E. Fraser Livingston has received the 2023 Gilbert C. Fite Award for the Best Dissertation on Agricultural History. Livingston's dissertation is

Losing Longleaf: Forestry and Conservation in the Southern Coastal Plain.

Professor Mark D. Hersey was his dissertation advisor.

The award is named for Gilbert C. Fite (1918–2010). Born in South Dakota, Fite attended the Free Methodist junior college, and Seattle Pacific College before earning his master’s degree in history from the University of South Dakota in 1941. Fite earned his doctoral degree in history from the University of Missouri. Fite earned many awards including the Fulbright and the Guggenheim Fellowship. He also served as the president the Agricultural History Society, Phi Alpha Theta Fraternity, and the Southern Historical Association. Fite served as president of Eastern Illinois University from 1971 to 1976, then moved to the University of Georgia History Department to hold the Richard B. Russell Professorship. He authored and edited numerous books including The Farmers’ Frontier, 1865–1900, and Cotton Fields No More, and authored more than sixty articles. Since 2000, the Agricultural History Society has awarded the annual Gilbert C. Fite Dissertation Prize to the best dissertation written on agricultural history