DENHAM, James M. 1957-

PERSONAL: Born July 17, 1957, in Miami, FL; son of James C. (an insurance agency owner) and Ann (Watts) Denham; married Patricia Tobin (a school librarian), July 16, 1983; children: Margaret Grace, James Bennet. Education: Valencia Community College, A.A., 1978; Florida State University, B.A., 1980, M.A., 1983; Ph.D., 1988. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Methodist. Hobbies and other interests: Fishing, canoeing, camping, outdoor activities.

ADDRESSES: Home—729 Woodhill Dr., Lakeland, FL 33813. Offıce—Department of History, Florida Southern College, 111 Lake Hollingsworth Dr., Lakeland, FL 33801-5698. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, instructor, 1987; Limestone College, Gaffney, SC, assistant professor of history, 1987-91; Florida Southern College, Lakeland, assistant professor, 1991-96, associate professor of history, 1996-2000, professor, 2000—. Center for Florida History, director, 2001—. Member, Polk County Historical Commission, beginning 2002.

MEMBER: Society of Civil War Historians, Southern Historical Association, Georgia Historical Society, Florida Historical Society (member, board of directors, 1995-97), Polk County Historical Association (member, board of directors, 1995—), Historic Lakeland Inc. (member, board of directors, 1997—, president), Society of Florida Archivists, Association of Documentary Editing.

AWARDS, HONORS: Professor of the Year award nomination for state of South Carolina (Limestone College), 1990; Governor's Distinguished Professor Award, State of South Carolina, 1990; fellow, Institute for Southern Studies, University of South Carolina, 1990; Fullerton Merit Award, 1991; Arthur Thompson Prize, Florida Historical Society, 1992; fellow, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, 1993; fellow, Grady McWhiney Research Foundation, 1997—; fellow, Institute for Historical Editing, Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, 1997; fellow, C-SPAN in the Classroom for College Professors, 1997; fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at Harvard University, 1999.

WRITINGS:

A Rogue's Paradise: Crime and Punishment in Antebellum Florida, 1821-1861, University of Alabama Press (Tuscaloosa, AL), 1997.

(Editor, with Carter Brown, Jr.) Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives: The Florida Reminiscences of George Gillett Keen and Sarah Pamela Williams, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 2000.

(With William Warren Rogers) Florida Sheriffs: A History, 1821-1945, Sentry Press (Tallahassee, FL), 2001.

(Editor, with Keith L. Huneycutt) Echoes from a Distant Frontier: The Brown Sisters' Correspondence from Antebellum Florida, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 2004.

Contributor to Florida's Heritage of Diversity: Essays in the Honor of Samuel Proctor, edited by William Rogers, Canter Brown, and Mark E. Greenberg, Sentry Press (Tallahassee, FL), 1997; The United States and Mexico at War: Nineteenth-Century Expansionism and Conflict, edited by Donald S. Frazier, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1998; Dana Ste. Claire, Cracker: The Cracker Culture in Florida History, Museum of Arts and Sciences (Daytona Beach, FL), 1998; and of articles and reviews to journals and periodicals, including Military History of the West, Tampa Bay History, Florida Living, Florida Historical Quarterly, Georgia Historical Quarterly, Polk County Historical Quarterly, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Gulf Coast Historical Review, East Texas Historical Review, Florida Bar Journal, Apalachee, Tampa Tribune, and Lakeland (FL) Ledger.

SIDELIGHTS: James M. Denham told CA: "My goal is to write readable, narrative history that both professionals and the general public will enjoy and be informed by. Much of what drives my writing is curiosity about the past, particularly the South and Florida's past in the nineteenth century. I consider basic knowledge of the past to be essential in the understanding of contemporary issues."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Florida Bar Journal, October, 1997, Marlyne Marzi Kaplan, review of A Rogues's Paradise: Crime and Punishment in Antebellum Florida, 1821-1861, p. 78.

Journal of Southern History, May, 2002, George B. Ellenberg, review of Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives: The Florida Reminiscences of George Gillett Keen and Sarah Pamela Williams, p. 484; May, 2003, Jeffrey S. Adler, review of Florida Sheriffs: A History, 1821-1945, p. 488.