Meet the Author: Haisten Willis

About this event

Here's your chance to meet the author of "A Legacy in Peanuts: Tom's Foods and the Transformation of the Twentieth-Century South." It’s the amazing story of how one man – Tom Huston (with an important assist from George Washington Carver) – created a business that aided the South’s industrialization and established the humble peanut as a cash crop. Journalist (and Columbus native) Haisten Willis traces the full legacy of Tom’s Foods, from its innovations, its stability as an industry leader mid-century, to the slow demise over the course of the last three decades as the company’s assets were sold (and re-sold). Books will be for sale at the event, with author Willis happy to sign copies after his presentation. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: HAISTEN WILLIS was born in Columbus, Georgia and grew up hearing a lot about Tom’s Foods—no fewer than eleven of his relatives worked there at one time or another. Later, he spent summers riding in a Tom’s delivery truck and learning the business from his dad. Willis is a journalist who has written for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Washington Post, and the Washington Examiner. He is the editor of Commonplace magazine and works in Washington D.C. In partnership with University of Georgia Press and Historic Columbus.