Garnie W. McGinty
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Born | (1900-04-05)April 5, 1900
Ringgold, Louisiana, U.S.
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Died | April 22, 1984(1984-04-22) (aged 84)
Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S.
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Education |
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Occupations |
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Notable work | Louisiana Redeemed: The Overthrow of Carpet-Bag Rule 1876-1880 (1941) |
Spouse |
Zoe Heard McGinty
(m. 1932; died 1976) |
Garnie William McGinty (April 5, 1900 – April 22, 1984)[1] was a historian whose career was principally based for thirty-five years at Louisiana Tech UniversityinRuston, Louisiana.
McGinty was born in Bienville Parish in north Louisiana between Ringgold and Bienville to Alonzo Eugene McGinty and the former Maude Leshe. He was educated in local schools and attended Baptist-affiliated Louisiana CollegeinPineville and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Northwestern State UniversityinNatchitoches. He procured the Master of Arts degree from Peabody CollegeinNashville, Tennessee. He also studied at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and the University of ChicagoinIllinois before he received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. The U.S. Congress declared war on Germany one day after McGinty's seventeenth birthday. He was hence part of the Student Army Training Corps during World War I.[2]
Early in his academic career, McGinty was the principalofelementary schoolsinRed River, Claiborne, and Pointe Coupee parishes. He was also the principal of a secondary school in De Soto Parish south of Shreveport.[2] McGinty taught at the college level for a half-century, having served at Western Kentucky UniversityinBowling Green, Kentucky, Northwestern State (then known as Louisiana Normal College), Louisiana Tech (then Louisiana Polytechnic Institute), and the University of MontevalloinMontevallo in central Alabama. He headed the social sciences, later history, department at Louisiana Tech for thirty-five years. He was succeeded in the history chairmanship by William Y. Thompson, a native of Baton Rouge who specialized in Civil War and southern studies. McGinty also served for a year as the acting president of NSU, his alma mater. Upon his retirement from Louisiana Tech, he was appointed professor emeritus. The McGinty Chair of History was established by Louisiana Tech in his honor.[2] Similar chairs honor Thompson[3] and John D. Winters, another specialist in the Civil War.[4] Scholarships are also named for McGinty as is the Louisiana Tech publications division.[5]
In 1962, McGinty was elected by his colleagues as the fifth president of the reorganized Louisiana Historical Association.[6] In 1971, three years prior to the opening of Louisiana DownsinBossier City, McGinty published『Horse-racing in North Louisiana, 1911–1914,』in the journal, North Louisiana History, a twice-annual publication of the North Louisiana Historical Association, an organization which he formerly headed.[2][7]
During his 50-year teaching career, McGinty wrote forty essays and articles, fifty book reviews, and five books. His A History of Louisiana was used as a college textbook for two decades. Another popular work is Louisiana Redeemed: The Overthrow of Carpetbag Rule, 1876–1880, a 1941 study of the Reconstruction era, which ends with the triumph of the Redeemers, the southern Democrats who defeated the Radical Republican administrations across the South.[8]
McGinty was listed in Who's Who in Education, The Dictionary of International Scholars, and Men of Achievement. On July 15, 1932, McGinty married the former Zoé Heard (1902–1976) of Ruston. The couple had no children.[2][9] McGinty had a brother, Thomas Guice McGinty (1893–1983) of Sibley, a state government employee who twice ran for sheriff of his adopted Webster Parish.[10]
McGinty was a brother-in-law of Charles Raymond Heard (1896–1963), a prominent wholesale grocer in Ruston who served on the Louisiana State Board of Education prior to 1960, when he was unseated in the Democratic primary election by later U.S. Representative Joe WaggonnerofLouisiana's 4th congressional district.[11]
Preceded by Joseph G. Tregle, Jr. |
President of the Louisiana Historical Association
Garnie William McGinty |
Succeeded by |
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