Anne F. Hyde

Historian

• Born: 1960
• Place of Birth: Manitou Springs, Colorado

Contribution: Anne Farrar Hyde is an award-winning historian and author, best known for her research on the American West during the nineteenth century.

Background

Anne F. Hyde was born in Manitou Springs, Colorado. She received her bachelor’s degree in 1982 from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she graduated summa cum laude and was named to the Phi Beta Kappa honors society. Her honors dissertation was titled “The Comstock Lode; or, a Crucible of Militant Unionism.”

Hyde continued her education at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her master’s degree in 1984 and her PhD in history in 1988. After earning her doctorate, Hyde became an assistant professor of history at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She taught there from 1988 to 1991.

Career

Hyde published her first book in 1990. An American Vision: Far Western Landscape and American Culture, 1820–1920 is part of the American Social Experience Series published by New York University Press. The book examines how the western United States has influenced the development of an American national culture. Hyde demonstrates that the landscape of the West initially was off-putting to American settlers, but they later looked on the region with a sense of pride. The book was highly acclaimed and won the 1991 W. Turrentine Jackson Award for best first book in western history, presented by the Western History Association.

In 1991 Hyde began teaching at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She became an associate professor in 1994 and held that position until she was promoted to professor and history department chair in 2003. The courses she taught at Colorado College covered a wide range of American history topics, including American Indian studies, ethnic studies, and Colorado history.

During the 1990s, Hyde had many articles published in various academic journals and collections, including Pacific Historical Review (1998), A New Significance: Re-envisioning the History of the American West (1996), and Western Historical Quarterly (August 1993). She held appointments to different historical associations as well. From 1996 to 1999, Hyde was on the Western History Association’s board of editors for the journal Western Historical Quarterly. She was also an elected council member of the American Historical Association (Pacific Coast Branch) from 1998 to 2001.

Hyde coauthored with historian William F. Deverell two volumes that were published in 2000: The West in the History of the Nation, Volume I: To 1877 and Volume II: To 1865. The two volumes present hundreds of primary-source documents from the second half of the nineteenth century that pertain to the frontiers of the American West. Scholars called the books highly valuable resources for students of American history.

Hyde’s 2011 book Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800–1860 won the Bancroft Prize, an annual prize awarded by Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. In 2012, the book was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the history category. In it, Hyde looks at the history of the American West during the first half of the nineteenth century by examining the fur industry, family ties, culture, politics, and racial identity. During her research, she examined family letters, business records, and government documents that revealed complex interconnections between families, friends, businesses, and cultures.

Hyde served as editor for the 2012 book Frémont’s First Impressions: The Original Report of His Exploring Expeditions of 1842–1844 and also wrote the introduction. The book collects the expedition journals of American military officer and explorer John C. Frémont. Hyde provides context for Frémont’s expeditions within the nineteenth-century American experience and shows how he exemplified it.

In 2018, Hyde and co-author William F. Deverell wrote a two-volume retelling of North American history through the eyes of the western American residents who lived it. The volumes, Shaped by the West: A North American History parts one and two, rely heavily on primary source documents to tell the story of America's West through the late nineteenth century.

Hyde published another volume of American Western history, Born of Lakes and Plains, in 2023. The book won the Bonney MacDonald CSAW Award for Outstanding Western Book presented in early 2024.

Impact

Hyde’s wide range of research and published work has greatly contributed to the field of the history of the American West. Her work is invaluable for students studying nineteenth-century American history, specifically family networks and cultures within North America.

Personal Life

Hyde has three children with Jim McCall. Their names are Colin, Tim, and Grace.

Bibliography

Chandler, Chip. "Oklahoma Historian’s Exploration of Mixed-Race Families Across American History Wins CSAW’s Outstanding Western Book." West Texas A&M University, 18 Sept. 2023, www.wtamu.edu/news/2023/09/oklahoma-historians-exploration-of-mixed-race-families-across-american-history-wins-csaws-outstanding-western-book.html. Accessed 18 Sept. 2024.

Hurt, R. Douglas. Rev. of Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800–1860, by Anne F. Hyde. Journal of the Early Republic 32.4 (2012): 727–30. Print.

Hyde, Anne F. “Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American West, by Anne Hyde.” Interview by Jeff Glor. CBS News. CBS Interactive, 28 Sept. 2012. Web. 2 Jul. 2013.

“Professor Anne Hyde Wins Celebrated Bancroft Prize.” Colorado College. Colorado College, 14 Mar. 2012. Web. 11 July 2013.

Simpson, Kevin. “CC Prof’s Book on West Wins Bancroft Award.” Denver Post. Denver Post, 14 Mar. 2012. Web. 11 July 2013.

“The 2012 Pulitzer Prize Winners: History.” The Pulitzer Prizes. Columbia U, 2012. Web. 11 July 2013.