U.S. history

material culture

historic preservation

Education

• Ph.D., American Civilization, University of Delaware
• M.A., History, College of William & Mary
• B.A., American Studies, Stetson University

Research Interests

Ryan K. Smith studies American religious history, material culture, and historic preservation. He is interested in how artifacts, buildings, and landscapes have shaped people, patterns, and beliefs in the past, as well as in the ability of those objects to engage people today. He has published works on church architecture, the palatial ambitions of American founder Robert Morris, Richmond’s historic cemeteries, Shaker furniture, St. Augustine’s Fountain of Youth attraction, and the religious symbolism of lighthouses. He is the director of the Richmond Cemetery Project. Currently he is writing a biography of Virginia’s famed psychic horse Lady Wonder, as well as a study of the lighthouse preservation movement in the United States.

Select Publications

• "Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020)
• "Robert Morris's Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder" (Yale University Press, 2014)
• "Gothic Arches, Latin Crosses: Anti-Catholicism and American Church Designs in the Nineteenth Century" (University of North Carolina Press, 2006)

Public History Experience

• Colonial Williamsburg
• Castillo de San Marcos National Monument
• St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum
• Winterthur Museum
• Library of Virginia
• Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory

Awards

• Catherine Bishir Prize, Vernacular Architecture Forum, 2022
• Distinguished Teaching Award, VCU College of Humanities and Sciences, 2021
• Elske V.P. Smith Distinguished Lecturer Award, VCU College of Humanities and Sciences, 2020
• Collaboration for Change Award, University of Richmond Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, 2020
• Residential Fellowship, VCU Humanities Research Center, 2019
• Research Fellowship, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, 2010
• Organization of American Historians’ Distinguished Lecturer Program, 2008-2011