Brief History of the Program
With the end of World War II, the Duluth State Teachers College was transformed into a University of Minnesota Campus. That expansion in 1947 brought a more ambitious and demanding student body and led to recruitment of a larger and more specialized history faculty. In the following decades the program contributed to the liberal education of undergraduates and trained History majors and minors with specialized courses, seminars, and other research opportunities. History graduates have frequently gone on to law school and graduate school. They have found careers in the law; government at the local, state and federal level; in journalism, both in print and electronic; in teaching and museum work.
In the last four decades further expansion has occurred with the addition of an honors program, a History Club, an Honor Society, and the teaching of history in overseas programs in England and Russia. History faculty participate in graduate programs at UMD and at the Twin Cities campus.
The program's special ability to support regional history resulted in the establishment of the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center, hosting of important regional conferences, and the sponsorship of the professional journal, Upper Midwest History. Yet its faculty is global in reach: it includes specialists in U.S., European, Russian, African, and East Asian history.
History Dept. Faculty, 1952 UMD Chronicle (UMD Yearbook)