Joshua S. Hodge (1984–2019)
Joshua S. Hodge received his BA from Auburn University, and his MA in history from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee, he concentrated on southern and environmental history. He won a number of the department’s research and teaching awards, as well as several external fellowships, and was a valued member of the UT History Department’s community. He received his PhD in May 2019, completing a dissertation entitled, “Alabama’s Public Wilderness: Reconstruction Politics, Natural Resources, and the End of the Southern Commons, 1866–1905.”
In the summer that Josh began research on his dissertation, as well as this oral history of Cas Walker, he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. He died on May 23, 2019. Through these years of good work and all the challenges of his illness, he was supported by his wife, Erica Spencer, and his daughter, Hazel, to whom this book is dedicated.