Graduate Student Cole Wicker is a Public Historian and a PhD Student in the History Department at UGA. As a practitioner-scholar, Cole readily engages his work with the public, encouraging discourse around challenging historical interpretations, including racialized labor systems, dispossession, enslavement, carceral labor, and segregated space-making. His research explores the interpretation of race and labor histories at public recreation areas, including Hard Labor Creek in Rutledge, Georgia. He completed his MA thesis at Duke University, where his project, “An Interpretive History of the Lower Deep River Region,” raised the question, “How can history inform land conservation?” His public-facing digital scholarship is available at deepriverhistory.com. Cole eagerly serves on the board of the Athens Historical Society. His commitment to public history extends to his leadership as the executive director of The Heart of Deep River Historical Society near his hometown in central North Carolina. Research Research Areas: Public History U.S. 19th & 20th Century U.S. South Labor History Environment & Agriculture Digital History Education Education: M.A. Liberal Studies, Duke University, 2022 B.A. Cultural Anthropology, Duke University, 2018
