PhD

Requirements for the PhD

• Earn a grade of A or B in History 501: Introduction to the Graduate Study of History. This course is ordinarily taken in the first year of graduate study. This requirement can be waived for students who took History 501 as UIC MA candidates or who completed an equivalent course in another History MA program.
• Earn a grade of A or B in History 591: Preparation for Preliminary Examinations and Dissertation Prospectus (eight credit hours).
• Earn a grade of A or B in two research seminars. Research seminars require preparation of a major research paper based on primary sources. (Students entering the program with an MA degree in History may be exempted from one of the research seminars.)
• Complete 64 credit hours in graduate-level courses (400 or 500 level) beyond the MA (includes 48 hours of thesis research, see below…).  At least 12 of these credit hours must be in courses that are taught at the 500 level by members of the graduate faculty in the Department of History.  No student may receive graduate credit for a course at the 100, 200, or 300 level. Should a student enroll in a 400-level course, which is also open to advanced undergraduates, the instructor has the right to require the student to undertake extra work or to demonstrate a higher standard of proficiency.
• Students must take 16 of these credit hours prior to the preliminary examination. The remainder may be earned in History 599: Thesis Research, in which the student enrolls while preparing the dissertation.
• Maintain a grade point average of at least 3.00.
• Successfully complete any colloquia required for the student’s major or minor fields. Students majoring in the history of colonial America and the United States are required to pass the two-semester historiographical colloquium series History 551A and 551B. Students majoring in other fields are required to complete colloquia on appropriate topics. To find out which colloquia are required, students should consult their faculty adviser. The faculty adviser can waive all or part of these requirements if the student already obtained an MA in history.
• For students in the WRGUW Concentration, of the two required minor fields for students concentrating in WRGUW, at least one will address none- U.S. or comparative topics. In addition to their department-based course requirements, students concentrating in WRGUW entering with a BA must satisfactorily complete four WRGUW-themed courses (HIST 593, 16 hours), while those entering with an MA must complete three such courses (12 hours). Participation in the WRGUW Concentration involves no increase in the total credit hours needed to graduate. Students work closely with their advisors in designing their program of study. Completion of all requirements for the Ph.D. is necessary to graduate with a Concentration in WRGUW.
• For students in the Encounters Concentration, those entering with a BA must satisfactorily complete four Encounters courses (HIST 594, 16 hours), while those entering with an MA must complete three such courses (12 hours). For students concentrating in Encounters, of the minor fields required of Ph.D. students, one will be World History, and students concentrating in Encounters must take a graduate course in World History. Participation in the Encounters Concentration involves no increase in the total credit hours needed to graduate. Students work closely with their advisors in designing their program of study. Completion of all requirements for the Ph.D. is necessary to graduate with a Concentration in Encounters.
• Demonstrate reading knowledge of one foreign language. This requirement is usually met by passing the Foreign Language Exam. The requirement may be waived for students who received an MA in history from UIC.
• Successfully pass Preliminary Examinations in one major field and two minor fields.
• Successfully pass an oral dissertation prospectus defense. Students must prepare a dissertation prospectus, and defend it before a committee consisting of the student’s adviser and at least two other dissertation committee members.
• Complete and defend a dissertation that is an original and significant contribution to historical scholarship.
• Note: Any exceptions to these requirements must have the support of the student’s faculty adviser and the approval of the Graduate Advisory Committee.
• Note: Students will receive credit at the Ph.D. level for any requirements that they have fulfilled at the MA level.

Foreign Language Requirement for Graduate Study at UIC

Graduate students at the M.A. and Ph.D. programs must demonstrate a reading knowledge of one language other than English. The purpose of this requirement is different for students who will be working extensively with foreign-language sources while in graduate school than for students who will not, so the History Department has designed two paths to a fulfillment of the requirement. Students are to select one of the two paths in consultation with their advisors.

FAQs about the Foreign Language Examination

Path I. This path is intended for Ph.D. students who will be working extensively (i.e. on a daily or weekly basis) with foreign-language primary and secondary sources in their research for the dissertation. The goal is to ensure that these students are adequately prepared to comprehend, analyze, and translate sources in at least one of the primary languages in which they will be working. Students on Path I must successfully pass a written exam, which comprises translating a passage of college-level prose, roughly one page in length, into standard English. Students are given two hours to complete the exam, for which they are allowed use of a dictionary. The text is selected and the exam is read by a two-member faculty committee (either from inside or outside of the History Department) appointed by the Director of Graduate Studies. A passing grade is given for an exam that demonstrates graduate-level proficiency in translating the text both in its specific details and in its overall meaning, not by translating it word for word but by conveying the sense of each sentence clearly and correctly. If a student fails the exam, it may be twice retaken.

Path II. This path is designed for Ph.D. students who will not regularly depend on foreign-language sources for their research, as well as for all students in the terminal-M.A. program. The goal is to ensure that these students possess a basic ability to understand written work in at least one language other than English, sufficient to allow them to read primary and secondary sources with a general level of comprehension when they encounter them. Such familiarity with, if not fluency in, another language is an increasingly important qualification for teaching, scholarship, and participation in the profession for all historians today, especially given the transnational turn of historical scholarship in all fields and the multilingual diversity of high-school and college history students. This requirement is intended to encourage a broad acquaintance with non-English sources and perspectives, providing a gateway for scholars of British and U.S. history in particular to pursue lines of inquiry that cross the English-language border. Students on Path II may fulfill the language requirement either by passing a written exam or by taking a course:

• The written exam for Path II calls for paraphrasing rather than translating a passage of college-level prose, roughly one page in length, and then answering a brief series of guided questions about the text. Students are given two hours to complete the exam, for which they are allowed use of a dictionary. The text is selected and the exam is read by a two-member faculty committee (either from inside or outside of the History Department) appointed by the Director of Graduate Studies. A passing grade is given for an exam that demonstrates basic comprehension of the main ideas and overall meaning of the text. If a student fails the exam, it may be twice retaken.
• Alternatively, students on Path II may fulfill the requirement by completing and receiving a grade of “A” or “B” in a relevant language course. This can be either a graduate-level readings course (e.g., French 401: Reading French for Graduate Students, or German 400: German for Reading Knowledge) or a 104-level undergraduate language course (i.e., the intermediate level corresponding to the fourth semester of college language instruction).

All graduate students must complete the language requirement no later than the semester prior to taking the Comprehensive or Preliminary Exams. In special cases, students may request postponements or waivers of the language requirement, in consultation with their advisors, by petitioning the Graduate Advisory Committee. Such waivers may be granted, for example, to Ph.D. students who are native non-English speakers or whose research plans require special training in a skill comparable to learning a language, such as quantitative analysis. Students in the terminal-M.A. program may be granted waivers if no foreign language is directly relevant to their studies.

Preliminary Exams for PhD Students

The Exam

• The purpose of the Ph.D. preliminary examination is to give students the opportunity to demonstrate a superior understanding of four areas of historical inquiry.
• Preliminary Exams consist of three written examinations, one in a major field and two in minor fields. The two minor fields must be distinct in time and/or space from the major field. Students wishing to take a minor field offered by another department within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences must petition the Graduate Advisory Committee for approval.
• The Department of History administers preliminary examination twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring. The major field exam takes five hours; the minor field tests take four hours each. Exams are held during a single week, with each examination scheduled on a different day. Exams are graded in one of three ways: pass with distinction (for a performance of outstanding merit), pass, or fail. Preliminary exams are evaluated by committees appointed by the Director of Graduate Studies. Ordinarily, the major field test is evaluated by three faculty members and each of the minor field tests by two faculty members.
• Students who fail all or part of any portion of the preliminary examination may take that portion a total of three times. Students will be reexamined only on those portions of the examination that they failed. Should a student fail a minor field, the student may choose to be examined again in a different minor field. The student may exercise this option only once. Students who fail any portion of the exam will not be eligible for teaching assistantships. Students who fail any part of the written exam three times will have their status in the program automatically reviewed by the GAC, with dismissal from the program a possible outcome. Students who fail one or more portions of the exam may petition to retake the exam before the next regularly scheduled exam period.

Preparing for Exams

Major field exams are generally based on colloquia readings and topics covered during the past three years. The faculty in each major field construct a standard bibliography of important works in the field organized according to the most important themes in the field areas of inquiry that any student would be expected to master (e.g. French Revolution in modern Europe; slavery in the U.S.). The list includes recommended readings for each theme. Each student prepares an individualized major field list derived largely from this longer bibliography. Each theme should be covered, but not every work in every category need be on each student’s list. Lists will require regularly updating (approximately every three years). Students are responsible for developing their own minor field reading lists in conjunction with their advisers and other faculties in the minor field area.

Examination questions are often historiographical and analytical and are not necessarily restricted to topics covered in particular graduate courses. For this reason, it is extremely important for students to consult those members of the graduate faculty who are responsible for examination fields in order to become familiar with expectations. Students are strongly encouraged to consult previously written tests, as well as a range of course syllabi. Previously written tests in most fields, as well as many course syllabi, are available for inspection and photocopying in the Graduate Secretary’s office.

Exam readers will be selected within the first two weeks of each semester for that semester’s exam, and the identity of the readers for each field will be made known to the students at that time. Conversely, readers will also receive the names and contact information for all exam takers in their fields.

Students are strongly encouraged to meet with the chairs of their exam committees. In large fields (such as U.S. history) committee chairs may prefer to organize one general meeting for all exam takers rather than meeting individually with a relatively large number of students.

It is possible to petition to take the major field examination in an area not included in the History Department’s official list. Students who wish to explore this option must consult with the Director of Graduate Studies.

Minor field examinations are based on reading lists compiled by the student in consultation with two faculty members who specialize in that area. Students should develop minor fields in consultation with their advisers.

Students may petition to take minor field exams in areas not included in the History Department’s approved list. The petition must be endorsed by at least two faculty members who are competent to administer the exam. In certain circumstances, one or both faculty members may come from outside the Department of History. All petitions for special fields must be submitted for approval to the Graduate Advisory Committee. Petitions for special fields must be submitted at least one semester prior to the examination.

The Dissertation in History at UIC

Dissertation Prospectus and Prospectus Defense

Following successful completion of preliminary exams, students begin to develop dissertation proposals. Students must work closely with their advisors to prepare for an oral defense of the proposal. The student and the chair agree on a proposal committee consisting of at least three faculty members. The chair, who is usually the student’s mentor, must be a member of the graduate faculty. The chair is responsible for ensuring that the student prepares a dissertation prospectus for submission to the dissertation prospectus committee for discussion, comment, and approval. Should the student subsequently change topics, he or she must inform the committee of this fact in writing and submit a new prospectus.

The dissertation prospectus is a prospective description that students write about their proposed dissertations. It typically contains four parts:

1. The topic or question that is to be investigated, and the conclusion(s) that is (are) expected to be reached.
2. The base of sources that will be used as evidence. If oral interviews are to be conducted, then the prospectus will show how these will be conducted in a way that is consistent with professional ethics and UIC regulations.
3. The state of the question in scholarly publications, and the dissertation’s relationship to it.
4. The way(s) in which the conclusion(s) of the dissertation will constitute(s) an advance in knowledge.

The prospectus will be 20-25 pages in length (including bibliography). In order to demonstrate good academic progress toward the degree, the doctoral student will normally defend the prospectus orally, in front of the committee, within six months of passing preliminary exams, and not more than 12 months thereafter. The committee evaluating the prospectus will normally include at least three people who are likely to serve on the dissertation defense committee.

The prospectus does not increase the student’s time to complete the dissertation, because the work undertaken to complete the prospectus is work that needs to be done to write the dissertation.

When the prospectus has been successfully defended, the student becomes a doctoral candidate. The eventual dissertation may differ from the prospectus through addition, subtraction, or modification, but to the extent that the dissertation follows its prospectus, it cannot be substantially criticized or rejected for having done so. In other words, the successfully defended prospectus constitutes a compact between the student and the department as to what kind of product will be deemed acceptable to the department.

Dissertation Research

Candidates should work closely with their advisers and keep their dissertation committees informed of their progress. It is the responsibility of dissertation adviser to decide when the candidate is to submit all or part of the work-in-progress to the other members of the dissertation committee. Students should register their dissertations with the American Historical Association so that they can be listed in Dissertations in Progress.

If for some reason the student’s original mentor no longer wishes to supervise a candidate’s dissertation, the faculty member must inform both the candidate and the Director of Graduate Studies in writing. If a candidate wishes to change mentors, the candidate must secure the consent of another member of the graduate faculty and notify the current mentor and the Director of Graduate Studies in writing. If a mentor is for any reason unable to supervise a candidate, the candidate, in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies, is responsible for securing an appropriate alternative.

When the candidate in the judgment of the mentor, is nearing completion of the dissertation, the proposal defense committee will be broadened to include a total of five members. The committee is nominated by the student’s mentor and approved by the Dean of the Graduate College. Graduate College regulations mandate that the dissertation defense committee consists of five faculty members, at least two of whom must be tenured members of the graduate faculty, and at least one of whom must have an appointment outside the Department of History. At the request of the adviser, the Graduate Secretary will schedule the dissertation defense.

Dissertation Defense

The dissertation defense is oral and focuses on the dissertation’s finding, methods, and significance. In attendance are the members of a specially constituted dissertation defense committee. The dissertation defense is ordinarily scheduled approximately within five weeks after the mentor and a second reader have given the dissertation their tentative approval. This time period is intended to give the remaining members of the committee sufficient time to evaluate the dissertation.

The committee may accept the dissertation as it stands, rejects it outright, or accept it conditionally pending certain revisions. The revisions can range from minor editorial changes to a major recasting of a substantial portion of the text. Ordinarily, the committee delegates to the mentor the responsibility for ensuring that these conditions are met. All dissertations must meet the format and stylistic requirements of the Graduate College.

PhDs Awarded 1972-Present

PhDs Awarded 2018

Heather R. Wilpone-Welborn, “Revenue Revealed:  A Race and Class Analysis of Federal Taxation, 1861-1877”
Dissertation Advisor: Jeffrey Sklansky

Alex (Erin) Crawley, “Method in His Madness: Enacting Male Normativity in Holloway Sanatorium for Insane, 1880-1910”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Johnston

PhDs Awarded 2017

Michal Wilczewski, “Broken Land: Everyday Life and the Reconstruction of the Polish Countryside, 1914-1939”
Dissertation Advisor: Keely Stauter-Halsted

Nicholas J. McCormick, “Windows into the Wild: Natural History Exhibition and Museum Education in Chicago, 1890-1940”
Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

Christopher C. Wright, “Down But Not Out: The Unemployed in Chicago During the Great Depression”
Dissertation Adviser: Leon Fink

PhDs Awarded 2016

Peter B. Strickland, “Delegates to Marchers: Gender, Empire, and Popular Politics in the Forging of Ulster Unionism, 1892-1912”
Dissertation Adviser: James Sack

Thomas E. Alter II, “Dirt Farmer Internationalists: The Meitzen Family, Three Generations of Farmer-Labor Radicals, 1848-1932”
Dissertation Adviser, Robert Johnston

James V. Mestaz, “Fuerte River Histories and Ambivalent Mayo Modernity in Mexico, 1926-70”
Dissertation Adviser: Christopher Boyer

Benjamin L. Peterson, “Building the Service Employees International Union: Janitors & Chicago Politics, 1911-68”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Johnston

PhDs Awarded 2015

Jochen Arndt, “Missionaries, Africans and the Emergence of Xhosa and Zulu as Distinct Languages in South Africa, 1800-54”
Dissertation Adviser: Kirk Hoppe

Adrienne Phelps Coco, “Five Lives of Mollie Fancher: 19th Century Curiosity, Clairvoyant, Hysteric, Care Recipient, Invalid”
Dissertation Adviser: Susan Levine

PhDs Awarded 2014

Wayne Ratzlaff, “Carl McIntire, the American Council of Christian Churches, and the Politics of Protestant Fundamentalism”
Dissertation Adviser: Rick Fried

Thomas F. Dorrance, “A New Deal every day:  Civic Authority and Federal Policy in Chicago and Los Angeles, 1930-1940”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Johnston

John J. Rosen, “Guardians of the Black Working Class:  Labor and Racial Politics in Postwar San Francisco”
Dissertation Adviser: Leon Fink

Jenna Nigro, “Colonial Logics: Agricultural, Commercial, & Moral Experiments in the Making of French Senegal, 1763-1870”
Dissertation Adviser: Kirk Hoppe

Cory A. Davis, “A Merchant’s Republic: The National Board of Trade and Commercial Capitalism in the U.S., 1840-1912”
Dissertation Adviser: Leon Fink

Julie A. Fountain, “Modern Jobs for Modern Women: Female Military Service in Britain, 1945-62”
Dissertation Adviser: Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska

William Chlumsky, “Setting Bounds to Passions: Federalist Communication Policy and the Making of the Sedition Act of 1798”
Dissertation Adviser: Michael Perman

PhDs Awarded 2013

Amy C. Sullivan, “What Fear is Like:  The Legacy of Trauma, Safety, and Security after the 1977 Girl Scout Murders”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Johnston

Karen J. Johnson, “The Universal Church in the Segregated City:  Doing Catholic Interracialism in Chicago, 1915-1963”
Dissertation Adviser: Kevin M. Schultz

Michal Kwiecien, “Communism, Nationalism, and Identity in a Polish-German Borderland, 1945-1950”
Dissertation Adviser: Gosia Fidelis

Anne E. Parsons, “Re-Institutionalizing America:  The Politics of Mental Health and Incarceration, 1945-1985”
Dissertation Adviser: Leon Fink

Daniel Harper, “In the Shadow of Antitrust:  Competition Policy and the Coal Trade of Toronto and Chicago, 1888-1940”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Johnston

PhDs Awarded 2012

Catherin O. Jacquet, “Responding to Rape: Contesting the Meanings of Sexual Violence in the United States, 1950-1980”
Dissertation Adviser: John D’Emilio

Stephanie L. Baker, “Salud Colectiva: The Role of Public Health Campaigns in Building a Modern Mexican Nation, 1940s-1960s”
Dissertation Adviser: Christopher Boyer

Michael J. Goode, “Gospel Order among Friends: Colonial Violence and the Peace Testimony in Quaker Pennsylvania, 1681-1722”
Dissertation Adviser: James Sack

Lara L. Kelland, “Clio’s Foot Soldiers:  Twentieth-Century U.S. Social Movements and the Uses of Collective Memory”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Johnston

PhDs Awarded 2011

James G. Mendez, “A Great Sacrifice:  Northern Black Families and Their Civil War Experiences”
Dissertation Adviser: Michael Perman

Allison O. Malcolm, “Anti-Catholicism and the Rise of Protestant Nationhood in North America, 1830-1871”
Dissertation Adviser: Leon Fink

PhDs Awarded 2010

Aaron M. Berkowitz, “Mr. Khrushchev Goes to Washington:  Domestic Opposition to Nikita Khrushchev’s 1959 Visit to America”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Fried and Eric Arnesen

Hiroshi Maeda, “Hospital Patients and Institutional Inmates in Chicago, 1880-1930”
Dissertation Adviser: Daniel Smith

Lauren H. Braun, “Italians, the Labor Problem, and the Project in Agricultural Colonization in the New South, 1884-1934”
Dissertation Adviser: Michael Perman

Sarah M. Goldberger, “Repatriating Yorktown:  The Politics of Revolutionary Memory and Reunion”
Dissertation Adviser: Michael Perman

Neici M. Zeller, “The Appearance of All, the Reality of Nothing:  Politics and Gender in the Dominican Republic, 1880-1961”
Dissertation Adviser: Bruce Calder

Ph.D. Awarded 2009

Joseph Lapsley, “Rethinking Sex and Gender: The Intellectual Upheavals of the Sexual Revolution”
Dissertation Adviser: John D’Emilio

Sam Mitrani, “Order in the Metropolis: The Origins of the Chicago Police Department, 1850-1890”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard John

Matthew T. Popovich, “Boundaries of Progress: The Politics of Urban Annexation and Anti-Annexation, 1870-1930”
Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

John Reda, “Joining The Union: Land, Race, and Sovereignty in the Illinois Country, 1763-1825”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard John

Rhoda Rosen, “Mapping Dystopia: Maps, Museums and the Nation”
Dissertation Adviser: Laura Hostetler

Matthew D. Rothwell, “Transpacific Revolutionaries: The Chinese Revolution in Latin America”
Dissertation Adviser: Christopher Boyer

Ph.D. Awarded 2008

Jeffery Helgeson, “Striving in Black Chicago: Migration, Work and the Politics of Neighborhood Change, 1935-1965”
Dissertation Adviser: Eric Arnesen

Robert E. Hunter, “Fingers on the Button: American Atomic Policy in Mainstream File, Radio, and Television, 1945-1960”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Fried

Ted Aranda, “Democracy and Revolution: The Athenian Political System and the Anglo-American Constitutional Struggle”
Dissertation Adviser: James Sack

Sarah F. Rose, “No Right to be Idle: The Invention of Disability, 1850-1930”
Dissertation Adviser: Susan Levine

Joshua A.T. Salzmann, “Safe Harbor: Chicago’s Waterfront and the Political Economy of the Built Environment, 1847-1918”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard John

Gloria-Yvonne Williams, “A Passion for Social Equality: Mary McLeod Bethune’s Race Woman Leadership and the New Deal”
Dissertation Advisers: M. Strobel and Barbara Ransby

Elizabeth A. Collins, “Red-baiting Public Women: Gender, Loyalty, and Red Scare Politics”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Fried

Ph.D. Awarded 2007

Eric R. Smith, “Anti-Fascism, The United Front, and Spanish Republican Aid in the United States, 1936-1940”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Fried

Raymond A. Lohne, “Founded at the Bier of Lincoln: A History of the Germania Club of Chicago, 1865-1986”
Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

Sean J. Harris, “Found Insane in ‘The Holy Land’: Psychiatry and the African American Experience in Illinois, 1870-1910”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Ph.D. Awarded 2006

James Kollenbroich, “Our Hour Has Come: The Homosexual Rights Movement in the Weimar Republic”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Levy

Josephine Faulk, “Bishop Fulbert of Chartres (1006-1028): A Political Biography”
Dissertation Adviser: Steven Fanning

Aly Drame, “Planting the Seeds of Islam: Karantaba, A Mandinka Muslim Center in the Casamance, Senegal”
Dissertation Adviser: James Searing

Annette R. Chapman-Adisho, “Patriotic Priests: Constitutional Clery in the Department of the Cote d’Or during the French Revolution”
Dissertation Adviser: David Jordan

Peter Ufland, “The Politics of Race in the Midwest, 1864-1890”
Dissertation Adviser: Michael Perman

John M. Rinehart, “The Making of a Christian Statesman: Woodrow Wilson’s Religious Thought and Practice, 1856-1910”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Messer

Amy C. Schneidhorst, “It Wasn’t Just the Young: Mature Women’s Fight for Peace and Justice in Chicago During the Sixties”
Dissertation Adviser: John D’Emilio

Ph.D. Awarded 2005

Cheryl R. Ganz, “A New Deal for Progress: The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair”
Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

Keith R. Green, “A Fairy Tale World: The Myth of Childhood in Imperial Germany”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Levy

Michael W. Johnson, “Imperial Commission or Orthodox Mission: Nikolai Il’minskii’s Work Among the Tartars of Kazan, 1862-1891”
Dissertation Adviser: James Cracraft

Scott V. Lingenfelter, “Tradition & Modernity: Sergei Bulgakov’s Quest for a Christian Civil Society in Late Imperial Russia”
Dissertation Adviser: James Cracraft

David W. Veenstra, “The Civil Presidency: Gerald R. Ford and the Politics of Renewal”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Fried

Ph.D. Awarded 2004

Carla Burnett, “Are We Slaves or Free Men?: Labor, Race, Garveyism, and the 1920 Panama Canal Strike”
Dissertation Adviser: Bruce Calder

Gwen Hoerr Jordan, “Creating A Women’s Legal Culture: Women Lawyers in Illinois, 1855-1939”
Dissertation Adviser:  Eric Arnesen

Marek Suszko, “The Zielona Gora Region, 1945-1956. A Communist Dumping Ground”
Dissertation Adviser: John Kulczycki

Leonid T. Trofimov, “The Soviet Media at the Onset of the Cold War, 1945-1950”
Dissertation Adviser: Jonathan Daly

Adrian S. Capehart, “The Migration of Africans to the United States since 1960: Contexts, Responses, and Communities”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Karl E. Wood, “Spa Culture and the Social History of Medicine in Germany”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Levy

Nancy L. Turpin, “The Blue Ticket: Local Response to State Nationalism at the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition”
Dissertation Adviser: David Jordan

Ph.D. Awarded 2003

Justin P. Coffey, “Spiro Agnew and the Suburbanization of American Politics, 1918-1968”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Fried

Ralph Ashby, “Napoleon and the Defenders of France”
Dissertation Adviser: David Jordan

Robert P. Arnoldt, “After the War: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Vietnam Veteran in American Society”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Messer

Pamela L. Baker, “The National Road and the Promise of Improvement, 1802-1850”
Dissertation Adviser: Daniel Scott Smith

Eva Becsei Kilborn, “Going Against the Grain: Francis Peyton Rous (1876-1970) and the Search for the Cancer Virus”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

PhDs Awarded 2002

Ana Maria Kapelusz-Poppi, “Provincial Intellectuals from Michoacan and the Professionalization of the Post-Revolutionary Mexican State”
Dissertation Adviser: Mary Kay Vaughan

Steven McNeel, “Behold the Temple of Janus Shut in this Western World: Colonel Henri Bouquet Frontier Office, 1756-1765”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Edward J.Behrend-Martinez, “‘She Wanted To Be Her Own Master’: Women’s Suits Against Impotent and Abusive Husbands in a Spanish Church Court 1650-1750”
Dissertation Adviser: Renato Barahona

Lawrence Eldridge, “Chronicles of a Two-Front War: The African-American Press and the Vietnam War”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Messer

Larry Lee Baker, Jr., “Politics, Privilege, and Political Culture: Dijon During the French Revolution”
Dissertation Adviser: David Jordan

Barbara L. Dobschuetz, “Fundamentalism and American Urban Culture: Community and Religious Identity in Dwight L. Moody’s Chicago, 1864-1914”
Dissertation Advisers: Leo Schelbert & Rima Schultz

Paul B. Siegel, “Uptown Chicago: The Origins and Emergence of a Movement Against Displacement, 1947-1972”
Dissertation Adviser: Eric Arnesen

Ph.D. Awarded 2001

Anthony R. Maravillas, “Nixon in the Fifties”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Fried

Jason C. Digman, “Which Way to the Promised Land? Changing Patterns in Southern Migration, 1865-1920″
Dissertation Adviser: Eric Arnesen

Stanley Rose, “Urbanization in Seventeenth-Century Ghana”
Dissertation Adviser: James Searing

Sean J. Labat, “Creating Consensus: Chicago and the United States Foreign Relations During The Early Cold War, 1945-1950”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Messer

Christopher J. Young, “Contests of Opinion: The Public Sphere in Post-Revolutionary America”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard John

PhDs Awarded 2000

Raymond M. Brod, “Maps as Weapons in the Conquest of Old American Northwest 1608 to 1829″
Dissertation Adviser: Gerald Danzer

John C. Kinney, “Alcoholic Inebriety: A Study of Its Perceived Nature, Causation, and Treatment in America, 1857-1914″

Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

John Menet, “Aviation and the American Imagination During World War II”
Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

John Abbott, “Peasants in the Rural Public: The Bavarian Bauernbund, 1893-1933”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Levy

Maria Teresa Fernandez-Aceves, “The Political Mobilization of Women in Revolutionary Guadalajara, 1910-1940”
Dissertation Adviser: Mary Kay Vaughan

Frederic M. Kopp, “Rocking the Federal Republic: Rebellious Youth and Music in West Germany, 1945-1990″
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Levy

Cadence A. Wynter, “Jamaican Labor Migration to Cuba, 1885-1930 in the Caribbean Context”
Dissertation Adviser: Bruce Calder

PhDs Awarded 1999

Salvador Camacho, “The Modernization of Education and Science in Mexico 1982-1995: The Case of Aguascalientes”
Dissertation Adviser: Mary Kay Vaughan

Ben A. Harshman, “Toward A Commercial Society”
Dissertation Adviser: James Sack

Wendy Plotkin, “Deeds of Mistrust: Race, Housing, and Restrictive Covenants in Chicago, 1900-1953”
Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

Arthur Christian Repp, “In Search of an Orthodox Way: The Development of Biblical Studies in Late Imperial Russia”
Dissertation Adviser: James Cracraft

Stephen A. Brown, “When Middle-Class Ambition Met Southern Honor: A Cultural History of the Leo Frank Case”
Dissertation Adviser: Burton Bledstein

Brian Moran, “Prison Reform in the United States Navy and the Dominican Republic: The Military Occupation and Prisons, 1900-1930”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Messer

John L. Glover, “The Hope in this World and the Next: Maam Cerno and the Settlement of Darou Mousty, 1912-1947”
Dissertation Adviser: James Searing

Ph.D. Awarded 1998

Nicholas S. Ceh, “United States-Yugoslav Relations During the Early Cold War, l945-l957”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Messer

Thomas H. Cornman, “Securing a Faithful Ministry: Struggles of Ethnicity and Religious Epistemology in Colonial American Presbyterianism”
Dissertation Advisers: A. G. Roeber and Leo Schelbert

Tadeusz Debski, “A Battlefield of Ideas: Nazi Concentration Camps and Their Polish Prisoners”
Dissertation Advisers: Richard Levy and John Kulczycki

James Kollros, “Creating a Steel Workers Union in the Calumet Region, 1933 to 1945”
Dissertation Adviser: P. d’A. Jones

Virgil Krapauskas, “Lithuanian Historiography: A Search for National Identity from Daukanta to 1904”
Dissertation Adviser: John Kulczycki

John Morello, “Candidates, Consumers, and Closers: Albert Lasker, Advertising and Politics: 1900-1920”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Jensen

Jacqueline H. Wolf, “Discarding Nature’s Plan: A Social History of Infant Feeding in Chicago, 1892-1938”
Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

PhDs Awarded 1997

Paul A. Buelow, “The Dispensary Comes to Chicago: Health Care and the Poor Before 1920”
Dissertation Adviser: Perry Duis

Robin Carre, “The Decline of the Imperial Republic: Colonial Discourse and the Crisis of Liberalism in Interwar France”
Dissertation Adviser: William Hoisington

L. Mara Dodge, “Her Life has Been an Improper One: Women, Crime, and Prisons in Illinois, 1935-1933”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert/Margeret Strobel

Thomas K. Murphy, “The Evolving Image of America in Europe: 1780-1850”
Dissertation Advisers: Stanley Mellon and David Jordan

Margaret Power, “Right Wing Women and Chilean Politics: 1964-1973”
Dissertation Adviser: Mary Kay Vaughan

Pamela Smith-Iowa, “Great Things are to be Expected: A Look at European Ideas on Indigenous Medicine in Benin, Nigeria”

Dissertation Adviser: James Searing

Phyllis L. Soybel, “The Necessary Relationship: The Development of Anglo-American Cooperation in Naval Intelligence, 1939-1943”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Messer

William B. Whisenhunt, “Mikhail M. Speranskii and the Development of Law in Russia, 1826-1833”
Dissertation Adviser: James Cracraft

Ph.D. Awarded 1996

George S. Pabis, “Restraining the Muddy Waters: Engineers and Mississippi River Flood Control, 1846-1881”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard John

Septimus Paul, “Anglo-American Cooperation and the Development of the British Atomic Bomb, 1941-52”
Dissertation Adviser: Bentley Gilbert

Padma I. Rangaswamy, “The Imperatives of Choice and Change: Post-1965 Immigrants from India in Metropolitan Chicago”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Gregory L. Schneider, “The Other Sixties: The Young Americans for Freedom and the Politics of Conservatism”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Fried

Richard A. Stacewicz, “Winter Soldiers” An Oral History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Messer

Mary Todd, “Not in God’s Lifetime”: The Question of the Ordination of Women in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod”
Dissertation Adviser: A. Gregg Roeber

Ph.D. Awarded 1995

Maladho Siddy Balde, “The History of Fuuta-Jallon in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century According to the Griots and the Elders”
Dissertation Advisers: Lansine Kaba and James SearingMichael Doorley, “The Friends of Irish Freedom: A Study of an Irish-American Diaspora Nationalism”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Ph.D. Awarded 1994

David R. M. Beck, “Siege and Survival: Menominee Responses To An Encroaching World”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Karen Friedman, “German/Lithuanian Collaboration in the Final Solution 1941-1944”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Levy

Joy M. Kammerling, “Andreas Osiander and the Jews of Nuremberg: A Reformation Pastor and Jewish Toleration in Sixteenth-Century Germany”
Dissertation Adviser: George Huppert

Andre Partykevich, “My Prayer Went Unanswered”: Oleksander Lototsky and Ukrainian Autocephaly, 1917-1939″
Dissertation Adviser: James Cracraft

Thomas S. Price, “Palmettos and Property: Historical Memory and Political Culture in Early National South Carolina”
Dissertation Adviser: Michael Perman

David Vervaet, “From Assimilation to Independence: The Evolue(e) Novelists and the Recovery of Alerian Identity, 1939-1962”
Dissertation Adviser: William Hoisington

Ph.D. Awarded 1993

Cynthia K. Kosso, “Public Policy and Agricultural Practices: An Archaeological and Literary Study of Late Roman and Greece”

Dissertation Adviser: J. Davis (Classics)

Louis B. Kuppenheimer, “Albert Gallatin’s Vision of Democratic Stability: An Interpretive Profile”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Neal R. McCrillis, “The Conservative Party in the Age of Universal Suffrage: Popular Conservatism, 1918-1929”
Dissertation Adviser: Bentley Gilbert

Michaela Tomaschewsky, “Malwida von Meysenbug and the Cult of Humanism”
Dissertation Adviser: Marion Miller

Ph.D. Awarded 1992

Eugene Beiriger, “Churchill in the Ministry of Munitions: An Experiment in Government Industrial Policy”
Dissertation Adviser: Bentley Gilbert

Edward Berggren, “Under the Sign of Enlightenment: Varieties of Reading Rousseau’s Pedagogical Texts”
Dissertation Adviser: David Jordan

Clinton E. Stockwell, “A Better Class of People: Protestants in the Shaping of Early Chicago, 1833-1873”
Dissertation Adviser: Melvin Holli

Ph.D. Awarded 1991

Shirley Burton, “Obscenity in Victorian Chicago: Prosecution in the Federal Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 1873-1913”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Thekla Caldwell, “Women, Men, and Revival: Gender in the Third Awakening”
Dissertation Adviser: Daniel Scott Smith

Ph.D. Awarded 1990

Andrew A. Wiest, “The Dominance of the Flanders Coast in British Strategic Planning in World War I”
Dissertation Adviser: Bentley Gilbert

Jared Clark, “Industry, Society, and Policies in the Ruhr: National Liberalism in Dortmund, 1848-1913″
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Levy

David Goodlett, “Proletarians on the Merry-Go-Round: The Yugoslav Press and Official Policy on Workers Emigration, 1963-1973”
Dissertation Adviser: Edward Thaden

Steven McNeel, “Behold the Temple of Janus Shut in this Western World: Colonel Henri Bouquet Frontier Office, 1756-1765”

Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Claiborne Skinner, “The Sinews of Empire: The Voyageurs and the Carrying Trade of the Pays d’en Haut, 1681-1754”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Ph.D. Awarded 1989

Douglas Bukowski, “According to Image: William Hale Thompson and tile Politics of Chicago, 1915-1931”
Dissertation Adviser: Melvin Holli

Andrew R. Sarvis, “The Krefeld Silk Entrepreneurs: A Study in Bourgeois Solidarity”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Levy

Ph.D. Awarded 1988

James E. Jennings, “Aeginetan Trade 650-457 B.C.: A Re-Examination”
Dissertation Adviser: R. Legon

Ph.D. Awarded 1987

Donald J. McKay, “Soviet Jewish Emigration to Chicago, 1970-1980”
Dissertation Adviser: Edward Thaden

James C. Mott, “Change and Continuity in American Voting Behavior, 1948-1952”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Jensen

Gersham Nelson, “The Origin and Development of the Jamaican Peasants and Working Class, 1838-1979”
Dissertation Adviser: Bruce Calder

Gary K. Pranger, “Philip Schoff (1819-1893): Portrait of an Immigrant Theologian”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Wayne P. Schaefer, “Education in Morocco to Libya, 1925-1945”
Dissertation Adviser: William Hoisington

Marian J. Rubchak, “A Wellspring of Ukrainian National Consciousness: The Formation of the Lviv Stavropgyria Brotherhood, 1585-1632”
Dissertation Adviser: James Cracraft

Ph.D. Awarded 1986

Janine C. Hartman, “The Politics of Decadence: The Social and Political Ideas of Sade, Gautier, Baudelaire, and Flaubert, 1789-1871”
Dissertation Adviser: Stanley Mellon

Robert N. Marty, “From Slave to Servical: Labor in the Plantation Economy of Sao Teme and Principe”
Dissertation Adviser: I. Sundiata

Rita M. Rhodes, “Women and the Family in Post-Famine Ireland: Status and Opportunity in a Patriarchal Society”
Dissertation Advisers: Marion Miller and Leo Schelbert

Ph.D. Awarded 1985

Milan Andrejevich, “The Cultural Evolution of Bosnia-Hercegovina Conflict and Development during Kallay Era, 1882–1903”
Dissertation Adviser: Edward Thaden

Thomas C. Hendrix, “‘The Love of Liberty’: A Study of the Religious Factor in the 19th Century Settlement of Afro/Americans in Liberia”
Dissertation Adviser: I. Sundiata

Mark A. Lause, “Some Degree of Power: From Hired Hand to Union Craftsman in Preindustrial American Printing Trades, 1778-1815”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Joseph Takougang, “Victoria: An African Township Under British Administration, 1916-1961”
Dissertation Adviser: I. Sundiata

Ph.D. Awarded 1984

Christian D. Nokkentved, “Danes, Denmark and Racine 1837-1924: A Study of Danish and Overseas Migration”
Dissertation Advisers: Marion Miller and Leo Scelbert

Gwendolyn Robinson, “Class, Race, and Gender: A Transcultural Theoretical and Sociohistorical Analysis of Cosmetic Institutions and Practices to 1920”
Dissertation Adviser: Peter Jones

Ph.D. Awarded 1983

Donald H. Parkerson, “The People of Mid-Nineteenth Century New York: Family, Community, and Migration”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Jensen

N. Sue Weiler, “The Aged, the Family and the Problems of a Maturing Industrial Society: New York, 1900-1930”
Dissertation Adviser: Daniel Scott Smith

Ph.D. Awarded 1982

Stanley Gallas, “Lord Lyons and the Civil War, 1859-1864: A British Perspective”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Millman

Kurt E. Leichtle, “Edward Coles: An Agrarian on the Frontier”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Ph.D. Awarded 1981

Frances M. Feinerman, “Population and Prosperity: Messance and Expilly Challenge the Physiocrats, 1757-1770”
Dissertation Adviser: David Jordan

William R. Biles, “Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago: Big City Boss in Depression and War”
Dissertation Adviser: Melvin Holli

Mansour Hasan Mansour, “The Spread and the Domination of the Maliki School of Law in North and West Africa, Eighth-Fourteenth Century”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Hess

Aderemi Samuel Olumuyiwa Fatoke, “British Colonial Administration of Somaliland Protectorate, 1920-1960”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Hess

Dominic C. Pacyga, “Villages of Packinghouses and Steel Mills: The Polish Worker on Chicago’s South Side, 1880 to 1921”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Elizabeth A. Payne-Moore, “‘Life and Labor’: Margaret Drier Robins and the Women’s Trade Union League”
Dissertation Adviser: Burton Bledstein

Leslie Vincent Tischauser, “The Burden of Ethnicity: The German Question in Chicago, 1914-1941”
Dissertation Adviser: Melvin Holli

Michael R. Trochim, “Retreat from Reform: The Fall of the Brazilian Empire, 1888-1889”
Dissertation Adviser: Bruce Calder

Ph.D. Awarded 1980

Norman R. Eder, “National Health Insurance, Social Politics and Medical Practices in Britain, 1913-1939”
Dissertation Adviser: Bentley Gilbert

Barbara Kehoe, “The British Press and Nazi Germany”
Dissertation Adviser: Bentley Gilbert

Peter J. O’Malley, “Mayor Martin H. Kennelly of Chicago: A Political Biography”
Dissertation Adviser: Melvin Holli

Jacqueline Peterson, “The People in Between: Indian-White Marriage and the Genesis of a Metis Society and Culture in the Great Lakes Region, 1680-1830”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Michael R. Ralston, “Men in the Middle: Republican Politics in Lorraine During the Third French Republic, 1870-1914”
Dissertation Adviser: William Hoisington

Ph.D. Awarded 1979

Hugo P. Learning, “Hidden Americans Maroons of Virginia and the Carolinas”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Barbara Clinchy-Sciacchitano, “The Exile World of Alexander Herzen: A View of Russia and the West”
Dissertation Adviser: Ed Thaden

Deborah G. White, “Ain’t I A Women? Female Slaves in the Antebellum South”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Ph.D. Awarded 1978

Kristen E. A. Borg, “Princess Lieven: A New Interpretation of Her Role and Image”
Dissertation Adviser: Stanley Mellon

Stephen L. Hansen, “Principles, Politics, and Personalities: Voter and Party Identification in Illinois: 1850 to 1876”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Arnold R. Hirsch, “Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Judith-Rae Ross, “Anglo-French Encounters: Images of the English Civil War in France, 1789-1848”
Dissertation Adviser: Stanley Mellon

Ph.D. Awarded 1977

Rosemary Skinner-Keller, “Abigail Adams and the American Revolution: A Personal History”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Christine McHugh, “Edward Bellamy and the Populists: The Agrarian Response to Utopia, 1888-1898”
Dissertation Adviser: Burton Bledstein

Doris Racich, “Planning and Politics: British Reactions to the Economic Depression of the Interwar Years”
Dissertation Adviser: Bentley Gilbert

Ph.D. Awarded 1976

Paul F. Barrett, “Mass Transit, the Automobile, and Public Policy in Chicago, 1900-1930, Vols. I and II”
Dissertation Adviser: Melvin Holli

Charles J. Balesi, “From Adversary to Comrade-In-Arms: West Africans and the French military 1885-1919”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Hess

Louise Año Nuevo Kerr, “The Chicano  Experience in Chicago: 1920-1970”
Dissertation Advisers: Peter d’A Jones and Richard Jensen

Barbara Kuhn-Campbell, “Prominent women in the Progressive Era: A Study of Life Histories”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Barbara L. Farr, “The Development and Impact of Right-Wing Politics in Great Britain 1903-1932”
Dissertation Adviser: Bentley Gilbert

Richard D. Holbrook, “Baron D’Oppede and Cardinal Mazarin: The Politics of Provence from 1641 to 1660”
Dissertation Adviser: J. Wolf

Ph.D. Awarded 1975

Hasia R. Diner, “In the Almost Promised Land: Jewish Leaders and Blacks, 1915-1935”
Dissertation Adviser: Leo Schelbert

Blanche G. Hersh, “‘The Slavery of Sex’ Feminist-Abolitionists in Nineteenth-Century America”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Remini

Alberto Sbacchi, “Italian Colonialism in Ethiopia, 1936-1940”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Hess

Ghada Hoshem, “Egypt’s Civilizing Mission: Khedive Isma’il’s Red Sea Province, 1865-1885”
Dissertation Adviser: Robert Hess

Zdenko Zlatar, “The Anti-Turkish Opposition in Seventeenth-Century Ragusa and Its Prohabsburg Policy in the Morean War, Vols. I and II”

Dissertation Adviser: George Huppert

Ph.D. Awarded 1973

Thomas R. Bullard, “From Businessman to Congressman, the Careers of Martin B. Madden”
Dissertation Adviser: Melvin Holli

R. David Cudaback, “Victor DeBroglie and the French Constitutional Monarchy–A Liberal Peer and Diplomatic Under Louis-Philippe”
Dissertation Adviser: J. Wolf

Mark W. Friedberger, “Cornbelt and River City: Social Change in a Midwest Community, 1885-1930”
Dissertation Adviser: Richard Jensen

Dennis H.O’Brien, “Louis XIV’s Diplomatic Corps, 1648-1671”
Dissertation Adviser: J. Wolf

Ph.D. Awarded 1972

Richard B. Bingham, “Louis XIV and the War for Peace: The Genesis of a Peace Offensive 1686-1690, Vols. I and II”
Dissertation Adviser: J. Wolf

Timeline for Doctoral-track MA Students

This is a list of time-sensitive steps in the process of acquiring an M.A. on the way to the Ph.D. in the UIC Dept. of History.  It is not a list of all degree requirements.  Italics indicate that this is a logical semester in which to complete this item, although it is not necessary to do it during this semester.  All calendar dates are approximate.  For exact dates for each academic year, consult the Director of Graduate Studies.

First semester:
Take Hist 501.
Take colloquium in a major field.  For students in U.S. history, take Hist 551(a).
First opportunity to apply for foreign language examination:  Oct. 5.

Second semester:
Apply for a teaching assistantship (even if guaranteed, complete application to indicate preferences,  time constraints, etc.):  April 1
For students in U.S. history, take Hist 551(b).
Take seminar in a major field, unless to be taken in the third semester.*
Apply for foreign language exam:  Feb. 1.

Third semester:
For students in U.S. history, take Hist 551(b), already taken.
Take seminar in a major field, unless already taken.*
Apply for foreign language exam:  Oct. 5.

Fourth semester:
Apply for foreign language exam:  Feb. 1.
Apply for a Ph.D. program:  Feb. 1
Apply for TAship (even if guaranteed, complete application to indicate time constraints, etc.):  April 1

Graduate with M.A.  Become Ph.D. student.

*Students should be aware that the combination of a colloquium and a seminar taken in the same semester involves a lot of work, although it may be doable, depending on other commitments.