History professor wins award for new book on women apparel workers

October 11, 2016

Department of History and College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) faculty member Michelle Haberland’s, Ph.D., latest book, Striking Beauties: Women Apparel Workers in the U.S. South, 1930–2000, was awarded the Southern Historical Association’s H. L. Mitchell Award.

The H. L. Mitchell Award is given for the best book published on the southern working class, and given in recognition of a distinguished book concerning the history of the southern working class, including, but not limited to, industrial laborers and/or small farmers and agricultural laborers.

Her book examines the apparel industry’s impact on gender transformation and Southern economic development from its greatest expansion in the south in the 1930s to the demise of its southern branch at the end of the twentieth century.

“Striking Beauties works well as an overview of the southern garment industry, as it traces the industry from expansion in the southern United States to its move to the global South,” Jessica Wilkerson, Ph.D., noted in her review for the journal, Labor: Studies In Working Class History of the Americas. “It also serves as a jumping-off point for scholars who want to delve more deeply into the labor policies, work and gender cultures, and business models of the apparel industry.”

Haberland is an associate professor of history at Georgia Southern University and previously served as the Director of Women’s & Gender Studies. She earned a Ph.D. from Tulane University in 2001 and joined the Department of History in 2002.

The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) is the largest of the eight colleges that make up Georgia Southern University, and it plays a central role in every student’s core of knowledge. CLASS, also described as the University’s College of the Creative Mind, prepares students to achieve academic excellence, develop their analytical skills, enhance their creativity and embrace their responsibilities as citizens of their communities, their nations and the world. CLASS offers more than 20 undergraduate degrees and several interdisciplinary minors from its 11 departments and five academic centers. CLASS offers eight master’s degrees, two graduate certificates and one doctoral degree. For more information, visit class.georgiasouthern.edu.

Georgia Southern University, a public Carnegie Doctoral/Research University founded in 1906, offers more than 125 degree programs serving more than 20,500 students. Through eight colleges, the University offers bachelors, masters and doctoral degree programs built on more than a century of academic achievement. Georgia Southern is recognized for its student-centered and hands-on approach to education. GeorgiaSouthern.edu.