About
The History Department at Harvard University
The History Department offers programs of study for undergraduates pursuing their AB and graduates working towards their PhD.
Chair & Directors of the History Department Lizabeth Cohen Department Chair David Armitage Director of Graduate Studies Daniel Smail Director of Undergraduate Studies
While history has always been an important component of educating Harvard students, it was not a department, in its own right, until 1839. For the first 200 years, Harvard University taught the events of the past through courses in classics, philosophy, politics, and economics.
It was not until the nineteenth century that there was an idea of history as being a distinct field of study within academia. Even after the codification of the history department at Harvard, our students and faculty still drew upon the courses and resources within other departments, a tradition that still exists to this day. Many of our current faculty members share appointments with other departments on campus and are involved in interdisciplinary collaborations with committees, programs and institutions both at Harvard and around the world.
Timeline
1630 Cambridge, Massachusetts founded, then called Newtowne.
1636 Harvard College founded.
1653 John Sassamon (A.B. 1665) became the first Native American to study at Harvard.
1780 The Massachusetts Constitution ratified.
1793 The first stagecoach operation started running between Boston and Cambridge.
1817 Law school established at Harvard.
1838 Jared Sparks (A.B. 1815) named the first history professor. He was named the McLean Professor Ancient and Modern History, a chair which was created with a donation of $50,000 from a Boston merchant.
1839 Department of History founded.
1849 Jared Sparks named president of Harvard College.
1856 Henry Adams (A.B. 1833) became the McLean Professor Ancient and Modern History.
1867 Dentistry school founded at Harvard.
1868 Ephriam W. Gurney (A.B. 1852) was appointed Assistant Professor in History.
1872 Graduate school founded at Harvard.
1873 Harvard conferred it first PhD in history to Charles Leavitt Beals Whittney.
1875 Yale University hosted the first Harvard-Yale football game. (Harvard won)
1882 Ephraim Emerton (A.B. 1871, PhD Leipzig 1876) was named the first Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History chair.
1884 American Historical Association formed at the Saratoga Convention.
1888 Charles Gross was the first faculty member in the Department who was not a graduate of Harvard College.
1890 Graduate Department became the Graduate School.
November 16, 1892 Department of History voted to plan a historical journal, the American Historical Review.
1893 Archibald Cary Coolidge (A.B. 1887) began teaching in the History Department.
1901 First subway in America opened in Boston.
1907 Roger Bigelow Merriman (A.B. 1896) offered the first course on Latin American History.
1910 Coolidge named the Director of the University Library.
1910 Crimson was officially designated Harvard’s color.
1919 History faculty member, Henry Adams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in biography.
1929 Sidney B. Fay (A.B. 1896) joined the faculty as Professor of Modern European History with a dual appointment by both Harvard and Radcliffe.
1936 Harvard celebrates its tercentennial.
1952 History faculty member, Oscar Handlin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history.
1961 History faculty member, David Donald was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in biography
1968 History faculty member, Bernard Bailyn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history.
1985 Angeliki E. Laiou became the first female Chair of the History Department.
1986 Harvard celebrated its Semiseptcentennial.
1988 History faculty member, David Donald was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in biography.
1991 History faculty member Laurel Thatcher Ulrich was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history.
2006 History faculty member Caroline Elkins was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction.
July 1, 2007 Drew Gilpin Faust, the Lincoln Professor of History, took office as Harvard University’s 28th President.