By Gregg Andrews

On October 14, 2023, I gave a keynote address: “Rural River People: Shantyboats and Roustabouts on the Highway of the Poor,” at the Cotton and Rural History Conference hosted by the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum in Greenville, TX. After my talk, Professor Kyle Wilkison, of the Texas Center for Working Class Studies at Collin College in McKinney, TX, presented me with the 2021 “Ruth A. Allen Pioneer in Working Class History Award.” I was informed of the award in 2021, but Covid got in the way of its presentation until now.

I’m thrilled to receive the award, named in honor of Dr. Allen (1889-1979), who trained as a labor economist at the University of Chicago. In 1933, she finished her doctoral dissertation, “The Labor of Women in the Production of Cotton.” She was chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Texas for a number of years. For many, including me, her writings and research collections at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History in Austin opened new avenues of research into the study of working people in Texas.