Biography - Eric W Plaag

I hold a bachelor's degree in religion and philosophy from the College of William and Mary, an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University, and a PhD in American history from the University of South Carolina. I have worked in historic preservation for the past ten years, the bulk of it as an independent historical consultant and contract historian for a variety of different projects throughout the United States, although the bulk of my work has centered on the southeastern region. While I have always been interested in history in general and public history/preservation projects in particular, I came to the field professionally in a roundabout way. After working as an instructor, regional campus director, and dean at various colleges in New England for about ten years, I decided to go back to school to earn my PhD in history. While I was working on my PhD, I chose to complete one of my three required academic fields in Public History.

Since then, I've shepherded more than a dozen NRHP projects through the process. I've also authored an administrative history of Fort Frederica National Monument for the NPS, a settlement history of the area presently covered by Fort Jackson to the east of Columbia, SC, and historic eligibility evaluations of fifteen South Carolina National Guard armories throughout the state as well as a former anti-tank range on Fort Jackson. I've also curated two major museum exhibits for USC's McKissick Museum--one on the museum's impressive natural history collection, the other on the photography of F. Tobias Morriss, a photographer who taught at USC and was killed in a motorcycle accident last year.

If you are interested, you can learn more about my work here: eplaag.wordpress.com/historical-consulting-services/.

My current projects include co-authorship of a forthcoming history of the South Carolina National Guard, serving as the lead historian on a two-year grant project tracing the path of William Tecumseh Sherman through South Carolina during the Civil War (in order to publicly commemorate that path as part of the Civil War Sesquicentennial), NRHP nominations of an historic movie theater, three churches, and an historic home in Hampton County, SC, a commissioned history on an historic farm in eastern Pennsylvania, and a comparative history centering on the astonishingly well-preserved photographic record of the changing marquee of an historic movie theater in Ponca City, Oklahoma. I am also involved on a volunteer basis in the preservation and NRHP nomination of my town's historic movie theater.

I share my Boone, NC, home with my wife Teresa, my thirteen-year-old son, and our two cats. In addition to my work as an historian, I am also a working darkroom photographer who shows photography in galleries and exhibitions on a regular basis throughout the southeast. In my spare time, such as it is, I co-author a film review blog, thesplitscreen.wordpress.com/.