Thomas Ward

Thomas J. Ward Jr. is Assistant Dean in the School of Arts and Sciences at Farmingdale State College in New York.  A native of Annapolis, Maryland, Dr. Ward received his education at Hampden-Sydney College (B.A., 1991), Clemson University (M.A., 1993), and the University of Southern Mississippi (Ph.D., 1999).  Before coming to Farmingdale, Dr. Ward was the chair of history department at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama.  He had held previous teaching positions at Rockhurst University (Kansas City, Mo.), the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile, and University College Cork, in Ireland.

Dr. Ward has written numerous articles on African-American history and the history of health care in the American South, and was the project historian for the award-winning 1998-1999 public radio series, Mississippi Voices, A Trip Through the Twentieth Century.  In 2003, the University of Arkansas Press published his first book, Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South.  His most recent work, Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and its War on Poverty (Oxford University Press), was released in December 2016, and has received wide acclaim, including a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and the 2018 Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award.  He also authored a new foreword to the re-release of Robert Coles’ and Al Clayton’s classic work, Still Hungry in America (University of Georgia Pres, 2018).  Dr. Ward has received numerous awards for his work, including those from the Association of American Publishers, the Langum Charitable Trusts, the Gulf South Historical Association, The Mississippi Historical Society, and the Virginia Military Institute.       

Dr. Ward is currently working on a book project on healthcare and the Civil Rights Movement.  He and his wife Margaret have three sons, Patrick, Jack, and Teague.  They live in Northport, NY.