J. Mills Thornton

Jonathan Mills Thornton III (born October 27, 1943) is an American historian known for his work on Southern history, the Civil Rights Movement, and Reconstruction era. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Early life and education

Thornton was born in Montgomery, Alabama. He attended Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, graduating in 1962. He earned his A.B. with high honors from Princeton University in 1966, followed by an M.Phil. (1969) and Ph.D. (1974) from Yale University.

Academic career

Thornton began his teaching career as an instructor at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle from 1971 to 1974. He then joined the faculty at the University of Michigan, where he was appointed Assistant Professor (1974–1977), Associate Professor (1977–1982), and Professor of History (1982–2010). Since 2010, he has held the title of Professor Emeritus.

Research and publications

Thornton's scholarship focuses on Southern political history, the Civil Rights Movement, and Reconstruction. His book Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 1800–1860 (1978) won multiple awards, including the Jules F. Landry Prize, the John H. Dunning Prize, and the James F. Sulzby Prize. His later work, Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (2002), also received the Liberty Legacy Foundation Award and the Anne and James McMillan Prize.

Honors and fellowships

Thornton has received several prestigious fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1978–1979) and a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1994–1995). He has been awarded the Liberty Legacy Foundation Prize and the Anne and James McMillan Prize for his contributions to historical scholarship. In 2007–2008, he served as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University.

Professional service

Thornton has been actively involved in professional organizations, including the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Southern Historical Association. He has served on the editorial boards of the Alabama Review and the Journal of Southern History.

Selected bibliography

• Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 1800–1860 (1978)
• Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (2002)
• Archipelagoes of My South: Episodes in the Shaping of a Region, 1830–1965 (2016)
• "The ‘Thrusting Out’ of Governor Harvey: A Seventeenth-Century Rebellion" (1968)
• "Alabama Politics, J. Thomas Heflin and the Expulsion Movement of 1929" (1968)
• "Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956" (1980)
• "Fiscal Policy and the Failure of Radical Reconstruction in the Lower South" (1982)
• "Hugo Black and the Golden Age" (1985)
• "Segregation and the City: White Supremacy in Alabama in the Mid-Twentieth Century" (2012)
• "Alabama’s Presidential Reconstruction Legislature" (2012)
• "Alabama Emancipates" (2013)
• "The Big Interest Cases" (2020)
• "Mark Twain and the Failure of Radical Reconstruction" (2023)