Timeline – 1848 Studying History

Ancient history courses were featured in the UW curriculum from the outset, according to the earliest catalogs. Beginning in 1858, the UW also required first-year students enrolled in its Classical Course to take classes on the “History of the United States” and on “General History.”

Who taught these classes is not clear. History would not become a separate discipline until later in the century, and a professor of history as such was not appointed until 1866-1867.

Catalogs from 1853 to 1899 are available in the UW Library’s Digital Collections. Excerpts from UW catalogs, 1852-1996, are also available in the Department of History’s Course Catalog Archive. The titles varied over time; in this timeline, they are cited simply as UW Course Catalogs.