A keen sense of history, coupled with a passion to write and teach, has garnered West Virginia University professor Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf the 2008 Benedum Distinguished Scholar Award.

The award includes $5,000 and recognition during the Honors Convocation at 7 p.m. Friday, May 16, at the WVU Coliseum, part of the Universitys 139th Commencement activities.

Fones-Wolf, a faculty member in the Department of History in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, will also present WVU s annual Benedum Lecture at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, in the Mountainlair Gold Ballroom. Her talk,No Laughing Matter: Comedy, Gender and Labor Radio in Fifties America,is free and open to the public, with a reception to follow.

Elizabeth Fones-Wolf has built a highly productive career that has earned her a reputation as one of the leading authorities on the social and economic history of the United States in the 20th century, and particularly on the political uses of culture,said Steven M. Zdatny, chair of the history department.

Ive always enjoyed history and learning about the past,Fones-Wolf said.When choosing my career, I decided to do something I really enjoyed.

Fones-Wolf caught thehistory bugearly on, growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. She was inspired by the Smithsonian exhibits of trains and NASA s Mercury capsule and awed by the profound changes in transportation during the 20th century.

One of her earliest memories was watching President John F. Kennedys hearse go past during his funeral procession in downtown Washington. She also remembers Resurrection City, built on the Washington Mall in 1968 shortly after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination, and the Vietnam War protests.

Having lived through important parts of U.S. history, Im able to share those memories with my students,Fones-Wolf said.I want to share my enthusiasm for studying the past and emphasize the relevance of history.

Fones-Wolfs experiences and studies led her to write two books,Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism 1945-60(1994) andWaves of Opposition: Labor and the Struggle for Democratic Radio 1933-58(2006). Both were published by the University of Illinois Press and are available on Amazon.com.

Waves of Oppositionexamines how business and organized labor struggled to shape American political culture from the 1930s-60s. The bookwhich stands at the crossroads of history, sociology, economics and mass mediawas a 2007 James W. Tankard Award finalist by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Media.

�€~Waves of Oppositionaddresses questions such as how did the nation become as conservative as it is,Fones-Wolf said.It examines the struggle between business and labor to shape the hearts and minds of the public, as well as the economy and public policy.

The book shows how, over time, the voice of labor became marginalized, added Fones-Wolf, who conducted research at the Library of Congress and in archives across the country, and interviewed former labor leaders and retired autoworkers.

When labor had a voice on the radio, people recognized the leaders of organized labor, including such champions of workers such as John L. Lewis of the miners and Walter Reuther of the autoworkers,Fones-Wolf said.Through talk shows and news programs, the general public knew what unions stood for and contributed to American society. Lost today is the voice of the working class and organized labor in mass media.

A dedicated teacher, Fones-Wolf uses her historical research to challenge undergraduate and graduate history students to make comparisons between the past and what is happening today. She is teaching Hollywood in History and American Economic History Since 1865 this semester.

Were studying McCarthyism in the Hollywood history class,said Fones-Wolf, who energizes students to think critically, to discuss, debate and role play periods of history, making the subject more personally meaningful.Students are learning how easily civil liberties can come under attack.

In the economic history class, students are learning about the origins of the Great Depression.

Students are quick to see how many Americans today are in enormous debt and the problems with the subprime mortgage crisis in housing,she said.

Fones-Wolf also encourages students to publish their research. One of her students, Jay Smith, publishedRed-Baiting Senator Harley Kilgore in the Election of 1952: The Limits of McCarthyism during the Second Red Scarein West Virginia History, a journal published by the WVU Press.

Its certainly an honor to receive recognition from my peers and join the ranks of other distinguished professors at WVU who have received the Benedum Distinguished Scholar Award,said Fones-Wolf, who came to WVU in 1990 after studying at the University of Maryland and the University of Massachusetts.

I remember being inspired by the history departments other Benedum winners, including Robert Maxon, Ronald Lewis and Robert Blobaum, as well as many other faculty members at WVU ,she said.The University is very supportive and offers a whole array of different programs to support faculty scholarship.

Fones-Wolf was selected as the 2002 West Virginia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and also earned the 2000 Cathy Covert Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, among other honors.

The Benedum and Distinguished Professors of WVU established the Benedum Distinguished Scholar Awards in 1985-86 to honor and reward University faculty for excellence in research, scholarship or creative endeavors. The awards recognize either a single recent achievement of note or a long, distinguished career that is still ongoing. The program is funded by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and coordinated by WVU s Office of Academic Affairs and Research.