Center for the Study of the Gulf South to host annual Baird Lecture March 8

Thu, 03/03/2022 - 04:33pm | By: David Tisdale

Gabrielle Walker, the 2021-22 Baird Fellow in The University of Southern Mississippi’s (USM) Center for the Study of the Gulf South, will give this year’s Baird Lecture, titled “When We Were Freshmen:” Judson College and the Rise of the New Baptist Woman" Tuesday, March 8 at 5:30 p.m. in the Gonzales Auditorium, first floor, Liberal Arts Building on the USM Hattiesburg campus. Admission is free.

This event is presented by the USM Committee on Services and Resources for Women (CSRW) and sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Gulf South. 

Walker, who is studying post-Reconstruction Southern women, is working on a dissertation titled, “If These Walls Could Speak:’ Judson College and the New Baptist Woman, 1890-1930." It explores the ways in which Progressive Era ideology made a lasting impact on Southern Baptist white women attending a Southern Baptist college. Collegiate experiences led to their questioning traditional Southern Baptist thought patterns and expansively interpreting religion to fit a modern, scientific worldview.

The Center for the Study of the Gulf South promotes the study of the history of the U.S. South and territories in Central America and the Caribbean through scholarship, funding research and hosting public events. For more information about the center, visit About the CSGS | Center for the Study of the Gulf South | The University of Southern Mississippi (usm.edu).