Two Chairs for New Faculty in History:
Dr. Hahn, Dr. McCurry

SAS Dean Samuel H. Preston announced two chair appointments in the department of history.

Dr. Steven H. Hahn came to Penn from Northwestern University as the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History. After receiving a B.A. from the University of Rochester, Dr. Hahn completed his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. at Yale.

Dr. Hahn served as professor of history at Northwestern for five years, where he taught both undergraduate and graduate seminars on the 19th century social and political history of the U.S. Prior to his appointment at Northwestern, he held faculty positions at the University of California, University of Maryland, University of Delaware, and Yale.

As a distinguished scholar of American history, Dr. Hahn is interested in exploring southern politics and the comparative history of slavery and emancipation. His articles and book reviews have appeared in leading publications such as American Historical Review, Comparative Studies in Society and History, and Journal of American History. Dr. Hahn has also written or edited four books, including the award-winning The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890. His most recent book, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration, was published this month by Harvard University Press. Dr. Hahn is working on a collection of essays, The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom, and is beginning a book, tentatively entitled Imperial Nationhood and Its Discontents: The United States, 1840-1900, to be published as part of the Viking Series in American History. 

A fellow of the Society of American Historians, Dr. Hahn is the recipient of numerous awards, including a History and Life Award from the ABC-CLIO America and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. Most recently, he was appointed to a three-year term as an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer, where he will participate in the organization's lectureship program comprising speakers who have made major contributions to US history.

The Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair in American History is one of three endowed chairs established in 1983 by the bequest of the late Drs. Nichols, two longtime faculty members. Dr. Roy Nichols, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the Civil War, served as professor of history, dean of the graduate division of SAS, and vice provost of the University. Dr. Jeannette Nichols was a research associate and an associate professor of history for 32 years, with a special interest in the history of the University.

The newly appointed Merriam Term Associate Professor of History is Dr. Stephanie McCurry. She also joined Penn from Northwestern University, where she served as associate professor of history since 1998. She holds a BA from the University of Western Ontario, MA from the University of Rochester, and Ph.D. from State University of New York at Birmingham.

At Northwestern, Dr. McCurry directed the Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities, which fosters the development of a highly innovative humanities culture at Northwestern and among local affiliates. She has also served on the faculty at the University of California, San Diego. Her teaching and research interests include 19th century American gender history and Southern political history.

Dr. McCurry received five awards for her book, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country, which delivers an analysis of class and gender relations in the slave South and of the political culture of secession. She is currently working on a second book, The Brothers' War: The Body Politic in Civil War South, which presents a study of Southern political culture and relations during the Civil War. Her forthcoming article, "War and Emancipation: The Confederacy in Comparative Perspective," investigates the effect of the Confederate decision to enlist slave men in the War.

Her contributions to scholarship of 19th and 20th century American history have earned her fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, American Association of University Women, and American Council of Learned Societies. Dr. McCurry served as co-chair for the 2002 program committee of the Organization of American Historians, the largest learned society devoted to the study of American history.

The Merriam Term Chair was created in 2000 through the bequest of John W. Merriam, W '31, who taught economics at Penn in 1934. He began his entrepreneurial career during the Depression when he developed his first apartment complex and went on to become one of the Delaware Valley's leading real estate developers. Mr. Merriam was also very active in the Philadelphia arts community and served on the boards of the Philadelphia College for the Performing Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.