Emory has a thriving, nationally recognized doctoral program in American history with 11 faculty members and 4 associated faculty. We admit 4 to 5 fully funded graduate students annually. The size of the program allows students to form close mentoring relationships with faculty and a lively intellectual community among the graduate students.

With one of the country’s leading programs in southern history, we have strengths as well in the fields of race and ethnicity, African-American, Atlantic World, labor, gender, religion, politics and international relations.

Our distinguished faculty includes prize-winning authors and teachers. Those teaching in the colonial and antebellum period include Leslie Harris examines slavery and freedom in the northern and southern United States from the colonial era to the Civil War. John Juricek concentrates on Colonial America, with a particular focus on the interaction between Native Americans and the British. Jonathan Prude specializes in American social, cultural and labor history between the American Revolution and 1900. James Roark is an expert in Civil War and nineteenth-century Southern history, black and white; his current research examines the social history of the confederacy.

For the Modern period, Patrick Allitt specializes in religious and intellectual history and has written extensively about American Catholicism. Joseph Crespino covers the modern South; his research addresses white reaction to the Civil Rights Movement and its links to contemporary conservative politics. Leroy Davis studies African-American history and the African diaspora in the 20th century, with a focus on black education, leadership and nationalism. Eric Goldstein specializes in American ethnicity and Jewish history and culture; his research addresses the construction of American Jewish identity. Fraser Harbutt is a scholar of United States diplomatic and political history with a particular focus on U.S.-Soviet relations. Mary Odem specializes in the history of gender, family, and immigration; her current research explores Mexican and Central American migration to the southeastern U.S.

Students admitted to the program receive rigorous and comprehensive training in American history from the colonial period through the twentieth century as well as in their chosen fields of specialization. Students have excellent opportunities for cross-disciplinary study through the department’s close ties with the programs in Women’s Studies, African-American Studies, Jewish Studies, the Center for Public Scholarship, the Department of Religion, and the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts. Additionally, students receive pedagogical training through the university-wide and nationally recognized TATTO program, which prepares them for teaching assistantships as well as for conducting their own classes while at Emory.

Our graduate program in history is supported by a state-of-the-art library system which contains traditional and electronic texts and has excellent holdings in American history, including a large collection of American newspapers and an impressive number of on-line sources. Special Collections has excellent holdings in African-American history and culture as well as southern history, particularly in the areas of the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, women, and journalism.

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