Ray Douglas Hurt is an American agricultural historian, academic, and author. He is a professor of history emeritus at Purdue University, where he headed the department of history 2003–2018. Hurt is known for his research on the Great Plains, the American Civil War, Native Americans, technology, and the American South, West, and Midwest, as well as the Green Revolution. His work places the economic and political aspects of agricultural history in environmental and social context. His books include Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri's Little Dixie (1992), American Agriculture: A Brief History (1994, revised 2002), The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830 (1996), The Great Plains during World War II (2008), The Big Empty: The Great Plains in the Twentieth Century (2011), Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South (2015), The Green Revolution: Science, Politics, and Unintended Consequences (2020), Agriculture in the Midwest, 1815–1900 (2023), The Country People: An Agricultural History of the American Revolution (2026), and Famine in World History (2027). Hurt was president of the Agricultural History Society 2000–2001. He has also served as the editor of the Missouri Historical Review, Ohio History, Agricultural History, and The Henry A. Wallace Series on Agricultural History and Rural Life. He has received two lifetime achievement awards for professional history, the 2016 Gladys L. Baker Award of the Agricultural History Society and the 2022 Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Midwestern Historical Association.
Early life and education Hurt was born July 11, 1946. He studied at Fort Hays State University and received his bachelor's degree and master's degree in 1969 and 1971, respectively. He then earned his doctoral degree from Kansas State University in 1975. He was a Smithsonian Institution postdoctoral fellow in the History of Science and Technology 1976–1977.
Career Following his postdoctoral fellowship, Hurt held the position of a visiting assistant professor at Texas Tech University 1977–1978. He then held concurrent appointments as a curator of agricultural history at the Ohio Historical Society (1978–1986) and as an adjunct associate professor of history at the Ohio State University (1981–1986). From 1986 until 1989, he was the associate director of the State Historical Society of Missouri and adjunct professor of history at the University of Missouri - Columbia. He then joined Iowa State University as an associate professor in 1989 and was promoted to professor in 1992. At Iowa State, he was director of the graduate program in agricultural history and rural studies. In 2003, Hurt left Iowa State University to become a professor and head of the department of history at Purdue University. He remained head of the department until 2018, and he retired emeritus. Hurt has served as a president of the Agricultural History Society (2000–2001). He has also served on award committees for Agricultural History, Ohio Valley History and the Indiana Historical Society, and he has served as the editor of the Missouri Historical Review, Agricultural History (1995–2003), Ohio History (2005–2009), and The Henry A. Wallace Series on Agricultural History and Rural Life. In 2010, Hurt became a Fellow in the Agricultural History Society. In 2016, Hurt was awarded the Gladys L. Baker Award for lifetime achievement from the Agricultural History Society. In 2022, he was selected to receive the Frederick Jackson Turner lifetime achievement award of the Midwestern Historical Association (MHA). He won the MHA's 2024 Jon Gjerde prize for the best book on the history of the Midwest in the past year, for his Agriculture in the Midwest, 1815–1900 (2023); he is also the namesake of the MHA's R. Douglas Hurt Research Award, which he endowed to support archival research in Midwestern history.
Research Hurt's research is focused on the Great Plains, American Civil War, Native Americans, technology, and the American South, West, and Midwest, along with the Green Revolution. He has worked on placing the economic and political aspects of agricultural history in an environmental and social context. He also published a paper on the various possibilities and pitfalls regarding museum studies for historians.
Agricultural history of America Hurt's work on the agricultural and rural history of America resulted in a book titled American Agriculture: A Brief History, which focused on the major economic, technological and scientific developments regarding American agriculture from the colonial period. Hurt also has analyzed various contributions and studies conducted on American agricultural history and reviewed the discipline of American agricultural history in scholarly publications.
Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri's Little Dixie In 1992, Hurt published Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri's Little Dixie, for which he received the 1992 Theodore Saloutos Award of the Agricultural History Society and the 1993 Missouri History Book Award of the State Historical Society of Missouri. The book was reviewed as "a welcome addition to the literature". According to D. Clayton Brown, "students of agricultural history and antebellum history should know this book". This book has been reviewed as "a solidly researched, informed account that fills a vacant niche in the historical literature". In a review, David E. Schob stated that the book "may well be the best volume published in agricultural history in 1992".
The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830 Hurt published his book The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720–1830 in 1996. The book gathered numerous reviews including a review by E. J. Fabyan that stated that "finally, after nearly twenty-five years, a high quality general history of the frontier period of the state of Ohio is now available". The book is "a dynamic account of the Ohio frontier that should delight both trans-Appalachian frontier scholars and interested amateurs". In another review, the book was stated as "extremely readable and exciting treatments of the region during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries". Kay J. Carr noted that "readers who are looking for such a straightforward, no-nonsense approach will appreciate his [Hurt's] clarity."
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