American History Degrees

An American history degree trains you to research and explain the American past, from the colonial period through the twentieth century. Here’s the surprise most people hit while searching: the degree almost never exists under that name. You study American history inside a history major, and this guide explains how that works at the bachelor’s level, what the coursework looks like, and where it leads. If you already hold a bachelor’s, our master’s in American history guide covers the graduate route.

Is There Actually an American History Degree?

Mostly no, and the federal data on this is striking. Just three institutions in the country conferred bachelor’s degrees formally classified as American history in 2021–22, a total of 18 degrees, per IPEDS completions data. West Point awarded 13 of them. Harding University and William Peace University granted the rest. Meanwhile the general history category recorded 20,902 bachelor’s degrees that same year. So out of the 1,171 institutions awarding history bachelor’s degrees, three used the American history label.

The label is rare because it would be redundant. American history is the default substance of a U.S. history degree. Survey sequences, upper-level courses, and senior theses lean American at almost every school, so departments fold the specialty into the general major and let students concentrate. That’s why the programs in our directory with a genuine American history focus outnumber the formally coded schools nine to one. Nearly all are concentrations, like Penn’s American History track inside its history BA. A couple of schools do put the name on the diploma. Salve Regina awards a B.A. in American History, and Missouri State offers a bachelor’s in United States History.

What You’ll Study

Salve Regina publishes the clearest picture of an American history sequence, and it runs the way you’d guess: History of the United States to 1877, then since 1877, a course called The Historian’s Craft, Historical Research Methods, and a senior thesis capstone, all inside a 37-credit major. Two requirements stand out. Every student takes one non-Western history course, Vietnam War and Contemporary Latin America among the options, so the American story gets outside context. And every student takes a historic preservation course, with choices like Introduction to Public History and Historic Site and Cultural Resource Management. That second requirement quietly feeds the park and museum careers below.

Elite concentrations add depth rules instead. Penn’s American History concentration requires an American history seminar plus five American electives inside the history major, makes everyone take two courses set before 1800, and reserves senior honors work for students holding a 3.5 GPA in the major. The shape repeats across schools. Chronological surveys first, a methods course in the middle, a research project at the end.

Schools Offering American History Degrees

The programs in our directory span every shape the degree takes. Penn, Delaware, Syracuse, Vermont, and Shippensburg run American history concentrations inside their history BAs. Salve Regina and Missouri State put American history in the degree name itself. Three of them run fully online, so distance students have real options too; our online history degrees guide covers how those work.

One more shape deserves a mention because students confuse it constantly. Franklin & Marshall and Wagner appear in our directory with American Studies degrees, and that’s a different discipline. More on the distinction in the FAQ below.

Teaching American History

The classroom takes more American history graduates than any other destination, and the pipeline runs one way: a history BA, then a state teaching license. U.S. history and civics sit in every state’s middle and high school curriculum, which makes American history the most teachable specialty a history student can pick.

The license is the part people underestimate. States generally require three things on top of the bachelor’s. You complete an approved teacher preparation program, either bundled into the BA or added after it. You pass your state’s required exams, which for this field usually means the Praxis social studies content exam or a state equivalent. And you finish a semester of supervised student teaching. Plan for the license from sophomore year and it folds into the degree. Discover it at graduation and it adds a year or more.

Students who know they want the classroom sometimes pick a social studies education degree instead, which builds the licensure coursework in from the start. The trade is flexibility. The education degree points hard at teaching, while the history BA with a concentration leaves law school, graduate work, and public history open. Teachers also lean on the field’s support network, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute anchors it with seminars and classroom materials built specifically for American history educators.

American History Jobs beyond the Classroom

The National Park Service runs the largest public history operation in the country, and most people have no idea how historical it is. The system holds 433 units, and close to half of them were created to preserve history: 64 national historical parks, 75 national historic sites, 31 memorials, and 25 battlefield and military park units by the agency’s own designation counts. Those sites employ rangers who interpret history for visitors, park historians, and cultural resource managers, inside a workforce of roughly 20,000.

The scholarly world helps you get there. The Organization of American Historians has spent about three decades collaborating with the Park Service, putting historians to work on park resource studies, landmark theme studies, and interpretive reviews, and many of those projects involve students. Beyond the parks, the map includes the National Archives and the presidential libraries it operates, state historical societies in all 50 states, and house museums in nearly every county. Some of these roles open at the bachelor’s level, especially interpretation and education. Curator and staff historian posts usually want a master’s, and our master’s in history guide covers that step.

Is an American History Degree Worth It?

It carries the same economics as any history degree, and our history degrees guide walks through that evidence honestly. What the American focus adds is direction. The two destinations above hire on real schedules, teachers every fall and park staff every season, and the concentration structure means you gave up nothing to specialize. A student who picks American history, plans for licensure or a public history internship early, and finishes with a thesis has a clearer path than most humanities graduates.

The honest caveat is the same one the general degree carries. Without a destination, the BA alone drifts. Pick the classroom, the parks, law school, or graduate study, and work backward from there.

American History Resources

A short list, specific to this field:

• Organization of American Historians: the professional body for U.S. history scholarship. Its Career Center posts real openings in the field, which makes it worth browsing early just to see what jobs exist.
• Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: founded in 1991, it holds a collection of more than 87,000 letters, diaries, maps, and newspapers documenting America from 1493 through the twentieth century. Full image access requires a subscription, but its free offerings, including the quarterly journal History Now and its curated primary-source features, are built for students and teachers.

American History Degree FAQ