Gilbert C. Fite (May 14, 1918 – July 13, 2010) was an American historian best known for his numerous works onAmerican agricultural history. Fite's lengthy catalog included works that focused heavily on how farmers affected the political environment and broaderAmerican economy, both of which examined the political power that farmers wielded in various eras. Fite was a professor at theUniversity of Oklahoma, held the Richard B. Russell Chair in American History at theUniversity of Georgia, and was president ofEastern Illinois University from 1971 to 1976.

Born on May 14, 1918, to a couple of poor homesteaders, Fite spent his childhood and teenage years in westernSouth Dakota. He graduated from aFree Methodist secondary school inWessington Springs, South Dakota, and attended junior college in the area. By 1937, Fite attendedSeattle Pacific College until medical issues forced him to attend an institution closer to his family's farm. He enrolled in theUniversity of South Dakota atVermillion, SD, and graduated with his master's degree in 1941. In the spring of 1945, Fite earned his Ph.D. in history from theUniversity of Missouri.^[1]

In 1945, Fite began teaching at the University of Oklahoma alongside other prominent historians such asEdward Everett Dale andCarl Rister. During his early years at the institution, Fite published numerous articles and monographs, including the first carving records and major study done on theMount Rushmore National Monument.^[2] Fite spent 26 years at the University of Oklahoma as an instructor and a researcher until he took over the position of college president at Eastern Illinois University. Fite was president of the institution until 1976, at which time he took the Richard B. Russell Chair in American History at the University of Georgia. While at Georgia, Fite authored more monographs on agricultural history, includingCotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980, which won the Theodore Saluoutos Award for the best book in agricultural history in 1985. Fite retired from teaching in 1986 but continued to research and write on agricultural history.

In addition to his teaching and research, Fite held numerous leadership positions in various historical societies. He was president of theAgricultural History Society from 1960-1961, of theSouthern Historical Association in 1974, of theWestern History Association from 1985-1986, and ofPhi Alpha Theta from 1981-1983.^[3]

In 1939, while in a hospital inMitchell, SD hospital, Fite met Alberta June Goodwin. The two married on July 24, 1941, and later had two sons: Jack and Jim.

Fite died on July 13, 2010, inFort Myers, Florida. In 1990, Fite entered theSouth Dakota Hall of Fame.^[3] Due to his influence in the shaping of American agricultural history, the Agricultural History Society created an annual award in 2000 named after Fite for the best dissertation on agricultural history in honor of him.^[4]

In total, Fite authored, co-authored, or edited over eighteen monograph-length works and fifty articles.

His first work, an expansion of his doctoral thesis, was an investigation into howPeter Norbeck, a South Dakota politician, helped secure federal support for agricultural programs and the Mount Rushmore National Monument. In 1991, Fite completed a biography ofRichard B. Russell, a prominent Georgia politician for whom the chair that Fite occupied at the University of Georgia was named.

Fite's greatest impact toAmerican historiography came in the field of agricultural history. Most of his historical analyses focused on either farming impacted the direction of the United States or how farmers and farming communities responded to larger societal changes in American life. The most prominent of these works areThe Farmers' Frontier, 1865-1900, American Farmers: The New Minority, andCotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980.

Fite'sThe Farmers' Frontier, 1865-1900 focused on the development of the Great Plains region during the latter part of the 19th century. In the work, Fite rebuked theenvironmental determinism set up inWalter Prescott Webb'sThe Great Plains and instead argued that it was the people- farmers in this instance- that shaped the culture of theGreat Plains environment rather than the other way around. Fite's work was one of the first to bring ideas of historical agency to those who chose to live in the Great Plains while also explaining how agriculture became the dominant economic engine of the region due to decisions made by these early American settlers.^[5]

The two other influential works of Fite in regard to American agricultural history wereAmerican Farmers: The New Minority andCotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980. Both works focused heavily on how the political and economic power of agricultural peoples shrank in the nineteenth and twentieth century. In the former work, Fite argued that those who made their livelihoods on agriculture held less power at the end of the twentieth century than in the early decades of the century due to increased farm consolidation and greater technological innovations, which put more money into the pockets of a select few who were fortunate or smart enough to keep expanding. Additionally, this new economic environment coupled with political changes and a decline in the cultural myth ofJeffersonian agrarianism to shift political attention away from farmers and farming political organizations.^[6]Cotton Fields No More continued this sort of analysis, shifting the focus to the southern United States after the Civil War and argued in a similar vein that political and technological changes caused small-scale farmers to leave agriculture.Cotton Fields No More won the 1985 Theodore Saloutos Award for Best Book in Agricultural History.^[7]

External videos
Booknotes interview with Fite onRichard B. Russell, Jr., Senator From Georgia, August 2, 1992C-SPAN

• Fite, Gilbert C.Peter Norbeck; Prairie Statesman. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1948.
• Fite, Gilbert C.Mount Rushmore. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952.
• Fite, Gilbert C.George N. Peek and the Fight for Farm Parity. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954
• Haystad, Lee and Gilbert C. Fite.The Agricultural Regions of the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
• Fite, Gilbert C.The Farmers’ Frontier. 1865-1900. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977.
• Fite, Gilbert C.American Farmers: The New Minority. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.
• Fite, Gilbert C.Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984.
• Fite, Gilbert C. and Jim E. Reese.An Economic History of the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973.
• Fite, Gilbert C.Richard B. Russell, Jr.: Senator from Georgia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

• Wall, Donna Lee (December 22, 2010)."Gilbert Courtland Fite".Academic Professor, Author, & Historian.Find a Grave.

• 20th-century American historians
• American male non-fiction writers
• Historians of agriculture
• 1918 births
• 2010 deaths
• University of South Dakota alumni
• University of Missouri alumni
• University of Oklahoma faculty
• University of Georgia faculty
• Presidents of Eastern Illinois University
• Historians from Ohio
• Historians from South Dakota
• 20th-century American male writers

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