Humanities Ph.D. student, Michael Thurston, will defend his dissertation titled "THE JOHN L. ROPER COMPANY: HOW CANALS, LUMBER TOWNS, AND RAILROADS CHANGED THE TIDEWATER LANDSCAPE, 1850-1900".  The defense will demonstrate how John Lonsdale Roper, a largely forgotten lumberman in Norfolk, Virginia, had an outsized impact on the economic recovery and societal development of the Virginia and North Carolina Low Countries following the Civil War. The effects of his namesake company and philanthropic contributions continue today despite few landmarks or institutions bearing his name.