History Graduate Students Say Their Research Tracks 250 Years of America’s Complicated History
10 GW graduate students reflect on how their studies have related to the themes and struggles of America's diverse history.
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Examining the Past to
Understand the Future
Studying history through today's lens
Who We Are
With an unparalleled location in the nation's capital, award-winning faculty and access to some of the most important research repositories in the world, the GW Department of History offers an ideal platform from which to explore our past. Undergraduate and graduate students are exposed to a diversity of topics, from the Africa diaspora to the Cold War, from imperialism to urbanization, from the founding of Islam to Jewish history, from race relations to labor, law and politics. Students graduate with the knowledge and analytical tools necessary for success in a wide range of careers.
History & Museums, History and Culture Info Sessions
Join us online on September 25 and November 16 for information sessions discussing the field of history and Museums, History and Culture. Learn about GW's Master of Arts in History and Master of Arts in Museums, History and Culture programs.
Where We Are
The Washington, D.C., area offers a front-row seat to history. Students are immersed in their surroundings through trips to museums, battlefields and historical sites including the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Jamestown Settlement, the Gettysburg Battlefield, the Society of the Cincinnati and George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate.
Through the department's collaborative relationships with institutions throughout the region, students also have extraordinary access to historical documents at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the National Security Archive and the Smithsonian Institution.
"Thanks to the History Department, I was able to learn fascinating subjects, conduct important research, conference with knowledgeable and attentive professors, and graduate feeling prepared for the future as a historian."
Max Skidelsky
BA '20
History by the Numbers
Our Highlights
Department Headlines
GW Experts Reflect on American Democracy at 250
At a GW community event, Professor Denver Brunsman examine the current state of polarization as part of the United States’ larger story.
Haiti as Emblematic of the Black Struggle for Freedom
GW’s Africana Studies Program hosts a Black History Month Symposium on fugitivity and freedom.
Native Voices Rewrite America's Racial Story
History Professor David J. Silverman’s research reframes U.S. racial struggles to spotlight the role of Indigenous identities—past and present.
Faculty Books
Award-winning historian Warren Milteer, Jr. provides the first modern comprehensive history of free people of color in Virginia from the colonial era through Reconstruction.
Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom
Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom by historian Warren Milteer, Jr. is a definitive study of free people of color that reshapes our understanding of freedom and citizenship in the Civil War era.
Jenna Weissman Joselit paints a vivid portrait of the life of Mordecai M. Kaplan, who was a rabbi, writer, and teacher with an undeniable influence on American Judaism.
Award-winning historian David Silverman examines the emergence of a racial identity among Euro-Americans amidst their efforts to reign over Native Americans.