Historical Research@Maryland

The University of Maryland is located within the Washington-Baltimore corridor, one of the nation's most dynamic regions for historical research. Francis Scott Key Hall, home to the Department of History, sits less than thirty minutes from downtown Washington, D.C., a city of unparalleled cultural resources and unique opportunities for historical research. Annapolis, home to significant archival holdings related to the history and cultures of the State of Maryland, the greater Chesapeake Bay region, and the Atlantic world, can be reached in less than forty-five minutes.

The intellectual "soul" of historical inquiry and debate at the University of Maryland is the Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies, established in 1999 through the generosity of Maryland alumni Nathan and Jeanette Miller. In a short time, the Center has grown into a flourishing forum for the study of history, offering members of the Department of History and our guests regular opportunities to engage in lively dialogue with and among preeminent historians of all fields and stripes. Graduate students regularly participate in Miller Center events, including the discussion of works-in-progress. As a demonstration to its serious commitment to excellence in graduate research, the Miller Center annually sponsors two dissertation awards.

The wider University is home to a number of important archives, special collections, and editing projects of direct relevance to historical research, including the Freedmen and Southern Society Project and the Samuel Gompers Papers, the Library of American Broadcasting, the Gordon W. Prange Collection, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation Library. The Combined Caesarea Expeditions, an amphibious research project that joins excavation of the terrestrial remains of Caesarea Maritima with underwater investigation of the site's ancient harbor, are coordinated on campus. The University also sponsors a number of significant scholarly publications of interest to historians, including The Maryland Historian, the oldest continuously-published graduate-student-run history journal in the country; the Hispanic American Historical Review, the flagship English-language journal in Latin American history; Kritika, a journal dedicated to critical inquiry into the history and culture of Russia and Eurasia; and Feminist Studies, a pioneer in women's history and gender studies.

Off campus, our graduate program makes full use the region's phenomenal resources which include: the National Archives and Records Administration headquarters (Archives I), located in downtown Washington, and the National Archives in College Park (Archives II), located adjacent to campus; the Library of Congress, the world's largest research library; the Smithsonian Institution, a network of world-class museums and research centers; the Folger Shakespeare Library, in downtown Washington, DC; the Maryland State Archives, located in the state capital; Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library and the Maryland Historical Society, two treasure troves of materials about the State of Maryland; the Historical Society of Washington DC and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, which house large collections about the nation's Capital; National Library of Medicine, at the National Institutes of Health; the National Agricultural Library, located in Beltsville, Maryland; the Dumbarton Oaks Research and Library Collection, specializing in Byzantine and Pre-Columbian studies; the Art Museum of the Americas and the Columbus Memorial Library at the Organization of American States; the Oliveira Lima Library , a premier collection of Luso-Brazilian materials located at The Catholic University of America; the visual and print collections of the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery; and, the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University's important repository of documentation on the history and culture of the African diaspora.

For additional information about research resources on and around campus, visit the University's Division of Research and the Graduate School's Regional Resources Map.

Last updated: September 7, 2006