author
Holland Thompson
1873–1940
A historian of the American South, he wrote with a close eye on how the region was changing after the Civil War. His books helped readers make sense of the South’s social and industrial transformation in clear, accessible prose.
2 Audiobooks
The Age of Invention: A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest
by Holland Thompson
The New South: A Chronicle of Social and Industrial Evolution
by Holland Thompson
About the author
Born in Randolph County, North Carolina, in 1873, Holland McTyeire Thompson grew up in a family closely tied to education. He studied at the University of North Carolina, then earned a Ph.D. at Columbia University after first working as a high school principal in Concord, where he began thinking seriously about the South’s rapid economic and cultural change.
Thompson became a professor of history at the College of the City of New York and built his reputation as a historian of the New South. His best-known work, The New South: A Chronicle of Social and Industrial Evolution, explored the region’s shift from a largely rural, agricultural society toward manufacturing and modern industry.
Alongside his historical writing, he also worked as an editor and contributor on reference books for younger readers, including The Book of Knowledge. He died in 1940, remembered as a writer who helped explain the post-Civil War South to a broad audience.