Garnie William McGinty was an historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 whose career was principally based for thirty-five years at Louisiana Tech University

Louisiana Tech University

Louisiana Tech University, often referred to as Louisiana Tech, LA Tech, or Tech, is a coeducational public research university located in Ruston, Louisiana. Louisiana Tech is designated as a Tier 1 school in the national universities category by the 2012 U.S. News & World Report college rankings...

 in Ruston

Ruston, Louisiana

Ruston is a city in and the parish seat of Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 20,546 at the 2000 census. Ruston is near the eastern border of the Ark-La-Tex and is the home of Louisiana Tech University. Its economy caters to its college population...

, Louisiana.

Biography

McGinty was born in Bienville Parish

Bienville Parish, Louisiana

Bienville Parish is a parish located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Arcadia and as of the 2000 census, the population is 15,752....

 in north Louisiana between Ringgold

Ringgold, Louisiana

Ringgold is a town in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,660 at the 2000 census. Ringgold is named for United States Army Major Samuel Ringgold, the hero of the battle of Palo Alto near Brownsville, Texas, in the Mexican-American War. Ringgold, the son of a U.S...

 and Bienville

Bienville, Louisiana

Bienville is a village in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 262 at the 2000 census.There are seven cemeteries located near the village....

 to Alonzo Eugene McGinty and the former Maude Leshe. He was educated in local schools and attended Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

-affiliated Louisiana College

Louisiana College

Louisiana College is a private institution of higher education located in Pineville, Louisiana, affiliated with the Louisiana Baptist Convention, serving a student body of approximately 1,300 students. The college operates on a semester system, with two shorter summer terms...

 in Pineville

Pineville, Louisiana

Pineville is a city in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is adjacent to the city of Alexandria, and is part of that city's Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 13,829 at the 2000 census....

 and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Northwestern State University

Northwestern State University

Northwestern State University, known as NSU, is a four-year public university primarily situated in Natchitoches, Louisiana, with a nursing campus in Shreveport and general campuses in Leesville/Fort Polk and Alexandria. It is a part of the University of Louisiana System.NSU was founded in 1884 as...

 in Natchitoches

Natchitoches, Louisiana

Natchitoches is a city in and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the Natchitoches Indian tribe. The City of Natchitoches was first incorporated on February...

. He procured the Master of Arts

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 degree from Peabody College

Peabody College

Peabody College of Education and Human Development was founded in 1875 when the University of Nashville, located in Nashville, Tennessee, split into two separate educational institutions...

 in Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

, Tennessee. He also studied at Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

 in Nashville and the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 before he received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin

University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

. The U.S. Congress declared war on Germany one day after McGinty's seventeenth birthday. He was hence part of the Student Army Training Corps during World War I.

Early in his academic career, McGinty was the principal of elementary school

Elementary school

An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...

s in Red River

Red River Parish, Louisiana

Red River Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Its seat is Coushatta. It was one of the newer parishes created in 1871 by the state legislature under Reconstruction...

, Claiborne

Claiborne Parish, Louisiana

Claiborne Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Homer and as of 2000, the population is 16,851.-History:The parish is named for the first Louisiana governor, William C. C. Claiborne....

, and Pointe Coupee

Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana

Pointe Coupee Parish, pronounced "Pwent Koo-Pay" and , is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is New Roads. As of 2000, the population was 22,763....

 parishes. He was also the principal of a secondary school in De Soto Parish

De Soto Parish, Louisiana

-Demographics:As of the census of 2010, there were 26,656 people, 9,691 households, and 6,967 families residing in the parish. The population density was 29 people per square mile . There were 11,204 housing units at an average density of 13 per square mile...

 south of Shreveport

Shreveport, Louisiana

Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....

. McGinty taught at the college level for a half-century, having served at Western Kentucky University

Western Kentucky University

Western Kentucky University is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA. It was formally founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a quarter-century earlier....

 in Bowling Green

Bowling Green, Kentucky

Bowling Green is the third-most populous city in the state of Kentucky after Louisville and Lexington, with a population of 58,067 as of the 2010 Census. It is the county seat of Warren County and the principal city of the Bowling Green, Kentucky Metropolitan Statistical Area with an estimated 2009...

, Kentucky, Northwestern State (then known as Louisiana Normal

Normal school

A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...

 College), Louisiana Tech (then Louisiana Polytechnic Institute), and the University of Montevallo

University of Montevallo

The University of Montevallo is a four-year public university located in Montevallo, Alabama, USA. Founded in 1896, it is Alabama's only public liberal arts college and a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. Programs are offered through the Michael E...

 in Montevallo

Montevallo, Alabama

Montevallo is a city in Shelby County, Alabama, United States. A college town, it is the home of the University of Montevallo, a public liberal arts university with around 3000 students. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city of Montevallo is 4,825....

 in central Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

. He headed the social sciences, later history, department at Louisiana Tech for thirty-five years. He was succeeded in the history chairmanship by William Y. Thompson

William Y. Thompson

William Young Thompson is a retired historian who was affiliated for most of his academic career, from 1955 through 1988, with Louisiana Tech University at Ruston in Lincoln Parish, Louisiana...

, a native of Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...

 who specialized in Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 and southern studies. McGinty also served for a year as the acting president of NSU, his alma mater

Alma mater

Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...

. Upon his retirement from Louisiana Tech, he was appointed professor emeritus. The McGinty Chair of History was established by Louisiana Tech in his honor. Similar chairs honor Thompson and John D. Winters

John D. Winters

John David Winters was a historian at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana, best known for his definitive and award-winning study, The Civil War in Louisiana, still in print, published in 1963 and released in paperback in 1991.-Background:Winters was born to John David Winters, Sr...

, another specialist in the Civil War. Scholarships are also named for McGinty as is the Louisiana Tech publications division.

In 1962, McGinty was elected by his colleagues as the fifth president of the reorganized Louisiana Historical Association

Louisiana Historical Association

The Louisiana Historical Association is an organization of professional historians and interested laypersons dedicated to the preservation, publication, and dissemination of the history of the U.S. state of Louisiana, with particular emphasis at the inception on territorial, statehood, and the...

.
In 1971, three years prior to the opening of Louisiana Downs in Bossier City

Bossier City, Louisiana

Bossier City is a city in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, United States.As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total population of 61,315. Bossier City is closely tied to its larger sister city Shreveport, located on the western bank of the Red River. The Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area is the...

, McGinty published "Horse-racing in North Louisiana, 1911–1914," in the journal, North Louisiana History

North Louisiana History

North Louisiana History is an academic journal published twice annually in Shreveport, Louisiana by the North Louisiana Historical Association .-History:...

, a twice-annual publication of the North Louisiana Historical Association, an organization which he formerly headed.

During his 50-year teaching career, McGinty wrote forty essays and articles, fifty book reviews, and five books. His A History of Louisiana was used as a college textbook for two decades. Another popular work is Louisiana Redeemed: The Overthrow of Carpetbag Rule, 1876–1880, a 1941 study of the Reconstruction era, which ends with the triumph of the Redeemers

Redeemers

In United States history, "Redeemers" and "Redemption" were terms used by white Southerners to describe a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era which followed the American Civil War...

, the southern Democrats

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 who defeated the Radical Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 administrations across the South.

McGinty was listed in Who's Who in Education, The Dictionary of International Scholars, and Men of Achievement. On July 15, 1932, McGinty married the former Zoé Heard (1902–1976) of Ruston. The couple had no children. McGinty had a brother, Guice McGinty of Sibley

Sibley, Louisiana

Sibley is a town in south Webster Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,098 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Minden Micropolitan Statistical Area....

, a state government employee who twice ran for sheriff of his adopted Webster Parish

Webster Parish, Louisiana

Webster Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The seat of the parish is Minden. In 2010, its population was 41,207....

.