Sheldon Hackney
David Boies Professor of History Emeritus
Sheldon Hackney is Professor of History. he specializes in the history of the American South since the Civil War. Out of an interest in American utopias and other social movements comes an emphasis on the Civil Rights Movement in particular, and the 1960s in general, which he frequently pursues in seminars. He is at work on a book about the American identity from pre-colonial days to the present, which is the subject of a lecture course.
Among the articles and books on history that Professor Hackney has published, Populism to Progressivism in Alabama won the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association. Professor Hackney is the former president of the University of Pennsylvania (1981 - 1993) and the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1993 - 1997). He has written and spoken widely about higher education, national cultural policy, and the state of the humanities in American life.
