HISTORY  OF  THE  DEPARTMENT

The Department of History at Purdue University was established on July 1, 1964, but instruction in history has been offered at Purdue since the 1876-1877 school year when Edward P. Morris, A.B., taught History and Latin. The department was authorized to offer the M.A. degree in 1962 and the Ph.D. degree in 1969. The 1960s also witnessed the complete remodeling and modernization of University Hall, the home of the department and the only building surviving from the original Purdue campus of the 1870s. Between 1960 and 1970 faculty size doubled to 28.

In 1963 the department offered seven undergraduate courses--four Western Civilization and American history surveys and courses on Roman history, the history of science, and the modern Far East from the American perspective.

Today the department offers more than 90 courses on American Indians, China, Japan, Islam and the Middle East, Latin America, the African-American experience, women in European, Middle Eastern, and United States history, the Holocaust, the Crusades, World War II, the Vietnam War, and many others.

The 35 faculty who teach and conduct research in the department came to Purdue from leading history graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, the University of Wisconsin, University of Virginia, Georgetown University, Yale University, Stanford University, and Brown University among others. Purdue's history faculty have published their work with leading university presses including Johns Hopkins, Cambridge, Oxford, California, Chicago, Indiana, North Carolina, Louisiana, New Mexico, and others.