Mark Souther is a historian based in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a Professor of History and the Director of the Center for Public History + Digital Humanities at Cleveland State University. Broadly trained as a historian of the modern U.S. and the American South, he specializes in urban history. His research interests include city and regional planning, urban renewal, historic preservation, tourism, downtowns, suburbs, and civic boosterism. A native of Gainesville, Georgia, Mark earned his Ph.D. in History in 2002 from Tulane University, M.A. in History in 1996 from the University of Richmond, and B.A. in History in 1994 from Furman University.
Mark has published four books, including his latest, Sandhill Cities: Metropolitan Ambitions in Augusta, Columbus, and Macon, Georgia (Louisiana State University Press, 2025). His previous books are: New Orleans on Parade: Tourism and the Transformation of the Crescent City (Louisiana State University Press, 2006, paper 2013), American Tourism: Constructing a National Tradition, co-edited with Nicholas Dagen Bloom (Center for American Places, 2012), and Believing in Cleveland: Managing Decline in “The Best Location in the Nation” (Temple University Press, 2017). Mark is currently researching his newest book project, Hostess City of the South: Tourism and the Making of Modern Savannah. He has also published numerous articles and essays, including in the Journal of American History, Journal of Urban History, Journal of Planning History, Georgia Historical Quarterly, and other journals and edited volumes.
In public history and digital humanities, Mark directs Cleveland Historical, a web and app project that curates Greater Cleveland through nearly 850 location-based histories, Curatescape, a web and mobile publishing framework that supports dozens of similar location-based history projects worldwide, Cleveland Voices, a large digital archive and active oral history project that reflects multiple community partnerships, and Green Book Cleveland, a multi-partner project that combines Victor H. Green’s famous travel guides with new research that expands our understanding of Black entertainment, leisure, and recreation in Northeast Ohio in the 1930s-60s.
Mark has directed three National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) digital humanities grants, including Curating Kisumu: Adapting Mobile Humanities Interpretation in East Africa (2014-15) and Curating East Africa: A Platform and Process for Location-based Storytelling in the Developing World (2017-18) with Meshack Owino (which resulted in MaCleKi, a map-based digital exhibit that shares collaboratively curated histories of places in Kisumu, Kenya). A third NEH grant (2020-22) supported the development of PlacePress, a WordPress plugin for place-based storytelling.
Mark’s research has won numerous awards, including the Kemper & Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History from the Historic New Orleans Collection and Louisiana Historical Association (for Best Book in Louisiana History), Michael V. R. Thomason Gulf South History Book Award from the Gulf South Historical Association (for Best Book in Gulf South History), John Nolen Research Fund Award from Cornell University Libraries, Journal of Planning History Prize (Honorable Mention) from the Society for American City and Regional Planning History (for Best Article in Planning History), Hugh F. Rankin Prize from the Louisiana Historical Association (for Best Graduate Article in Louisiana History), Technology Commercialization Award from the Ohio Faculty Council, Distinguished Faculty Award for Research (Cleveland State University), Outstanding Public History Award (Honorable Mention) from the National Council on Public History, and the Outstanding Public History Project Award from the Ohio Academy of History.
At CSU, Mark teaches Introduction to Public History, U.S. Urban History, Ohio History, and U.S. History since 1877, as well as graduate seminars on the New South, Suburban History, and Environmental History. He also serves as internship coordinator for the Department of History and has mentored more than 100 interns over the past two decades.
In the area of professional service beyond the university, he serves on the board of directors of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History, whose conference he was instrumental in bringing to Cleveland in 2017. He also served for twelve years on the Cleveland Heights Landmark Commission. He regularly serves as a peer reviewer of proposals to the NEH and other grant makers, book and article manuscripts for academic presses and journals, and tenure and promotion cases. Mark has also been interviewed frequently by media outlets in recent years, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Plain Dealer, Akron Beacon Journal, NBC News, USA Today, ESPN, Politico, National Public Radio (All Things Considered), WBUR Boston, and WKSU Cleveland.
In addition to his work as a historian, Mark is an active musician who plays trumpet in the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra, Cleveland Winds, and Euclid Symphony Orchestra. He lives in Cleveland Heights with his wife, daughter, and three cats.
Mark Souther 