The History Department
Built in 1929, Arter Hall's cornerstone was laid by Allegheny College's most illustrious alumna, the muckraking journalist and historian, Ida Tarbell.
Message from the Department Chair:
Welcome to the Allegheny College Department of History web page! The study of History has been an elemental part of the College’s curriculum since its founding in 1815. Our mission as a liberal arts institution includes introducing our students to the peoples, cultures, and ideas of the past in ways that enable them to better understand the present and to address the future. Included in the Social Science division of the College, the History Department offers a major and a general minor, as well as special minors in American, European, and non-Western history.
We provide our students with a variety of courses encompassing a broad spectrum of subjects on various levels. The faculty of the Department of History approaches the study of the past as a humane discipline, investigating, from various points of view, the ways in which people around the world and in many different eras have ordered their lives. To that end, we assist our students in developing the skills of the historian:
- the ability to conduct research in primary sources
- to pose thoughtful questions of historical evidence
- to develop their own hypotheses regarding the past
- to communicate their ideas both orally and in written form
Please drop by and visit us at our Department’s office on the second floor of Arter Hall. If you have any questions about the Department of History, please contact me or any of the members of the Department at our e-mail addresses. We look forward to hearing from you.
Ken Pinnow
Chair, Department of History
