Western history is and has traditionally been one of the History Department's areas of major strength and one of the premier programs in the nation. A dozen faculty members work in this field, which also connects with other important areas of strength within the Department and throughout the university. The faculty take a broad approach to this field, viewing the West from its late 18th century roots in the trans-Appalachian region to the contemporary urban West, and combining a sense of place with an awareness of diverse populations and processes.

Graduate students interested in the West major in United States history and take the historiography seminars and reading courses required in that field. Western history students also take graduate seminars, special topics courses, and individual directed reading in their special area of interest. Faculty specialists offer graduate work in a broad range of western historical topics covering the frontier and modern periods, local and regional history, and ethnic history. A nationally recognized public history program offers all students the opportunity to develop their historical skills for the professional practice of history outside the classroom.

Western history connects with a number of specialties within the department, including American Indian, environmental, urban, women and gender, and migration history. Given this relatively large number of faculty and students in this and related fields, students find numerous opportunities for cooperation and support. Faculty and students in Western history also connect with various programs throughout the University, including the Schools of Architecture & Landscape Design, Geographical Sciences, Human Evolution & Social Change, Justice and Social Inquiry, Planning, and Public Affairs; as well as many interdisciplinary centers and institutes, including the North American Center for Transborder Studies (Canada, U.S., Mexico), Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC), Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS), and Urban Ecology IGERT program.

This program has been influenced by its urban location which has grown dramatically but which maintains a tradition of interest in the past. This is reflected in the substantial documentary, photographic, and manuscript collections in the University's Arizona Collection and in the Arizona Historical Foundation, including the papers of significant public figures such as Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes, and Carl Hayden. Research facilities in Phoenix include the State Archives and the internationally prominent Heard Museum. Travel is also relatively easy to the collections of the Arizona Historical Society and the University of Arizona in Tucson, as well as to numerous research facilities in southern California.

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Faculty Profiles

Edward J. Escobar His scholarly interests are the Chicano experience and 20th century United States history. His research and publications deal with the relationship between the Los Angeles Police Department and Mexican Americans.

Donald L. Fixico has published numerous books and articles exploring the experiences of Native Americans, especially in the twentieth century.

Susan E. Gray's work focuses on the 19th-century, trans-Appalachian West, emphasizing such themes as migration, race, gender, and region. She is co-editor of Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies with Gayle Gullett.

Gayle Gullett, whose research focuses on the political experiences of women in urban California, is co-editor of Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies with Susan Gray. Gullett is using Los Angeles of the early twentieth century as an arena to understand how black and white western women helped construct modernity. 

Paul Hirt has taught the undergraduate American West surveys as well as graduate courses in this specialization for over 15 years. Most of his research and publications focus on environmentalissues in the West, with a special interest in forests, water, public lands,and both the northern and southern borderlands.

Peter Iverson is one of the nation's leading scholars of twentieth-century Native American history.  He also writes and teaches about others aspects of Western history, and his publications include Barry Goldwater: Native Arizonan.

Arturo Rosales specializes in 20th century Chicana/o history.  His Chicano! A History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement accompanied the televised documentary of 1996. In 1999 he published Pobre Raza!: Violence, Crime, Justice, and Mobilization Among Mexico Lindo Immigrants, 1890-1936.

Philip R. VanderMeer  teaches and writes about Western urbanization and politics, focusing on Phoenix and Arizona.   His publications include Phoenix Rising, a study of postwar Phoenix, and he is currently completing a full-length study of this booming Sunbelt city.

Matthew C. Whitaker is a historian of civil and human rights, African-American history, and the American West.  His recent work examines the civil rights movement in the urban West after World War II.