History South

HistorySouth.org offers a grab-bag of essays exploring history and culture in Charlotte, NC, and the American South. You’ll find urban geography, music traditions, foodways, and whatever else catches our fancy.

Tom Hanchett, Historian

Dr. Tom Hanchett is a community historian in Charlotte, NC. He’s best known for his history book Sorting Out the New South City: Race, Class & Urban Development in Charlotte (new 2nd edition from UNC Press in 2020).

Educated at Cornell University, University of Chicago, and UNC Chapel Hill, he especially enjoys working with community groups on neighborhood histories, museum exhibitions and walking tours. His website, www.HistorySouth.org, showcases his wide range of writing: a scholarly study of US shopping mall history, newspaper columns on immigrant foodways, explorations of early country and gospel music, history of Rosenwald Schools and Black education across the South.

Charlotte Magazine calls him “Charlotte’s Dr. History” and named him a 2015 Charlottean of the Year.

Email Tom@HistorySouth.org or leave him a message at 704-577-5103

Tom Hanchett’s short vita

Meet Tom Hanchett: Charlotte’s Dr. History

by EMILY HARRIS

February 13, 2013

Charlotte Magazine

Tom Hanchett, staff historian at Levine Museum of the New South and interpreter of Charlotte’s last 100 years, says the city’s history “is begging to be told.” Got time for a story?

New York Times spotlights Tom’s work with Levine Museum of the New South.

An Enigmatic Land of Great Expectations

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
February 12, 2010, New York Times,

The Levine Museum of the New South, in Charlotte, N.C., reflects the combination of a weighty past and an ever-shifting present that characterizes the region.

The Atlantic discusses Tom’s book Sorting Out the New South City.

‘Segregation Had to Be Invented’

By ALANA SEMUELS

February 17, 2017, The Atlantic