ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Donald J. Mabry spent most of his pre-adult years in Duval County, Florida, graduating
from Duncan U. Fletcher High School. His college career took him to central
Ohio but Don visited relatives in Jacksonville and its beach in subsequent
years. He spent his professional career as an historian but became interested
in the history of the Beaches, as locals call Mayport, Atlantic Beach, Neptune
Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Ponte Vedra Beach, and Palm Valley, in 2000 when he
began creating a Web for Fletcher alumni from 1938-1966.
Mabry has
always enjoyed history. He graduated cum laude from Kenyon College with a major
in History; minored in History at Bowling Green State University where he
received a master's degree; and concentrated on Latin American history for his
Ph.D. from Syracuse University,
He worked
for Kenyon College, Bowling Green State University, St Johns River Community
College (now State College), Collier-Blocker Junior College, Syracuse
University, and Mississippi State University as well as doing post-doctoral fellowship at the University
of Kansas. He retired from Mississippi State thirty-three years after he
started but has remained a practicing historian.
He has been
a prolific author of books, articles, and reviews. His books on Latin America
include Colonial Latin America ( 2002), The Latin American Narcotics
Trade and U. S. National Security as editor and contributor (1989), The
Mexican University and the State: Student Conflicts, 1910-1971 (1982),
Neighbors--Mexico and the United States: Wetbacks and Oil, with Robert J.
Shafer (1981), The 1929 UNAM General Strike (1980), and Mexico's
Acción Nacional: A Catholic Alternative to Revolution (1973). His first book on the beaches was World's
Finest Beach (2006) published by the HTA Press. The success of the book led
The History Press to publish a shorter and revised book, World's
Finest Beach: A Brief History of the Jacksonville Beaches (2010). His many articles were
published in scholarly journals and on the World Wide Web. He is the founder
and editor of the Historical Text Archive, a pioneer Web site in its 22nd year.
His vita is available at djmabry.org/vita.
Don lives in Starkville, Mississippi with his wife Paula and their two cairn
terriers.
