Early American history at the University of Illinois explores America's place in a transatlantic, multicultural Atlantic world. British, French, and Spanish colonization in continental North America and the Caribbean brought European, Native American, and African cultures into constant conflict and interaction. Regular graduate courses in this field explore early America from this transatlantic perspective as a dynamic early modern place rather than as a prelude to later United States history.  Our faculty in early American and related areas of history possess particular interests in themes of race and slavery, indigenous peoples, environment, borderlands, disease and medicine, law, interdisciplinary approaches (including digital history), and material and cultural histories.  Graduate students in early American and Atlantic histories at Illinois can make great use of our extraordinary library collections, our thriving reading groups such as those in “pre-modern world histories” and “British empire,” as well as partnerships and collaborations with the Newberry Library in Chicago, one of North America’s great centers for early American studies.

Campus Resources

The University's library boasts one of the most extensive collections of any research library in the country, and its holdings in American history, particularly in newspapers and early modern rare books published in Britain and America, make it an ideal resource for graduate students embarking on major research projects.