Department of History
Located in the heart of Washington, D.C., the George Washington University History department is an intellectual community of faculty, graduate students, undergraduates, and many associates and friends. With 40 full-time faculty, varied both in specialization and research methods, GW is an ideal place to study fields as diverse as modern Africa, early modern Europe, the history of colonialism and imperialism, modern America, and the Cold War.
Home to some of the most important research repositories and archives in the world, Washington is a unique and exciting place to study history. Studying history at GW provides students with the knowledge and analytical tools necessary for success in a wide range of careers and professions.
Read the fall 2011 History Department newsletter
The Africana Studies Program of the George Washington University presents its first annual D.C. Emancipation Day Lecture
Runaway Slaves and the Origins of Emancipation in Washington, D.C.
Kate Masur, Department of History, Northwestern University
Thursday, April 12, 4pm - 5:30pm
International Brotherhood of Teamsters Labor History Research Center, Gelman Library, 7th Floor
All Are Welcome. Question and Answer to Follow.
Sponsored by the Africana Studies Program, the Department of History, the Department of American Studies, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Labor History Research Center
Kate Masur takes us back to the summer and fall of 1861, showing how enslaved people from surrounding Virginia and Maryland helped create a political crisis that led to Congress's famous D.C. Emancipation Act. Complicating the conventional argument that Congress and President Lincoln were alone responsible, Masur shows how Confederate and Union military maneuvers, slaves' own decisions to escape, and the policies of D.C. law enforcement officials all contributed to abolition to the nation's capital.
Kate Masur is associate professor of History and African American Studies at Northwestern University. She has published widely on race and politics in the era of emancipation. Her book, An Example for All the Land: Emancipation and the Struggle over Equality in Washington, D.C., will be published in paperback this fall.
Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project: New Volume, New Site
After years of intense work by students and staff, the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project will release Volume II of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers in early 2012. Published by the University of Virginia Press, the volume covers the years 1949 through1952, examining Roosevelt’s human rights work at home and abroad. The Papers Project also launched a new interactive webpage “First Lady of the World” that allows users to track Roosevelt’s trek through the Pacific and Great Britain during World War II, the Middle East and Asia in the early 1950s, and the Soviet Union in 1957.
Meet the Chair
Professor William H. Becker teaches and writes about business history, business-government relations, and the institutions of the international economy. His latest book, Eisenhower and the Cold War Economy, co-written with William M. McClenanan Jr., has just been published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.