Amanda McCrary Smith

Preservation Assistant at The Center for Historic Preservation

amanda.smith@mtsu.edu

Amanda McCrary Smith is currently in the last year of her doctoral studies at MTSU with a concentration in American Material Culture and Historic Preservation. Most recently, she worked as the Regional Historic Preservation Planner for thirteen of the southernmost counties in Tennessee. For her professional residency as part of the Ph.D. Program, she served as the scholar in residence at Port Royal State Historic Park. There, she replicated the textile and commercial goods inventory of the 1859 General Store by working with ledger books from Port Royal and other nearby mercantile spaces. Before her work with Tennessee State Parks, she served as Curator of Textiles and Dress at the Tennessee State Museum and was an instructor at Nashville State Community College. Amanda also worked as a curator for the 2020 Journal of the Plague Year Project, which documented and preserved the oral histories of workers, educators, and students across the country during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Amanda is a tenth-generation Tennessean whose family has roots in Murfreesboro as well as south and north Nashville. She earned her B.A. at Lipscomb University in American Studies. She holds an M.A. in American History from MTSU and a graduate certification in Textile Collection Care and Management from California State University at Long Beach. Her interests are textile history, conservation, and care; labor history in Tennessee’s textile and garment factories; and 19^th- and 20^th-century landscapes of industry..