Cornell University Department of History
The Cornell University Department of History is an academic department in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University that focuses on the study of history. Founded in 1868, it is one of Cornell's original departments and has been a center for the development of professional historical research institutions in the United States, including the American Historical Association and the American Historical Review. It remains a highly-ranked program in the field and its alumni and faculty have won Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes, among other distinctions. In addition, many of Cornell's presidents have served among its ranks.
History
The department was founded in 1868 by President Andrew Dickson White as one of Cornell's original departments as the Department of History and Political Science. White had already earned a reputation as an up-and-coming historian, having taught at the University of Michigan as a Professor of History and English Literature from 1857 to 1863 and as a Lecturer of History from 1863 to 1867, while serving as a New York State Senator. Employing his reputation as a well-regarded historian in his own right, White attracted other notable and rising historians of the day to his department. He convinced Goldwin Smith to leave his comfortable post at Oxford and travel across the Atlantic to rural, upstate New York. When Smith realized just how lacking the new university's library was for historical study, he promptly had his entire 3,400 book collection shipped from England for donation to the Cornell University Library and made a $2,500 bequest for the purchase of more historical works. From the College of Horace Mann, White attracted their Department Chairman William Channing Russel. Russel would later serve as the Department Chairman, Cornell's Vice President and acting President during White's long periods abroad.In 1881, the department notably hired the first, full-time chair of American history ever. In the spring of 1872, non-resident professor George Washington Greene, grandson of American Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, offered a series of lectures on American history. Upon Russel's stepping down as the Department Chairman in 1881, the department attracted Moses Coit Tyler from the University of Michigan to take Russel's position. At Tyler's request, he exclusively taught American history.
at the time of the association's incorporation by Congress, photographed during their annual meeting on December 30, 1889 in Washington, D.C.. Charles Kendall Adams sits left of center and Andrew Dickson White sits on the far right.
In 1884, the department founded the American Historical Review in a joint effort with Harvard's Department of History in the model of the English Historical Review and the French Revue Historique. Also in 1884, Professors White and Charles Kendall Adams founded the American Historical Association with a handful of other leading historians of the day and both would later serve as its president. Other Cornellians to head the American Historical Association include faculty members Carl L. Becker and Mary Beth Norton, as well as alumnus Robert Roswell Palmer.
In 1887, the Department was renamed the President White School of History and Political Science in honor of Andrew Dickson White's service to the university and the donation of his large personal library. Over the summer, the board of trustees nominated White, who was no longer university president, to be Dean of the school and Honorary Lecturer on History and Political Science, but White declined the offer. Soon thereafter, president Charles Kendall Adams, White's protégé, sought a younger dean and interviewed Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Baxter Adams for the position. Adams notably did not interview the older Moses Coit Tyler, current department chairman, or Herbert Tuttle, an associate professor, to much annoyance of Taylor and the faculty in general. The trustees eventually overrode Adams and installed Tyler as Dean.
On June 18, 1891, the Cornell Board of Trustees resolved that steps be taken to form a "Department of History, Political and Social Science, and General Jurisprudence" and the following year, the faculty of economics and finance and political and social institutions broke off into a single department separate from the White School. As the history and government departments were moved around campus over the next few decades, the White School became a more informal grouping of the two departments. In September 1932, Cornell revived the White School by moving the two disconnected departments to Boardman Hall, allocating space for three classrooms, administrative offices, and graduate student areas.
Reputation
The US News and World Report's 2017 rankings of graduate programs places the department 11th overall in the United States, maintaining its 2013 position.Many alumni and faculty members have won major awards for their work as historians. Alumnus Robert Fogel was the co-recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics, in recognition of his quantitative historical analyses. Walter LaFeber won the Bancroft Prize in 1996 and David Brion Davis won in 1976. LaFeber also won the Beveridge Award in 1962 and Davis received it in 1975. The French government awarded Steven Kaplan the Ordre national du Mérite and named Henry Guerlac Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. Anthony Grafton won the Balzan Prize.
Numerous people associated with the department have won Pulitzer Prizes. Former faculty member Fredrik Logevall was the recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History. Michael Kammen was the 1973 winner of the prize. Professor David Brion Davis won in the category of General Non-Fiction in 1969. Alumnus David Oshinsky won the award for History in 2006, and alumna Sheryl WuDunn won the award for International Reporting in 1990.
Alumnus John Mott was the co-recipient of the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize for his work as the head of the YMCA.
Two buildings at Cornell's main campus are named in honor of history department professors. White Hall, one of the original three buildings on the Arts Quad, named after Andrew Dickson White, and Becker House, a residential college named after Carl L. Becker in recognition of his pedagogical contributions to the Cornell community.
Department in popular culture
The Onion, a parody newspaper, featured an article about fictional History Department professor Wallace Schroeder on September 9, 1997, titled "Byzantine Empire Will Fall To Turks, Historian Warns".In The Office, salesman Andy Bernard minored in history at Cornell.
Notable people
Faculty
The department's first faculty included university president Andrew Dickson White and English historian Goldwin Smith. In 1881, the department named Moses Coit Tyler the first professor of American history in the United States. Three of Cornell's twelve presidents have been members of the department: Andrew Dickson White, Charles Kendall Adams, and Hunter R. Rawlings III. The longest teaching member of the faculty was Frederick Marcham who, upon completing his graduate work at Cornell in 1924, continued lecturing until a month before his death in 1992 – a total of 68 years.Current faculty
The following is only a partial list.| Name | Title | Field of study | Year joined department | Reference |
| Associate Professor | 19th-century United States, slavery, History of Capitalism | |||
| Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies | United States, immigrants, refugees | |||
| Professor | American consumerism | 2014 | ||
| Department Chair, Stephen '59 and Madeline '60 Anbinder Professor of African History | West Africa | |||
| John Stambaugh Professor of History | Germany, political theory, sexuality, international law | 1977 | ||
| Associate Professor | History of Capitalism | |||
| Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History | United States | 1971 | ||
| Assistant Professor | African-American history, American social movements | 2014 | ||
| Associate Professor of History | American environmental history | 2005 | ||
| Professor of History | Classics | 1979 | ||
| Professor of History | Southeast Asia | 1999 | ||
| Professor | Gender and culture in 17th- and 18th-century England |
Former faculty and faculty emeriti
Alumni
Undergraduate alumni
Note: Does not include those who have become faculty in the department, who are denoted by class year above, or those who also earned graduate degrees from the department, noted below.| Name | Class year | Degree | Notability | Reference |
| 1982 | B.A. | Liberal author and columnist | ||
| 1881 | B.A. | U.S. historian, diplomat, author, and educator | ||
| 1942 | B.A. Medieval History | United States Congressman New York 37th District, 1965–73; 35th District, 1973–83; 30th District, 1983–85; President of the World Bank, 1986–91 | ||
| 1984 | B.A. | Conservative author and political commentator | ||
| 2000 | B.A. | Political television host | ||
| 1973 | B.A. | CEO of Lloyds Banking Group | ||
| 1968 | B.A. | Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender; Member of the Canadian Parliament | ||
| 1948 | B.A. | Nobel Prize-winning economic historian | ||
| 1991 | B.A. | Reporter at National Public Radio | ||
| B.A. | Political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania focused on mass incarceration | |||
| B.A. | Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School | |||
| 1966 | B.A. | Professor of philosophy and law at UCLA | ||
| 1953 | B.A. | Artist and filmmaker | ||
| 1981 | B.A. | Congressman, Illinois 10th District, 2001–2010, Senator, Illinois 2010–2017. | ||
| 1963 | B.A. | Former Director of Policy Planning at the United States Department of State, professor at Stanford University | ||
| 1905 | B.A. | Author of the first book to be awarded the Newbery Medal for an outstanding contribution to children's literature, historian, educator | ||
| 1978 | B.A. | Political pundit, host of Real Time with Bill Maher | ||
| 1976 | B.A. | Co-Founder and President of Bright Horizons Family Solutions | ||
| 1888 | B.A. | Nobel Peace Prize recipient, YMCA and World Student Christian Federation leader | ||
| 1967 | B.A. | Professor of Jewish political thought at the University of Toronto | ||
| 1965 | B.A. | Historian, professor, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for History | ||
| 1958 | B.A. | Independent scholar and author who has written prolifically about political decentralism, environmentalism, luddism and technology | ||
| B.A. | Political scientist and social theorist; professor at Temple University | |||
| B.A. | Library scholar and information scientist, dean of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies | |||
| 1941 | B.A. | The most decorated American serviceman, according to the Guinness Book of World Records | ||
| 1981 | B.A. European History | Journalist at The New York Times, co-winner in 1990 of the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, winner of the George Polk Award in 1989, and winner of the Overseas Press Club in 1990 |
Graduate alumni
| Name | Class year | Degree | Notability | Reference |
| 1976 | Ph.D. American History | Historian and administrator at Cornell | ||
| 1975 | Ph.D. | Historian of Southeast Asia at the University of Hawaii at Manoa | ||
| 1969, 1971 | Ph.D. | Southeast Asia Historian | ||
| 1968 | Ph.D. | Medieval historian; Academic administrator | ||
| 1892 | Ph.M. | Influential Austrian School economist | ||
| 2006 | Ph.D. | Chair of the history department and professor at the New School for Social Research | ||
| 1971, 1974 | Ph.D. | Historian, academic administrator | ||
| 1949 | Ph.D. | Historian of science | ||
| 1972 | Ph.D. | Former Rector of Thammasat University | ||
| 2000 | Ph.D. | Professor of American history at Princeton University, focusing on urban and suburban history and the history of conservatism | ||
| 2000 | Ph.D. | Professor at Yale University focusing on Asian American Studies | ||
| 1957 | Ph.D. | Historian of Modern Europe | ||
| Ph.D. | Historian of Southeast Asia at Australian National University | |||
| 1948 | Ph.D. | Eisenhower White House staff and historian | ||
| 1947 | Ph.D. | Historian, professor, author of | ||
| Ph.D. | Australian historian, author, and consultant specializing in Southeast Asia | |||
| 1998 | Ph.D. | Historian of U.S. 20th-century politics at Sacramento State University | ||
| 1934 | Ph.D. | Historian of 18th-century France at Princeton and Yale, winner of the Bancroft Prize, President of the American Historical Association | ||
| B.A., M.A. | Thai poet and feminist | |||
| 1984 | Ph.D. | Professor of history at University of Washington | ||
| 1973 | Ph.D. | Former Professor of history at National University of Singapore | ||
| 1969 | Ph.D. | Ashby Lohse Chair in Water and Natural Resources at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, former professor at Yale Law School | ||
| 1964 | Ph.D. | Historian of early modern Germany at Queen's University | ||
| 2000 | Ph.D. | Author, activist, research on indigenous peoples at the University of Victoria | ||
| 1966 | Ph.D. | Historian, professor, authority on Thai |