Graduate Training
The Penn State Department of History and the Richards Center has one of the top programs in the country for training in the Civil War Era and preparing the next generation of scholars. Students who study Civil War Era history work closely with nationally prominent scholars, and benefit from the expertise and complementary perspectives of Richard Center affiliated faculty.
Graduate study in the American Civil War era at Penn State offers students many benefits:
- A broad range of faculty expertise and graduate courses in the Civil War era
- Close working relationships with Richards Center faculty associates
- Civil War-era workshops with visiting scholars
- Professional development working on the journal Civil War History
- Significant funding opportunities for research and writing
Richards Center graduate students Jonathan Steplyk, Tim Orr & Adam Rogers at the second annual graduate student conference.
Graduate Student Conference
The Richards Center sponsors an annual two-day graduate student conference at Penn State. Richard Center graduate students organize and run the event, evaluating proposals, inviting a select number of graduate students to present their work, chairing panels, and presenting their own research.
Through the generous support of private donors, virtually all of the elite group of graduate students studying the Civil War Era obtain funding in addition to the financial support provided by the Department of History. The Center has established the following endowed fellowships to assist graduate students with their research and provide release time from teaching in order to write their dissertations.
- Warren W. Hassler Graduate Fellowship in the Civil War Era
- James Landing Graduate Fellowship in History
- Karen and Lewis H. Gold Fellowship in the Civil War Era
- Larry and Gretchen McCabe Program Fund for Faculty and Graduate Student Research
- Carl M. Isham Graduate Award
- College of the Liberal Arts Center and Institute Fellowships
To be eligible for the Hassler, Landing, and Center and Institute Fellowships, students must have completed their doctoral course work and passed their comprehensive examinations. The Gold, McCabe, and Isham funds are open to graduate students at any phase of their careers in order to help them pursue their research. Applications for all of these awards are reviewed in the spring by the Richards Center's director in conjunction with the Graduate Awards Committee of the Department of History. Guidelines for Richards Center awards are the same as for the other departmental fellowships.
Professors Lori Ginzberg and William Blair with doctoral graduate students Karen Fisher Younger and David Smith.
Recent Graduates
Recent graduates from the program have generated projects on the last generation of southern slaveholders, African American veterans in the GAR, political corruption in the Civil War era, economic and social tensions in the postwar South, the fugitive slave issue in Border States, the colonization movement, and African American women's health issues in the early twentieth-century.