Dr. Hayden Smith

Dr. Hayden Smith is an instructor at the College of Charleston. Smith holds a PhD in History from the University of Georgia and a Master of Arts in History from the College of Charleston. Dr. Smith’s research examines the intersection of environment, technology, and culture, with a particular focus in the South Carolina Lowcountry and broader American South. He is the author of Carolina’s Golden Fields: Inland Rice Cultivation in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1670-1860 (Cambridge, 2020). Dr. Smith is also a contributor to the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (LDHI) and author of Forgotten Fields: Inland Rice Plantations in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

​​

Dr. Smith is a lead author of Emergence and Evolution of Carolina’s Colonial Cattle Economy (Charleston Museum, 2022), the result of a three-year National Science Foundation grant. This interdisciplinary study explores the origins and transformation of Carolina’s colonial animal economy related to urban Charleston and the surrounding rural production centers. The publication highlights the influence of cattle, fires, timbering, rice cultivation, demographic changes, and commodity trade on South Carolina’s cultural and physical landscapes between 1670 and the 1820s. The objective is to understand how Charleston’s animal economy changes in relation with broader cultural, environmental, and technological transformations.