KSU historians have published a number of scholarly books on North Georgia. They include Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South Industry by Randall L. Patton, with Dr. David B. Parker (University of Georgia Press, 1999) and Randall Patton's Shaw Industries: A History, also published by UGA Press in 2002, the latter a detailed study of the world leader in carpet manufacturing. Patton also has a chapter on the carpet industry in The Second Wave: Southern Industrialization from the 1940s to the 1970s, edited by Philip Scranton (UGA Press, 2001). In the same collection of essays, Thomas A. Scott published a chapter on Marietta's Bell Bomber plant of World War II. In October, 2003, Cobb Landmarks & Historical Society published Scott's Cobb County, Georgia, and the Origins of the Suburban South: A Twentieth-Century History. The two carpet books and the Cobb County history were all made possible by generous grants that allowed KSU to give the authors reduced teaching loads, permitting time for research and writing. Shaw Industries commissioned Patton's latest book, while Cobb Landmarks & Historical Society funded Scott's efforts. In these works the authors have managed to blur the boundaries between original and applied research, writing for a scholarly audience and general public at the same time. Meanwhile, Parker has become a popular weekly columnist, writing for the Cartersville Daily Tribune and other papers.
Kennesaw State University offers an undergraduate certificate program in Public History headed by Dr. LeeAnn Lands. Under her leadership, Public History students have completed a project with the Summer Hill Foundation and the Etowah Area Consolidated Housing Authority in documenting and interpreting the African-American heritage of the Summer Hill community in Cartersville. That study led to the production of a documentary that has appeared nation-wide on the Public Broadcasting System. Most recently, Dr. Lands' preservation students have compiled a list of endangered sites in Northwest Georgia .
Two relatively new KSU scholars have added to the Center's growing list of publications. KSU's Civil War historian, John Fowler is the author of Mountaineers in Gray: The Nineteenth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment, C.S.A (University of Tennessee Press, 2004). Catherine Lewis is an Associate Professor of American History and Holocaust Education. In addition to her teaching and writing, she has curated a number of exhibits for the Atlanta History Center and other museums. The author of five books, she published in 2005 alone Bobby Jones and the Quest for the Grand Slam (Triumph Books) and The Changing Face of Public History: The Chicago Historical Society and the Transformation of an American Museum (Northern Illinois University Press).
One of the latest Center projects is a history of Kennesaw State University. Since the summer of 2005, Tom Scott and Dede Yow have conducted oral histories with about fifty distinguished faculty members and administrators. They plan to start writing a book length institutional history in the summer of 2006.
