Merline Pitre

Merline Pitre (born April 10, 1943) is an American historian and educator. She is a professor of history at Texas Southern University and previously served as president of the Texas State Historical Association in 2011 and 2012.

Merline Pitre
Born	(1943-04-10)April 10, 1943 Opelousas, Louisiana, US
Academic background
Alma mater	Temple University
Thesis	Frederick Douglass : a party loyalist, 1870-1895 (1976)

Life and career

Pitre was born on April 10, 1943 in Opelousas, Louisiana to parents Florence W. Pitre (d. 2014) and Robert Pitre.^[1][2] She grew up in the Louisiana Plaisance community^[3] and graduated as valedictorian from Plaisance High School in 1962.^[4][5] She received a B.S. in French from Southern University and an M.A. in French from Atlanta University. She received another M.A. degree and Ph.D. at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1972 and 1976, respectively.^[1]

For three years, Pitre was a teacher at St. Augustine College in Raleigh, North Carolina. She conducted research at the Library of Congress, National Archives, and the Frederick Douglass Memorial Home.^[4] In 1981, she was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, which awarded a stipend for independent research.^[6]

In 1983, Pitre became the associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Behavioral Sciences at Texas Southern University, a position she held until 1985.^[7] Between 1990 and 1994, as well as between 2000 and 2008, she served as the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Behavioral Sciences.^[1]

From 2011 to 2012, she served as the president of the Texas State Historical Association.^[8]

In 2007 and 2012, she received the Liz Carpenter Best Book on the History of Women Award from the Texas State Historical Association for her books Black Women in Texas History (with Bruce Glasrud) and Southern Black Women in the Modern Civil Rights Movement (with Bruce Glasrud), respectively.^[9] In 2014, she was awarded the Lorraine Williams Leadership Award from the Association of Black Women Historians and the President Achievement Award from Texas Southern University.^[1]

Bibliography

• Pitre, Merline (2016). Through many dangers, toils and snares : black leadership in Texas, 1868-1898 (Revised ed.). College Station: Texas A & M University Press. ISBN 978-1-62349-483-4. OCLC 957312510.^[10]
• Pitre, Merline (1999). In struggle against Jim Crow : Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900-1957 (1st ed.). College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press. ISBN 0-585-38784-2. OCLC 49569076.^[11]
• Black women in Texas history. Bruce A. Glasrud, Merline Pitre, Angela Boswell (1st ed.). College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press. 2008. ISBN 978-1-60344-409-5. OCLC 607809297.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)^[12]
• Pitre, Merline (2018). Born to serve : a history of Texas Southern University. Norman. ISBN 978-0-8061-6161-7. OCLC 1030892976.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)^[13]

References

1. "Merline Pitre's Biography". The HistoryMakers. November 28, 2016. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
2. "Florence W. Pitre". Daily World. 25 September 2014. p. A5. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
3. "Parish native returns to museum for lecture". Daily World. 7 February 2001. p. 4A. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
4. "Plaisance Woman To Get PhD Degree". Daily World. 20 May 1976. p. 15. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
5. "Merline Pitre Highest Ranking Student in Class". Daily World. 3 June 1962. p. 36. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
6. "Dr. Merline Pitre Receives Fellowship". Daily World. 2 July 1981. p. 19. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
7. "About Faculty". Texas Southern University. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
8. Pitre, Merline (2012). "Texas and the Master Civil Rights Narrative: A Case Study of Black Females in Houston". The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 116 (2): 125–138. ISSN 0038-478X. JSTOR 24388315. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
9. "TSHA | Liz Carpenter Award for Best Book on the History of Women". www.tshaonline.org. Retrieved 2023-02-18.
10. Reviews for Through Many Dangers, Toils and Snares: Black Leadership in Texas, 1870-1890
    • "Parish native returns to museum for lecture". Daily World. 7 February 2001. p. 4A. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
    • Schweninger, Loren (1987). "Review of Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares: The Black Leadership of Texas, 1868-1900". The American Historical Review. 92 (5): 1282. doi:10.2307/1868642. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 1868642.
    • Moneyhon, Carl H. (1987). "Review of Through many Dangers, Toils and Snares: The Black Leadership of Texas, 1868-1900". The Journal of Southern History. 53 (2): 340–341. doi:10.2307/2209126. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 2209126.
11. Reviews for In Struggle against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900–1957
    • Rouse, Jacqueline A. (1 February 2001). "Merline Pitre. In Struggle against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900–1957". The American Historical Review. 106 (1): 204–205. doi:10.1086/ahr/106.1.204.
    • Zangrando, Robert L. (2000). "Review of In Struggle against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900-1957". The Western Historical Quarterly. 31 (2): 243–244. doi:10.2307/970091. ISSN 0043-3810. JSTOR 970091.
    • Christian, Garna L. (2000). "Review of In Struggle against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900-1957". The Journal of Southern History. 66 (4): 897–898. doi:10.2307/2588055. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 2588055.
12. Review of Black Women in Texas History: Eight Essays on the Role Black Women Played in the Shaping of the History of the Lone Star State
    • "The role of black women in culture change". The Manhattan Mercury. 8 June 2008. p. D2. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
13. Review of Born to Serve: A History of Texas Southern University
    • Preuss, Gene B. (2019). "Born to Serve: A History of Texas Southern University by Merline Pitre (review)". Southwestern Historical Quarterly: 134–135. doi:10.1353/swh.2019.0070. S2CID 198617898. Retrieved 28 February 2022.