Our Staff

Director of the Center for Texas Studies, Gene A. Smith, is not a native Texan but he has a number of ties to the state; his maternal grandmother was born and raised in Alvord, his wife was born and raised in Texas, and his son is a native Texan. Since moving to Fort Worth in 1994, Gene has embraced the city and state as his home--"he got here as fast as he could." Since helping to create the Center, Gene has continued working with it because of his passion for history and his desire to help people understand how they can preserve the past. Nothing is more important than preserving your heritage and culture and passing it along to your descendants; if we do not, then we have failed as a society because we lose sight of who we are and from where we come--losing our past jeopardizes our present and future.

Gene is a Professor in the department of history and since arriving at TCU, he has been teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses on early American history. He has written, edited or co-authored several books on aspects of naval and maritime history, the War of 1812, and early American territorial expansion (his book Filibusters and Expansionists explores early American expansion across the Gulf South into Texas). He is presently working on several projects dealing with the War of 1812, including a study of African American combatants, as well as co-authoring a military history of the United States. Additionally, he has received internal research awards from Montana State University-Billings and TCU, as well as fellowships from the Henry E. Huntington Library, the Virginia Historical Society, the U.S. Department of the Navy, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and from the National Endowment for the Humanities. History Department Home page