House Historical Association, Cumberland University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Mississippi State University.
Dr. Cheathem is presently under contract with LSU Press to publish a biography of Andrew Jackson that examines his southern identity and its role in his decisions as president and statesman of the Democratic party. He and Emme Taylor, a senior history major, are also working on a scholarly article that centers on Confederate general George W. Gordon’s involvement in the Ku Klux Klan and his advancement of the Lost CauseView Dr. Cheathem discussing the legacy of President Andrew Jackson: http://wwww.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/222860
Follow Dr. Cheathem on Twitter: @markcheathem
Publications
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Jacksonian and Antebellum Age: People and Perspectives spans the “age of the common man” by focusing on the everyday citizens who helped drive the big social changes of the times—or were simply caught up in them. The coverage takes readers into the lives of the frontiersmen, townspeople, women, children, religious groups, abolitionists, slaves, slave traders, and others who effected, and were affected by, the history of those times. by Dr. Mark R. Cheathem
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Old Hickory's Nephew The Political and Private Struggles of Andrew Jackson Donelson by Dr. Mark R. Cheathem Though remembered largely by history as Andrew Jackson's nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson was himself a significant figure in nineteenth-century America: a politician, planter, diplomat, newspaper editor and vice-presidential candidate. In Old Hickory's Nephew, the first definitive biography of this enigmatic man, Dr. Cheathem explores both Donelson's political contributions and his complex, tumultuous and often-overlooked relationship with Andrew Jackson |