Features

 How do we preserve and interpret the historical record in a digital age? Traditionally, archivists collect and preserve historical sources, historians interpret them through books or documentary editions, and publishers distribute them. Today, historical sources that once would have been only...

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign history professor Robert Morrissey traveled to a Paris museum in November to see four ...

In the 1950s, the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) partnered with the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) to conduct medical research on the eye disease trachoma. Aramco spent over $2 million on the project with the goal of developing a vaccine. In her new book,...

The Midwest played a central role in the growth of Black freedom movements in the 20th century. It was a key site for incubating and expanding the ideas of political activist Marcus Garvey, not only in the U.S., but globally, said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of ...

After 36 years of teaching at the University of Illinois, our colleague Kai-wing Chow retired in May 2024. Chow is a highly esteemed historian of China with an international reputation. His areas of expertise include Chinese...

The largest and longest-lasting society formed by people who escaped slavery and their descendants endured for a century in northeastern Brazil, and it continues to be a potent political symbol of Black pride today. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ...

Imagine it’s 1913 and you’re in a tiny basement restaurant called Polly’s in Greenwich Village, New York. Change is in the air and intellectuals, artists, and activists gather to debate the issues of the day: women’s suffrage, labor unions, socialism, birth control, and anarchism. The nightly crowd...

This fall, the Department of History is excited to welcome Anna Jungeun Lee to our faculty as an assistant professor. Her primary appointment is in the Department of East Asian Languages and...

This fall, the Department of History is excited to welcome Chelsey Smith as a public humanities post-doctoral fellow. Smith is a historian of nineteenth-century Jamaican history and her research interests include education, race, and labor in the Caribbean and Latin America.  The College...

This fall, the Department of History is excited to welcome Deepasri Baul to our faculty as an assistant professor. Professor Baul is a historian of modern South Asia, specializing in urban history, property regimes, and religious...