Connie L. Lester is Associate Professor of History at UCF, Director of RICHES (Regional Initiative for Collecting the History, Experiences, and Stories of Central Florida), and Editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly. Her research focuses on the modern South, including agricultural, environmental, and economic history. She is author of Up from the Mudsills of Hell: The Farmers’ Alliance, Populism, and Progressive Agriculture in Tennessee, 1870-1915 (University of Georgia Press, 2006) and associate editor of the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. She has book manuscripts in progress with the University of Tennessee Press and University Press of Mississippi. She earned her Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Tennessee.
