Last modified: Monday, July 11, 2005
Two historians receive endowed professorships
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of History have awarded endowed professorships to IUB historians Michael Grossberg and Michael McGerr. Grossberg was named the Sally M. Reahard Professor of American History to 1865; McGerr was appointed the Paul V. McNutt Professor of American History since 1865.
These honors were made possible through the generosity of the estates of the late Sally M. Reahard and Louise McNutt. Reahard was a long-time Indianapolis philanthropist interested in projects associated with early American history. McNutt named her gift in honor of her father, who served as governor of Indiana in the 1930s and in the wartime cabinet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Grossberg is an expert in the history of American law with a particular interest in family relations and has edited the journal American Historical Review for the past decade. Currently he is completing a book on the law and the treatment of children over the course of American history.
McGerr has published widely on the history of American politics. His 2003 book, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920, was a selection of the History Book Club. Currently he is writing a history of the Vanderbilt family, at one time the richest family in the world.
