Penn State University

Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow

• Developed curriculum and taught 4 new undergraduate courses
• Prepared and delivered oral presentations for classes ranging in size from 15 to 150 students
• Advised 15 undergraduate students on research, writing, and editing for their capstone thesis projects
• Prepared guidelines for 2 graduate student teaching assistants and managed their teaching of course material and evaluation of students

Penn State University

Editorial Assistant

• Managed peer review for a leading academic journal by formally evaluating the research and writing of 100+ submitted manuscripts
• Contracted all peer reviewers, established/maintained review schedules, and provided regular written and oral reports to the executive staff on the status of each manuscript
• Coordinated all written and oral communication with authors and reviewers

Pennsylvania Agricultural History Project

Research Assistant

• Compiled, analyzed, and synthesized research for the principal investigator of a large-scale research project to develop a Multiple Property Documentation Form for historic farm buildings to aid compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act

Emory University

Postdoctoral Fellow

• Developed all curriculum and taught a research/writing methods seminar for 15 undergraduate students, including preparing and delivering all content, mentoring students, evaluating oral and written work, and assessing course performance
• Researched, wrote, and edited an essay for publication in the book Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century (2017), from the University of Pennsylvania Press
• Authored an op-ed for Atlanta’s Saporta Report on sustainability in Georgia
• Created and managed all data collection for a multi-year digital project mapping three centuries of environmental change, partnering with the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship
• Designed and taught 12 individual seminars for the Atlanta public on land, water, and wildlife conservation in the United States, partnering with Georgia Humanities and Emory University
• Presented research at 1 public lecture and 4 national and/or international conferences
• Coordinated the assessment of 78 proposals to plan the program for an international conference
• Led and participated in weekly roundtable discussions on public humanities topics

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

Built Environment Associate

• Conducts research and analysis of new policies, programs, practices, and technologies relevant to increasing energy efficiency in the commercial and residential sector
• Tracks policy, program, practice and technology developments that impact energy usage in SEEA’s 11-state region
• Develops fact sheets, policy memos, testimony, public comments, white papers, and other research-based materials

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

Built Environment Project Manager

William worked at Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance as a Built Environment Project Manager

Georgia State University

Visiting Lecturer

• Completed all research, writing, and editing for a peer-reviewed book on conservation policy, which will be published by the University of Georgia Press in August 2018
• Researched and wrote 2 published essays on environmental policy topics
• Authored an op-ed on water conservation policy that was published in the Washington Post
• Presented policy research at 2 public lectures and 1 academic conference
• Created and managed a research project to document environmental justice struggles in Atlanta, working with community and federal partners
• Developed all curriculum and taught 20 undergraduate courses, including preparing and delivering content for classes of up to 46 students each, leading class discussions, evaluating oral and written work, and assessing course performance for more than 800 students
• Evaluated article manuscripts on conservation topics as a peer reviewer for 3 academic journals
• Advised reporters and filmmakers for media coverage about environmental/historical issues that resulted in 4 news stories and 1 documentary film
• Prepared guidelines for 2 graduate student teaching assistants and managed their teaching of course material and evaluation of students

Georgia Conservancy

Founded in 1994, Generation Green is an elected board of directors committed to supporting the Georgia Conservancy and its mission and programs. Generation Green empowers our communities to protect and enjoy Georgia’s outdoors through adventure trips, service projects and social and educational events.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

The Price of Permanence: Nature and Business in the New South

University of Georgia Press

Jacket Description: Using the lens of environmental history, William D. Bryan provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the post-Civil War South by framing the New South as a struggle over environmental stewardship. For more than six decades, scholars have caricatured southerners as so desperate for economic growth that they rapaciously consumed the region’s abundant natural resources. Yet business leaders and public officials did not see profit and environmental quality as mutually exclusive goals, and they promoted methods of conserving resources that they thought would ensure long-term economic growth. Southerners called this idea “permanence.” But permanence was a contested concept, and these businesspeople clashed with other stakeholders as they struggled to find new ways of using valuable resources. The Price of Permanence shows how these struggles indelibly shaped the modern South. Bryan writes the region into the national conservation movement for the first time and shows that business leaders played a key role shaping the ideals of American conservationists. This book also dismantles one of the most persistent caricatures of southerners: that they had little interest in environmental quality. Conservation provided white elites with a tool for social control, and this is the first work to show how struggles over resource policy fueled Jim Crow. The ideology of “permanence” protected some resources but did not prevent degradation of the environment overall, and The Price of Permanence ultimately uses lessons from the New South to reflect on sustainability today.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

The Price of Permanence: Nature and Business in the New South

University of Georgia Press

Jacket Description: Using the lens of environmental history, William D. Bryan provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the post-Civil War South by framing the New South as a struggle over environmental stewardship. For more than six decades, scholars have caricatured southerners as so desperate for economic growth that they rapaciously consumed the region’s abundant natural resources. Yet business leaders and public officials did not see profit and environmental quality as mutually exclusive goals, and they promoted methods of conserving resources that they thought would ensure long-term economic growth. Southerners called this idea “permanence.” But permanence was a contested concept, and these businesspeople clashed with other stakeholders as they struggled to find new ways of using valuable resources. The Price of Permanence shows how these struggles indelibly shaped the modern South. Bryan writes the region into the national conservation movement for the first time and shows that business leaders played a key role shaping the ideals of American conservationists. This book also dismantles one of the most persistent caricatures of southerners: that they had little interest in environmental quality. Conservation provided white elites with a tool for social control, and this is the first work to show how struggles over resource policy fueled Jim Crow. The ideology of “permanence” protected some resources but did not prevent degradation of the environment overall, and The Price of Permanence ultimately uses lessons from the New South to reflect on sustainability today.

There’s a solution to the Southeast’s water crisis. But will Georgia and Florida agree to it?

Washington Post

This op-ed, which ran in the Washington Post's "Made by History" column, explores the history of the Tri-State Water Wars - a decades-long legal battle over access to the water of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin now playing out between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The case is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this essay proposes a solution for how these states can equitably apportion the Southeast's scarce water.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

The Price of Permanence: Nature and Business in the New South

University of Georgia Press

Jacket Description: Using the lens of environmental history, William D. Bryan provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the post-Civil War South by framing the New South as a struggle over environmental stewardship. For more than six decades, scholars have caricatured southerners as so desperate for economic growth that they rapaciously consumed the region’s abundant natural resources. Yet business leaders and public officials did not see profit and environmental quality as mutually exclusive goals, and they promoted methods of conserving resources that they thought would ensure long-term economic growth. Southerners called this idea “permanence.” But permanence was a contested concept, and these businesspeople clashed with other stakeholders as they struggled to find new ways of using valuable resources. The Price of Permanence shows how these struggles indelibly shaped the modern South. Bryan writes the region into the national conservation movement for the first time and shows that business leaders played a key role shaping the ideals of American conservationists. This book also dismantles one of the most persistent caricatures of southerners: that they had little interest in environmental quality. Conservation provided white elites with a tool for social control, and this is the first work to show how struggles over resource policy fueled Jim Crow. The ideology of “permanence” protected some resources but did not prevent degradation of the environment overall, and The Price of Permanence ultimately uses lessons from the New South to reflect on sustainability today.

There’s a solution to the Southeast’s water crisis. But will Georgia and Florida agree to it?

Washington Post

This op-ed, which ran in the Washington Post's "Made by History" column, explores the history of the Tri-State Water Wars - a decades-long legal battle over access to the water of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin now playing out between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The case is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this essay proposes a solution for how these states can equitably apportion the Southeast's scarce water.

What Henry Grady can teach Atlanta about sustainable growth

Saporta Report

This op-ed reflects on the lessons that Henry Grady and other "New South" boosters can teach about sustainable development today. In the decades after the Civil War Grady and his contemporaries became preoccupied with the idea that there could be “permanent” ways of using the region’s dwindling natural resources. This op-ed explores the successes and failures of the South's search for environmental permanence and considers what this experience can tell us about the social and environmental components of sustainability in Atlanta today.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

The Price of Permanence: Nature and Business in the New South

University of Georgia Press

Jacket Description: Using the lens of environmental history, William D. Bryan provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the post-Civil War South by framing the New South as a struggle over environmental stewardship. For more than six decades, scholars have caricatured southerners as so desperate for economic growth that they rapaciously consumed the region’s abundant natural resources. Yet business leaders and public officials did not see profit and environmental quality as mutually exclusive goals, and they promoted methods of conserving resources that they thought would ensure long-term economic growth. Southerners called this idea “permanence.” But permanence was a contested concept, and these businesspeople clashed with other stakeholders as they struggled to find new ways of using valuable resources. The Price of Permanence shows how these struggles indelibly shaped the modern South. Bryan writes the region into the national conservation movement for the first time and shows that business leaders played a key role shaping the ideals of American conservationists. This book also dismantles one of the most persistent caricatures of southerners: that they had little interest in environmental quality. Conservation provided white elites with a tool for social control, and this is the first work to show how struggles over resource policy fueled Jim Crow. The ideology of “permanence” protected some resources but did not prevent degradation of the environment overall, and The Price of Permanence ultimately uses lessons from the New South to reflect on sustainability today.

There’s a solution to the Southeast’s water crisis. But will Georgia and Florida agree to it?

Washington Post

This op-ed, which ran in the Washington Post's "Made by History" column, explores the history of the Tri-State Water Wars - a decades-long legal battle over access to the water of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin now playing out between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The case is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this essay proposes a solution for how these states can equitably apportion the Southeast's scarce water.

What Henry Grady can teach Atlanta about sustainable growth

Saporta Report

This op-ed reflects on the lessons that Henry Grady and other "New South" boosters can teach about sustainable development today. In the decades after the Civil War Grady and his contemporaries became preoccupied with the idea that there could be “permanent” ways of using the region’s dwindling natural resources. This op-ed explores the successes and failures of the South's search for environmental permanence and considers what this experience can tell us about the social and environmental components of sustainability in Atlanta today.

A Dam in Slabtown: The Untold History of Environmental Struggles in the New South

Tropics of Meta

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

The Price of Permanence: Nature and Business in the New South

University of Georgia Press

Jacket Description: Using the lens of environmental history, William D. Bryan provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the post-Civil War South by framing the New South as a struggle over environmental stewardship. For more than six decades, scholars have caricatured southerners as so desperate for economic growth that they rapaciously consumed the region’s abundant natural resources. Yet business leaders and public officials did not see profit and environmental quality as mutually exclusive goals, and they promoted methods of conserving resources that they thought would ensure long-term economic growth. Southerners called this idea “permanence.” But permanence was a contested concept, and these businesspeople clashed with other stakeholders as they struggled to find new ways of using valuable resources. The Price of Permanence shows how these struggles indelibly shaped the modern South. Bryan writes the region into the national conservation movement for the first time and shows that business leaders played a key role shaping the ideals of American conservationists. This book also dismantles one of the most persistent caricatures of southerners: that they had little interest in environmental quality. Conservation provided white elites with a tool for social control, and this is the first work to show how struggles over resource policy fueled Jim Crow. The ideology of “permanence” protected some resources but did not prevent degradation of the environment overall, and The Price of Permanence ultimately uses lessons from the New South to reflect on sustainability today.

There’s a solution to the Southeast’s water crisis. But will Georgia and Florida agree to it?

Washington Post

This op-ed, which ran in the Washington Post's "Made by History" column, explores the history of the Tri-State Water Wars - a decades-long legal battle over access to the water of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin now playing out between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The case is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this essay proposes a solution for how these states can equitably apportion the Southeast's scarce water.

What Henry Grady can teach Atlanta about sustainable growth

Saporta Report

This op-ed reflects on the lessons that Henry Grady and other "New South" boosters can teach about sustainable development today. In the decades after the Civil War Grady and his contemporaries became preoccupied with the idea that there could be “permanent” ways of using the region’s dwindling natural resources. This op-ed explores the successes and failures of the South's search for environmental permanence and considers what this experience can tell us about the social and environmental components of sustainability in Atlanta today.

A Dam in Slabtown: The Untold History of Environmental Struggles in the New South

Tropics of Meta

"Constructive and not Destructive Development": The Struggle for Permanent Uses of Resources in the American South

In Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, eds. Hartmut Berghoff and Adam Rome (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming April 2017)

This essay explores the successes and failures of business-led conservation of natural resources in the post-Civil War South - one of the first attempts to implement what we now call sustainable development in the United States. It uses this past experience to reflect on the strategies typically used to achieve sustainable development today. This essay was published in Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, a volume in the Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture book series from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

The Price of Permanence: Nature and Business in the New South

University of Georgia Press

Jacket Description: Using the lens of environmental history, William D. Bryan provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the post-Civil War South by framing the New South as a struggle over environmental stewardship. For more than six decades, scholars have caricatured southerners as so desperate for economic growth that they rapaciously consumed the region’s abundant natural resources. Yet business leaders and public officials did not see profit and environmental quality as mutually exclusive goals, and they promoted methods of conserving resources that they thought would ensure long-term economic growth. Southerners called this idea “permanence.” But permanence was a contested concept, and these businesspeople clashed with other stakeholders as they struggled to find new ways of using valuable resources. The Price of Permanence shows how these struggles indelibly shaped the modern South. Bryan writes the region into the national conservation movement for the first time and shows that business leaders played a key role shaping the ideals of American conservationists. This book also dismantles one of the most persistent caricatures of southerners: that they had little interest in environmental quality. Conservation provided white elites with a tool for social control, and this is the first work to show how struggles over resource policy fueled Jim Crow. The ideology of “permanence” protected some resources but did not prevent degradation of the environment overall, and The Price of Permanence ultimately uses lessons from the New South to reflect on sustainability today.

There’s a solution to the Southeast’s water crisis. But will Georgia and Florida agree to it?

Washington Post

This op-ed, which ran in the Washington Post's "Made by History" column, explores the history of the Tri-State Water Wars - a decades-long legal battle over access to the water of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin now playing out between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The case is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this essay proposes a solution for how these states can equitably apportion the Southeast's scarce water.

What Henry Grady can teach Atlanta about sustainable growth

Saporta Report

This op-ed reflects on the lessons that Henry Grady and other "New South" boosters can teach about sustainable development today. In the decades after the Civil War Grady and his contemporaries became preoccupied with the idea that there could be “permanent” ways of using the region’s dwindling natural resources. This op-ed explores the successes and failures of the South's search for environmental permanence and considers what this experience can tell us about the social and environmental components of sustainability in Atlanta today.

A Dam in Slabtown: The Untold History of Environmental Struggles in the New South

Tropics of Meta

"Constructive and not Destructive Development": The Struggle for Permanent Uses of Resources in the American South

In Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, eds. Hartmut Berghoff and Adam Rome (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming April 2017)

This essay explores the successes and failures of business-led conservation of natural resources in the post-Civil War South - one of the first attempts to implement what we now call sustainable development in the United States. It uses this past experience to reflect on the strategies typically used to achieve sustainable development today. This essay was published in Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, a volume in the Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture book series from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

"Piscatorial Politics: Fishery Regulation and the Economic Future of Rhode Island, 1869-1872"

The New England Quarterly

"Piscatorial Politics" explores political clashes over the decline of coastal fish populations in 1870s Rhode Island. Although scholars see this as an era in which local fishermen were cut out of the process of resource management by government scientists, this article demonstrates how the political mobilization of New England’s commercial fishermen on the coast altered federal and state plans for the long-term management of fisheries in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

The Price of Permanence: Nature and Business in the New South

University of Georgia Press

Jacket Description: Using the lens of environmental history, William D. Bryan provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the post-Civil War South by framing the New South as a struggle over environmental stewardship. For more than six decades, scholars have caricatured southerners as so desperate for economic growth that they rapaciously consumed the region’s abundant natural resources. Yet business leaders and public officials did not see profit and environmental quality as mutually exclusive goals, and they promoted methods of conserving resources that they thought would ensure long-term economic growth. Southerners called this idea “permanence.” But permanence was a contested concept, and these businesspeople clashed with other stakeholders as they struggled to find new ways of using valuable resources. The Price of Permanence shows how these struggles indelibly shaped the modern South. Bryan writes the region into the national conservation movement for the first time and shows that business leaders played a key role shaping the ideals of American conservationists. This book also dismantles one of the most persistent caricatures of southerners: that they had little interest in environmental quality. Conservation provided white elites with a tool for social control, and this is the first work to show how struggles over resource policy fueled Jim Crow. The ideology of “permanence” protected some resources but did not prevent degradation of the environment overall, and The Price of Permanence ultimately uses lessons from the New South to reflect on sustainability today.

There’s a solution to the Southeast’s water crisis. But will Georgia and Florida agree to it?

Washington Post

This op-ed, which ran in the Washington Post's "Made by History" column, explores the history of the Tri-State Water Wars - a decades-long legal battle over access to the water of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin now playing out between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The case is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this essay proposes a solution for how these states can equitably apportion the Southeast's scarce water.

What Henry Grady can teach Atlanta about sustainable growth

Saporta Report

This op-ed reflects on the lessons that Henry Grady and other "New South" boosters can teach about sustainable development today. In the decades after the Civil War Grady and his contemporaries became preoccupied with the idea that there could be “permanent” ways of using the region’s dwindling natural resources. This op-ed explores the successes and failures of the South's search for environmental permanence and considers what this experience can tell us about the social and environmental components of sustainability in Atlanta today.

A Dam in Slabtown: The Untold History of Environmental Struggles in the New South

Tropics of Meta

"Constructive and not Destructive Development": The Struggle for Permanent Uses of Resources in the American South

In Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, eds. Hartmut Berghoff and Adam Rome (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming April 2017)

This essay explores the successes and failures of business-led conservation of natural resources in the post-Civil War South - one of the first attempts to implement what we now call sustainable development in the United States. It uses this past experience to reflect on the strategies typically used to achieve sustainable development today. This essay was published in Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, a volume in the Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture book series from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

"Piscatorial Politics: Fishery Regulation and the Economic Future of Rhode Island, 1869-1872"

The New England Quarterly

"Piscatorial Politics" explores political clashes over the decline of coastal fish populations in 1870s Rhode Island. Although scholars see this as an era in which local fishermen were cut out of the process of resource management by government scientists, this article demonstrates how the political mobilization of New England’s commercial fishermen on the coast altered federal and state plans for the long-term management of fisheries in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

The First Green Developer

Edge Effects

This essay explores the complicated history of green tourism and coastal resort development by profiling the controversial career of developer Charles Fraser. Fraser was responsible for some of the most cutting-edge "green" resorts in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and this article considers his role as the nation's first green developer and the complex legacies that Fraser has left for ecotourism and environmentalism in the United States.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Commercial Construction Data Review (2007-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines ten years of commercial building permit data (2007-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated commercial building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that a majority of states throughout the region that have adopted new commercial energy codes have seen an increase in commercial construction activity.

Construction, Codes, & Commerce: Residential Construction Data Review (2005-2017)

Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

This report examines more than a decade of single-family building permit data (2005-2017) to shed light on the relationship between the adoption of updated residential building energy codes and construction activity in the Southeast. There are persistent misconceptions that updating building energy codes depresses construction activity, but our analysis shows that states throughout the region that have adopted new residential energy codes have not had any reduction in single-family building activity.

"Taming the Wild Side of Bonaventure: Tourism and the Contested Southern Landscape"​

Southern Cultures

This article explores competing visions for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Bonaventure was one of the most popular tourist sites in all of nineteenth-century America, and this article traces how its landscape was interpreted and transformed to appeal to tourists, from Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Muir to John Berendt.

The Price of Permanence: Nature and Business in the New South

University of Georgia Press

Jacket Description: Using the lens of environmental history, William D. Bryan provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the post-Civil War South by framing the New South as a struggle over environmental stewardship. For more than six decades, scholars have caricatured southerners as so desperate for economic growth that they rapaciously consumed the region’s abundant natural resources. Yet business leaders and public officials did not see profit and environmental quality as mutually exclusive goals, and they promoted methods of conserving resources that they thought would ensure long-term economic growth. Southerners called this idea “permanence.” But permanence was a contested concept, and these businesspeople clashed with other stakeholders as they struggled to find new ways of using valuable resources. The Price of Permanence shows how these struggles indelibly shaped the modern South. Bryan writes the region into the national conservation movement for the first time and shows that business leaders played a key role shaping the ideals of American conservationists. This book also dismantles one of the most persistent caricatures of southerners: that they had little interest in environmental quality. Conservation provided white elites with a tool for social control, and this is the first work to show how struggles over resource policy fueled Jim Crow. The ideology of “permanence” protected some resources but did not prevent degradation of the environment overall, and The Price of Permanence ultimately uses lessons from the New South to reflect on sustainability today.

There’s a solution to the Southeast’s water crisis. But will Georgia and Florida agree to it?

Washington Post

This op-ed, which ran in the Washington Post's "Made by History" column, explores the history of the Tri-State Water Wars - a decades-long legal battle over access to the water of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin now playing out between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The case is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this essay proposes a solution for how these states can equitably apportion the Southeast's scarce water.

What Henry Grady can teach Atlanta about sustainable growth

Saporta Report

This op-ed reflects on the lessons that Henry Grady and other "New South" boosters can teach about sustainable development today. In the decades after the Civil War Grady and his contemporaries became preoccupied with the idea that there could be “permanent” ways of using the region’s dwindling natural resources. This op-ed explores the successes and failures of the South's search for environmental permanence and considers what this experience can tell us about the social and environmental components of sustainability in Atlanta today.

A Dam in Slabtown: The Untold History of Environmental Struggles in the New South

Tropics of Meta

"Constructive and not Destructive Development": The Struggle for Permanent Uses of Resources in the American South

In Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, eds. Hartmut Berghoff and Adam Rome (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming April 2017)

This essay explores the successes and failures of business-led conservation of natural resources in the post-Civil War South - one of the first attempts to implement what we now call sustainable development in the United States. It uses this past experience to reflect on the strategies typically used to achieve sustainable development today. This essay was published in Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, a volume in the Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture book series from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

"Piscatorial Politics: Fishery Regulation and the Economic Future of Rhode Island, 1869-1872"

The New England Quarterly

"Piscatorial Politics" explores political clashes over the decline of coastal fish populations in 1870s Rhode Island. Although scholars see this as an era in which local fishermen were cut out of the process of resource management by government scientists, this article demonstrates how the political mobilization of New England’s commercial fishermen on the coast altered federal and state plans for the long-term management of fisheries in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

The First Green Developer

Edge Effects

This essay explores the complicated history of green tourism and coastal resort development by profiling the controversial career of developer Charles Fraser. Fraser was responsible for some of the most cutting-edge "green" resorts in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and this article considers his role as the nation's first green developer and the complex legacies that Fraser has left for ecotourism and environmentalism in the United States.