Edwin Adams Davis

Edwin Adams Davis (May 10, 1904 – April 24, 1994) was an American historian who specialized in studies of his adopted state of Louisiana. A long-time professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, he was particularly known for two textbooks, Louisiana: A Narrative History and Louisiana: The Pelican State, the latter for middle schools and coauthored with Joe Gray Taylor of McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana .

Background

A Missouri native, Davis was the son of Frank Byrd Davis (1873–1932) and the former Willie Belle Greever (1873–1913), who died when Davis was eight or nine. Davis married La Verna Mae Rowe (1905 - 1990), and they had one child, Edwin Adams Davis Jr.

Academic career

In addition to his professorial duties at LSU, Davis is considered the "father of the Louisiana state archives." There were no state archives prior to 1936 even though no other state possessed the volume and variety of European colonial and American territorial records as did Louisiana. Davis convinced the LSU administration to develop a systematic preservation of state records. The state legislature in 1936 empowered the university archives to act as the depository for public records of state government, a role which LSU filled for two decades.

Notable publications

In addition to his textbooks, Davis was author of Fallen Guidon: The Saga of Confederate General Jo Shelby's March to Mexico, published first in 1962 and again in 1995, a year after Davis; death, by Texas A&M University Press. After the Battle of Appomattox Court House in April 1865, some Confederates remained steadfast to what is sometimes known as the Lost Cause. One particular group led by General Joseph O. Shelby of Missouri, followed its cavalry flag, or guidon, south with the goal of planting an imperial colony in Mexico. Shelby declared that he and his men preferred exile from the United States to submission to the Union Army. Shelby was motivated by the report that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wanted the Habsburg emperor Maximilian, I, driven out of Mexico, and Shelby proposed to join forces with Benito Juarez for that purpose. He expected to prevail and spread the Lost Cause to a new land. Davis was a descendant of one of Shelby's men. The Barber of Natchez with William Ransom Hogan, LSU Press, 1973; the story of William Johnson, a slave who rose to freedom, business success, and high community standing in Natchez, Mississippi, all before 1850. "Diary of William Newton Mercer" of Henry Miller Shreve Expedition, Journal of Southern History, with John C. L. Andreassen (1936). Of the Night Wind's Telling: Legends from the Valley of Mexico, folklore (1946).