Timeline – 1900 – UW’s School of History

A stand-alone School of History was created in 1900 under Frederick Jackson Turner’s direction, after he turned down a position at the University of Chicago. Devoted to European and American history, the new school had seven faculty members and offered both graduate and undergraduate studies.

History was also represented in the UW’s new School of Commerce, one of the first business schools in the U.S. Its director was a professor of economic history and theory and several History faculty were on its instructional staff.

A few years later, the School of History was integrated into the College of Letters and Science. Turner moved to Harvard in 1910 rather than yield to pressure from the UW regents to teach more. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History posthumously in 1933 for The Significance of Sections in American History (1932).

Turner’s 1910 presidential address to the AHA is available on the AHA website.

Sources: UWH-1, 638, 642-644; UWH-2, 29-30; UW Course Catalog, 1900-1901 (pdf), 174-176.