USA Professor Wins Prestigious NEH Grant

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Posted on May 4, 2020

Joy Washington

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Dr. Timothy Lombardo, assistant professor of history at the University of South Alabama, is the recipient of the coveted National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend grant. USA is one of two universities in Alabama to receive the NEH grant.

Lombardo will use the $6,000 stipend to research and write a book about the craft brewing industry’s effect on American cities. He said this book project will be about more than the history of beer.

“This research and book project is about cities, how they change, and for whom,” Lombardo explained. “The recent revival of urban America, as well as its causes, effects, and consequences, demands detailed and sustained historical research and analysis. Focusing on a single industry will allow for the breadth of a multi-city exploration. While craft brewing was not alone in sparking this revitalization, my project promises a unique window into a broader historical transformation.”

The National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipends program helps to stimulate new research in the humanities and its publication. The tentative title for Lombardo’s book is “Beer Cities: How Craft Brewing Remade Urban America.”

“My research will require travel to different cities, which is why I applied for the NEH grant,” Lombardo noted. “With COVID-19, I am not sure how often I will be able to travel. But I will need to research in university libraries, city archives and other repositories in several cities. If libraries and archives re-open this summer, my goal is to get some of this research done.”

Dr. David Messenger, chair of the history department, said NEH grants are very competitive. And, he’s pleased that Lombardo is one of the recipients of this prestigious grant award. Lombardo joins several other faculty members that have been awarded grants this year.

“I would like to congratulate Dr. Lombardo on receiving this competitive national grant award,” Messenger said. “This brings the total number of national grants won by our 14 faculty in history to three this year, which probably gives us the highest number of national grants per capita of any history department in the country.”

Lombardo has expanded his long-term interests in urban history and craft brewing to include the history of gentrification and urban development, which he said seemed overwhelming as a topic to write about in a book.

“I had difficulty conceiving of a way of approaching such a big topic. My first book was a single-city case study, so I wanted to do something more nationally focused on my second project. What led me to this aspect of urban development was my interest in craft breweries,” Lombardo said. “I have been a fan of craft beer for a little over a decade. Whenever I travel to new cities I always visit local breweries. Going to these places over the years got me thinking not just about the beer, but the buildings, neighborhoods and cities these breweries were located in. Thinking about the ways these small businesses changed urban areas seemed like a good way to take something that was personal to me and apply it to a long-time scholarly interest.”

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