(Posted February 3, 2014)

William Carrigan, professor of history, Rowan University
William Carrigan, professor of history, Rowan University

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- William Carrigan, professor of history at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., will speak at Juniata College on "Forgotten Dead: The Lynching of Mexican Americans" at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 11 in Sill Boardroom in the von Liebig Center for Science on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Carrigan is nationally known as an expert on the history of lynching. He wrote "The Making of a Lynching Culture: Violence and Vigilantism in Central Texas 1836-1916" in 2004, which won the Richard Wentworth Prize. The history examines how a culture of violence could be perpetuated over a long period of time, Carrigan also analyzed lynching incidents against Native Americans and vigilante executions of Anglo-Americans.

His latest book, written with co-author Clive Webb, professor of modern American history at the University of Sussex, in Sussex, England, "Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence Against Mexicans in the United States, 1848-1928," was published last year. Carrigan also spoke at Juniata in 2006, lecturing on his first book.

A native Texan, Carrigan specializes in the history of 19th and early 20th century U.S. history. His expertise focuses on race, ethnicity and mob violence in the southwestern United States.

Carrigan has been professor of American history at Rowan since 1999, where he teaches a variety of U.S. history courses, including the history of the American West and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Previously, he worked as a lecturer at Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga. in the 1998-1999 academic year, and as a teaching fellow at Emory University in Atlanta.

He earned a bachelor's degree in history in 1993 from the University of Texas at Austin. He went on to earn a master's degree in 1996 and a doctoral degree in 1999, both in history, from Emory University.

He was an adviser for the feature-length documentary "American Lynching: Strange and Bitter Fruit," and served as a consultant for the book "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America." He is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Historical Association, the organization of American Historians, the Southern Historical Association, the western Historical Association and Phi Alpha Theta.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.