Modern U.S. History
The US History program offers a comprehensive program in U.S. history since 1815, with special strengths in social, cultural, gender and regional history and the history of race and ethnicity. Graduate students in American history are required to take courses in comparative history outside of the U.S. In the course of their studies, graduate students become familiar with a variety of research methods from oral history to legal history to quantitative methods. The program provides close and sustained supervision of graduate students in acquiring undergraduate teaching experience.
The University Library is the third largest research library in the United States. Among the important collections it contains are records of antebellum plantations, print and microfilm materials of all the papers of important U.S. political figures up through the early national period, nineteenthcentury Indian newspapers and pamphlets, records of the Advertising Council, and an extensive collection of Confederate imprints. The Illinois History Survey, under the direction of John Hoffman, offers a specialized collection for students interested in the history of Illinois. The Rare Books Room has a special collection of more than 200,000 volumes. The newspaper collection of the library is unusually strong, and includes an extensive collection of underground and alternative papers from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Graduate students are encouraged to take advantage of the resources of the University available in a variety of centers, programs, lecture series, and colloquia. The Center for Afro American Studies, the Women's Studies Program, Latino/a Studies Program, the Asian American Studies Program, and the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society offer excellent opportunities for Interdisciplinary training and introduction to scholars in related disciplines. American history graduate students interested in cultural studies have often supplemented their training in the history department through involvement in joint seminars offered with the department of anthropology and the programs of the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory and the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities.
The major strengths of the US history field since 1815 are as follows:
Race, Class, and Ethnicity
James Anderson, James Barrett, Adrian Burgos, Jr., Vernon Burton, Sundiata Cha-Jua, Barrington Edwards, Augusto Espiritu, Frederick Hoxie, Fred Jaher, Bruce Levine, Elizabeth Pleck, David Roediger, Nicole Rustin (affiliate) and Fanon Wilkins
Women's and Gender History
Adrian Burgos, Augusto Espiritu, Kristin Hoganson, Kathryn Oberdeck, Elizabeth Pleck, Leslie Reagan, and Nicole Rustin (affiliate)
History of Labor (See also Comparative Labor)
James Barrett, Bruce Levine, David Roediger, and Kathryn Oberdeck
History of Technology, Medicine, Science, and Public Health
Barrington Edwards, Lillian Hoddeson, Leslie Reagan, and Evan Melhado
Cultural and Intellectual History and the History of Popular Culture
Adrian Burgos, Jr., Sundiata Cha-Jua, Barrington Edwards, Augusto Espiritu, Kristin Hoganson, Frederick Hoxie, Fred Jaher, Kathryn Oberdeck, and Fanon Wilkins
War and Society, Social Policy, and Political History
Vernon Burton, Sundiata Cha-Jua, Frederick Hoxie, Mark Leff, Kristin Hoganson, and Leslie Reagan
The History of the South and West
Vernon Burton, Augusto Espiritu, Frederick Hoxie, and Bruce Levine
United States in World Context
James Barrett, Adrian Burgos, Jr., Augusto Espiritu, Kristin Hoganson, Mark Leff, Bruce Levine, Leslie Reagan, and Fanon Wilkins
Some graduate students also take advantage of the unique opportunities for advanced training in instructional technology at the University. This training also offers graduate students a way to learn about how to apply such technology to "public history." Some graduate students have developed projects through the NCSA, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications on campus. Several of our graduate students are helping to develop Project River Web. It is a unique, multidisciplinary collaborative venture between NCSA, the History Department, and the Illinois State Museum, along with a variety of other educational institutions and museums. It addresses the need for creative integration of the latest information technology in research and teaching built around the theme of river systems.