Hayes, Jack Irby, Jr.

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Hayes, Jack Irby, Jr.

(J.I. Hayes)

PERSONAL:

Married Bernadine Joy Arnn, 1966; children: one daughter. Education: Hampden-Sydney College, B.A.; Averett College, B.S., 1987; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, M.A.; University of South Carolina, Ph.D. Religion: Presbyterian.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Averett University, Frith Hall, 420 W. Main St., Danville, VA 24541. E-mail—jack.hayes@averett.edu.

CAREER:

Educator. Taught at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University at Blacksburg; University of South Carolina, Columbia, director of continuing education, 1972-74; Averett University, Danville, VA, 1974—, began as assistant professor, currently W.C. Daniel Professor of History and Political Science. Past secretary and past president, Danville Salvation Army advisory board; past board member and past vice president, Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History; past president, Hughes Memorial Home Foundation board; and trustee, elder, and deacon at First Presbyterian Church, Danville.

MEMBER:

Southern Historical Association, Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (life member), Danville Kiwanis Club Foundation, Danville Kiwanis Club (secretary and past president).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Lewis P. Jones summer research fellow, 1998; research fellow, Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, 1998; Littleton-Griswold Prize nomination, American Historical Association, 2002, for South Carolina and the New Deal.

WRITINGS:

(Under name J.I. Hayes) A History of Averett College, Averett College Press (Danville, VA), 1984.

Dan Daniel and the Persistence of Conservatism in Virginia, Mercer University Press (Macon, GA), 1997.

South Carolina and the New Deal, University of South Carolina Press (Columbia, SC), 2001.

The Lamp and the Cross: A History of Averett College, 1859-2001, Mercer University Press (Macon, GA), 2004.

Contributor to the Dictionary of Virginia Biography and South Carolina Encyclopedia. Contributor to Journal of American History.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jack Irby Hayes, Jr., is the W.C. Daniel Professor of History and Political Science at Averett University of Danville, Virginia. He has written two histories of his alma mater: 1984's A History of Averett College and The Lamp and the Cross: A History of Averett College, 1859-2001, published in 2004. Hayes is also the author of South Carolina and the New Deal, an examination of the New Deal's impact on one Southern state.

In The Lamp and the Cross, Hayes presents not only a history of his college, but also the story of American educational development. Many of the educational changes found in the larger society are reflected in the changes made at Averett College. The school began in 1859 "to produce a ‘finished’ young lady who could model high culture while attending to hearth and community," Hayes wrote in his preface. Since then, job-related programs have been introduced to prepare students for employment in society. The school's original focus on educating Southern Baptists has also evolved, opening it to a variety of religious faiths. "Historians of education will find rich pickings in Hayes's wealth of details," wrote James Edward Scanlon in the Journal of Southern History. Scanlon concluded: "This insider's history has the advantage of experience and cuts through much of the official record to get to the realities of undergraduate education."

In South Carolina and the New Deal, Hayes takes a careful look at the effects of the New Deal policies of President Franklin Roosevelt in the state of South Carolina. Similar to many other Southern states, South Carolina benefited from the New Deal's influx of Federal money. The Rural Electrification Administration brought hydroelectric power to the region, while the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration provided jobs. New Deal agricultural initiatives moved South Carolina farmers from sharecropping to more efficient, and profitable, uses of farmland. But Hayes also points out that it was ultimately World War II that brought South Carolina back to prosperity, not any New Deal program. As he wrote in the book's preface: "This study is an attempt to delineate the depth and extent of New Deal influence in South Carolina. [While] New Deal programs did not bring prosperity, they at least reduced the drudgery of life on the farm, improved the quality of farmland, and kept the farmer in operation long enough for him to thrive during and after World War II." Writing in the Journal of Southern History, Richard Saunders, Jr., called the book "a valuable contribution to our understanding of how the New Deal played out below the national level." Ronald E. Marcello in History: Review of New Books found South Carolina and the New Deal to be "a valuable addition to the growing body of literature studying the influence of the New Deal at the state level."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bee (Danville, VA), September 12, 1974, "Averett College Expanding Faculty to Include Four New Members," p. 9.

History: Review of New Books, spring, 2002, Ronald E. Marcello, review of South Carolina and the New Deal, p. 94.

Journal of Southern History, May, 2003, Richard Saunders, Jr., review of South Carolina and the New Deal, p. 472; August; 2006, James Edward Scanlon, review of The Lamp and the Cross: A History of Averett College, 1859-2001, p. 669.