South Bound: LSU Press II, The Donald R. Ellegood Years (1954-1963)
Book Publishers in the South 3
When Donald R. Ellegood arrived in Baton Rouge in 1954, he brought with him a Distinguished Flying Cross earned in the Pacific and four years of publishing experience, much of it learned on the job. He was twenty-nine years old.
Born in 1924 in Lawton, Oklahoma, Ellegood had served as a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, flying bomber missions over the Pacific. After the war, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of Oklahoma. There, he began his publishing career as an editorial fellow at the University of Oklahoma Press under Savoie Lottinville, a pioneer of regional publishing.1 In 1951, he joined the Johns Hopkins University Press as editor and production editor. Then LSU called.
Shortly after settling into his Baton Rouge office, Ellegood encountered Eric Voegelin, then teaching at LSU. From their meeting emerged the Press’s role as publisher of Voegelin’s masterwork, the multivolume Order and History. Soon after, historian T. Harry Williams became both author and advisor to the Press, contributing two books on Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard.
But perhaps Ellegood’s most consequential decision came when he approached C. Vann Woodward, whom he had known at Johns Hopkins, with a proposal to gather the historian’s scattered essays into a single volume. That book, The Burden of Southern History, would become a landmark in American historical writing. In courting Woodward, Ellegood made a promise that would become legendary among editors: to “do anything reasonable” to ensure the book was “popularly reviewed, forcefully promoted and not priced too high” to reach the widest possible audience.
The strategy worked brilliantly. By 1960, on the eve of the Civil War centennial, the Library of Congress compiled its definitive reading list on the conflict. LSU Press had published more books on that list—seventeen—than any other publisher in the country, academic or commercial. “Publishing these books was a lot of fun, and appropriate for the Press,” Ellegood recalled, “and they sold well.”
The Press’s influence extended far beyond Confederate history. George Lowery’s definitive Louisiana Birds appeared in 1955, launching a distinguished list in natural history.2 The Coastal Studies Series began in 1957. A jazz history program took root, along with textbooks like Edwin A. Davis’s Louisiana: The Pelican State. The Press even ventured into phonograph recordings, releasing a folklore collection prepared by Harry Oster.
By October 1959, the thirty-five-year-old Ellegood was juggling some 350 manuscripts: biographies of Confederate generals, an eyewitness account of the eighteenth-century Haitian revolution, the secrets of modern hurricane forecasting.3
Ellegood’s eye for talent extended beyond manuscripts to people. In 1959, he hired Richard Wentworth as sales and promotion manager; in 1962, Charles P. East joined as acquisitions editor. Both would later succeed him as director. Among his other hires: Staige Blackford, who would become editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review; Ernst Seemann, future director of the University of Alabama Press; and Barney McKee, who would head the University Press of Mississippi.
When Charles P. East arrived in 1962, he discovered that Ellegood had initially offered the position to poet James Dickey, then in England. “I can’t imagine now that he would have taken the job, or if he had, that he would have stayed very long,” East later wrote. “It was not his kind of job or his part of the country.” Within months of East’s arrival, Ellegood departed for Seattle and the directorship of the University of Washington Press.4
Though Richard M. Weaver’s Visions of Order was published by LSU Press in 1964, after Ellegood had left for Washington and a year after Weaver’s death, it was Ellegood who, in January 1961, responded to Weaver’s inquiry with a prompt invitation to submit the manuscript for review. Weaver accepted at once. But for more than two months he revised, consulting friends, adjusting chapters, polishing lines. Only on April 4, 1961, was the manuscript finally sent to Baton Rouge.5
In Seattle, Ellegood pioneered co-publication with Japanese and other Asian publishers, developing distinguished lists in Asian history, marine sciences, and art history. At the State Department’s behest, he traveled to Russia and China to establish working relations with Soviet and Chinese publishers. He served as president of the American Association of University Presses, cementing his reputation as one of the most innovative publishers of his generation.6
Donald Russell Ellegood died in 2003.7
The Books (164 of them)
1954
Davis, Edwin Adams. The Barber of Natchez.
Emerson, Everett H. Contributions to the Humanities.
Falconer, A. F., ed. The Percy Letters v. 4, The Correspondence of Thomas Percy and David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes.
Land, Mary. Louisiana Cookery.
Markham, James Walter. Bovard of the Post-Dispatch.
Masterson, William H. William Blount.
Parks, Joseph Howard. General Edmund Kirby Smith, C.S.A.
Prothro, James Warren. The Dollar Decade: Business Ideas in the 1920’s.
Smith, T. Lynn. Brazil: People and Institutions.
Uhler, John Earle. Morley’s Canzonets for Two Voices.
1955
Charmatz, Jan P. Comparative Studies in Community Property Law.
Edgerton, C. W. Sugarcane and Its Diseases.
Fliess, Peter J. Freedom of the Press in the German Republic, 1918-1933.
Howe, Henry V. Handbook of Ostracod Taxonomy.
Lowery, George H. Louisiana Birds.
Rubin, Louis D. Thomas Wolfe: The Weather of His Youth.
Stephenson, Wendell Holmes. The South Lives in History: Southern Historians and Their Legacy.
Stone, Kate. Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868.
Watkins, W. B. C. An Anatomy of Milton’s Verse.
Whitfield, Irène Thérèse. Acadian Folk Songs.
Williams, Aubrey L. Pope’s Dunciad: A Study of Its Meaning.
Williams, T. Harry. P.G.T. Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray.
Winzerling, Oscar William. Acadian Odyssey.
1956
Clark, William Bell. Ben Franklin’s Privateers: A Naval Epic of the American Revolution.
Fordham, Jefferson Barnes. A Larger Concept of Community.
Gellhorn, Walter. Individual Freedom and Governmental Restraints.
Horn, Stanley F. The Decisive Battle of Nashville.
Longstreet, Stephen. The Real Jazz, Old and New.
Snell, John L. The Meaning of Yalta: Big Three Diplomacy and the New Balance of Power.
Vandiver, Frank E. Rebel Brass: The Confederate Command System.
Voegelin, Eric. Order and History I: Israel and Revelation.
Watson, Melvin Ray. Magazine Serials and the Essay Tradition, 1746-1820.
Williams, T. Harry. With Beauregard in Mexico: The Mexican War Reminiscences of P.G.T. Beauregard.
Wittke, Carl Frederick. The Irish in America.
1957
Alden, John Richard. The South in the Revolution, 1763-1789.
Baker, James Volant. The Sacred River: Coleridge’s Theory of the Imagination.
Beers, Henry Putney. The French in North America: A Bibliographical Guide to French Archives, Reproductions, and Research Missions.
Berns, Walter. Freedom, Virtue & the First Amendment.
Davidson, Donald. Still Rebels, Still Yankees, and Other Essays.
DeVane, William C. The American University in the Twentieth Century.
Duffy, John. Parson Clapp of the Strangers’ Church of New Orleans.
Dufour, Charles L. Gentle Tiger: The Gallant Life of Roberdeau Wheat.
Hassler, Warren W. General George B. McClellan: Shield of the Union.
Hoffman, Frederick John. Freudianism and the Literary Mind.
Hopkins, William C. Special Problems in Southern Forest Management.
Howard, Perry H. Political Tendencies in Louisiana, 1812-1952.
Lewis, Aneirin, ed. The Percy Letters v. 5, The Correspondence of Thomas Percy and Evan Evans.
Sugg, Redding S. Nuclear Energy in the South.
Uhler, John Earle. Morley’s Canzonets for Three Voices.
Voegelin, Eric. Order and History II: The World of the Polis.
West, Robert Cooper. The Pacific Lowlands of Colombia: A Negroid Area of the American Tropics.
Yates, Norris Wilson. William T. Porter and the Spirit of the Times: A Study of the Big Bear School of Humor.
1958
Brownlee, Richard S. Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla Warfare in the West, 1861-1865.
Cunningham, Horace Herndon. Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service.
Duffy, John. The Rudolph Matas History of Medicine in Louisiana.
Dunbar, Gary S. Historical Geography of the North Carolina Outer Banks.
Grantham, Dewey W. Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South.
Haag, William George. The Archeology of Coastal North Carolina.
Hopkins, William C. Management of Bottomland Forests.
Howe, Henry V. Introduction to the Study of Cretaceous Ostracoda.
Kyle, John H. The Building of TVA: An Illustrated History.
Loggins, Vernon. Where the Word Ends: The Life of Louis Moreau Gottschalk.
Mason, Alpheus Thomas. The Supreme Court From Taft to Warren.
McIntire, William G. Prehistoric Indian Settlements of the Changing Mississippi River Delta.
Nafziger, Ralph O. Introduction to Mass Communications Research.
Sittler, Joseph. The Structure of Christian Ethics.
Stewart, Randall. American Literature & Christian Doctrine.
Walker, Robert Harris. American Studies in the United States: A Survey of College Programs.
Wallach, Kate. Research in Louisiana Law.
1959
Bedsole, Vergil L. Louisiana State University: A Pictorial Record of the First Hundred Years.
Brown, Clair A. Vegetation of the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Cowan, Louise. The Fugitive Group: A Literary History.
Craven, Avery. Civil War in the Making, 1815-1860.
Cumming, Kate. Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse.
Curry, Walter Clyde. Shakespeare’s Philosophical Patterns.
Davis, Edwin Adams. Louisiana, the Pelican State.
Glass, Bentley. Science and Liberal Education.
Hayes, Rutherford B. Teach the Freeman: The Correspondence of Rutherford B. Hayes and the Slater Fund For Negro Education, 1881-1887.
Kramer, William B. Louisiana Law Enforcement Handbook.
Leach, Richard H. The Administration of Interstate Compacts.
Loos, John L. Oil On Stream!: A History of Interstate Oil Pipe Line Company, 1909-1959.
Merrill, John Calhoun. A Handbook of the Foreign Press.
Nichols, Roy F. Religion and American Democracy.
Parham, Althea de Peuch. My Odyssey: Experiences of a Young Refugee from Two Revolutions.
Patrick, Robert. Reluctant Rebel: The Secret Diary of Robert Patrick, 1861-1865.
Vickery, Olga W. The Novels of William Faulkner: A Critical Interpretation.
Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders.
1960
Brown, William Burlie. The People’s Choice: The Presidential Image in the Campaign Biography.
Brunn, H. O. The Story of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
Burns. Paul Y. Southern Forest Soils.
Buttrick, George Arthur. Biblical Thought and the Secular University.
Clark, William Bell. George Washington’s Navy: Being An Account of His Excellency’s Fleet in New England Waters.
Dellis, Nicholas P.; Herbert K. Stone. The Training of Psychotherapists: A Multidisciplinary Approach.
Donald, David Herbert. Why the North Won the Civil War.
Dunn, Gordon E. Atlantic Hurricanes.
Halstead, Murat. Three Against Lincoln: Murat Halstead Reports the Caucuses of 1860.
Harris, Robert Jennings. The Quest for Equality: The Constitution, Congress, and the Supreme Court.
Lowery, George H. Louisiana Birds.
McNeir, Waldo F. Studies in American Literature.
Patrick, Rembert W. The Fall of Richmond.
Rodman, Selden. The Insiders: Rejection and Rediscovery of Man in the Arts of Our Time.
Sugg, Redding S. The Southern Regional Education Board: Ten Years of Regional Cooperation in Higher Education.
Williams, T. Harry. Americans at War: The Development of the American Military System.
Woodward, C. Vann. The Burden of Southern History.
1961
Abernethy, Thomas Perkins. The South in the New Nation, 1789-1819. A History of the South 4.
Alden, John Richard. The First South.
Bettersworth, John Knox. Mississippi in the Confederacy, As They Saw It.
Cullen, John B. Old Times in the Faulkner Country.
Czarnowski, M. S. Dynamics of Even-Aged Forest Stands.
De Grummond, Jane Lucas. The Baratarians and the Battle of New Orleans.
Dyer, John P. From Shiloh to San Juan.
Greene, John C. Darwin and the Modern World View.
Jones, Archer. Confederate Strategy From Shiloh to Vicksburg.
Larson, Arthur. When Nations Disagree: A Handbook on Peace Through Law.
McCracken, Harlan Linneus. Keynesian Economics in the Stream of Economic Thought.
Perkins, Dexter. The United States and Latin America.
Rabel, Lili. Khasi, a Language of Assam.
Richardson, Walter Cecil. History of the Court of Augmentations, 1536-1554.
Rutland, Robert Allen. George Mason, Reluctant Statesman.
Sasek, Lawrence A. The Literary Temper of the English Puritans.
Sauer, Jonathan D. Coastal Plant Geography of Mauritius.
Silver, James W. Mississippi in the Confederacy: As Seen in Retrospect.
Slichter, Sumner H. Economic Growth in the United States: Its History, Problems, and Prospects.
1962
Ambrose, Stephen E. Halleck: Lincoln’s Chief of Staff.
Anderson, John Q. Louisiana Swamp Doctor.
Bertrand, Alvin Lee. Rural Land Tenure in the United States: A Socio-Economic Approach to Problems, Programs, and Trends.
Glaze, Thomas Edward. Business Administration for Colleges and Universities.
Hassler, Warren W. Commanders of the Army of the Potomac.
Havard, William C. The Politics of Mis-Representation.
Howe, Henry V. Ostracod Taxonomy.
McNeir, Waldo F. Studies in Comparative Literature.
McNeir, Waldo F. Studies in English Renaissance Literature.
Noggle, Burl. Teapot Dome: Oil and Politics in the 1920’s.
Parks, Joseph Howard. General Leonidas Polk, C.S.A., The Fighting Bishop.
Post, Lauren C. Cajun Sketches From the Prairies of Southwest Louisiana.
Rickels, Milton. Thomas Bangs Thorpe: Humorist of the Old Southwest.
Schmitt, Hans A. The Path to European Union: From the Marshall Plan to the Common Market.
Schuman, Frederick L. The Cold War: Retrospect and Prospect: Three Lectures.
Simpson, Lewis P. The Federalist Literary Mind: Selections from the Monthly Anthology, and Boston Review, 1803-1811, Including Documents Relating to the Boston Athenaeum.
Staar, Richard Felix. Poland, 1944-1962: The Sovietization of a Captive People.
Yiannopoulos, A. N. Negligence Clauses in Ocean Bills of Lading.
1963
Brooks, Cleanth. William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country.
Casey, Ralph Droz. The Press in Perspective.
Cunningham, Edward. The Port Hudson Campaign, 1862-1863.
Delaney, Patrick J. V. Quaternary Geologic History of the Coastal Plain of Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil.
Ford, Margaret Patricia. Who’s Who in Faulkner.
Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson. Collected Stories.
Green, Adwin Wigfall. The Man Bilbo.
Hall, Jerome. Comparative Law and Social Theory.
Hammer, Carl. Studies in German Literature.
Hartt, Julian Norris. The Lost Image of Man.
Havard, William C. The Louisiana Elections of 1960.
Morgan, James P. Mudlumps at the Mouth of South Pass, Mississippi River: Sedimentology, Paleontology, Structure, Origin, and Relation to Deltaic Processes.
Nafziger, Ralph O. Introduction to Mass Communications Research.
Nichols, Marie Hochmuth. Rhetoric and Criticism.
Poggie, John J. Coastal Pioneer Plants and Habitat in the Tampico Region, Mexico.
Pritchard, John Paul. Literary Wise Men of Gotham: Criticism in New York, 1815-1860.
Read, William A. Louisiana-French.
Robertson, James I. The Stonewall Brigade.
Saucier, Roger T. Recent Geomorphic History of the Pontchartrain Basin.
Simkins, Francis Butler. The Everlasting South.
Smith, T. Lynn. Brazil: People and Institutions.
Taylor, Joe Gray. Negro Slavery in Louisiana.
Wilz, John Edward. In Search of Peace: The Senate Munitions Inquiry, 1934-36.
Winters, John D. The Civil War in Louisiana.
South Bound: LSU Press, the Marcus M. Wilkerson Years (1935-1953)
In the lean year of 1933, dust storms ravaged the plains, breadlines snaked through cities, and Fred Harvey, a journeyman printer, established the University of New Mexico Press. Two years passed before another university press appeared. At Louisiana State University, Dr. Charles Pipkin, dean of the graduate school, had been quietly building momentum si…
Ellegood, Donald R. “Fifty Faces Of Uncle Sam.” Saturday Review, 1969-06-21.
Louisiana Birds article in Louisiana Conservationist, 1955.
Time 1959-10-05, pp. 86-87.
East, Charles, P. “My Life as an Editor,” Sewanee Review, 107.3, 1999
In Defense of Tradition, Collected Shorter Writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929-1963. Liberty Fund, 2000.
Bio sources: 1. Louisiana State University Press 1935-1985: A Tradition of Excellence. LSU Press, 1985. 2. Various newspaper clippings and letters. 3. Header photo.
University of Washington Magazine Obituary. Other related items: 1. “Ellegood to Discuss Books On 'Pursuit of Learning'.” The Daily Reveille, Vol. 67 No. 53. 2. Voegelin related mentions. 4. Louis D. Rubin dedicated his The Curious Death of the Novel, Essays in American Literature (LSU Press, 1967), to Mr. Ellegood. And one of the first, if not first books he published at Washington was Louis D. Rubin’s The Faraway Country, Writers of the Modern South. University of Washington Press, 1963. 5. “LSU Press Specializes in Regional Works of High Quality.” Centennial Reveille 1959-10-31. 6. Ellegood wrote an article about Alaskan History.
The legacy of Ellegood’s publishing lives on as the generational memory on the shelves of Southern history lovers.