Awards and Service
- Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, 2003 - present
- “M” Award for service to SMU, 2001
- Dean of Dedman College,1980 - 88
- Chair of the Department of History, 1975 - 79
- Outstanding Professor, three times
selected as one of Yale’s Ten Best Teachers, twice
Books and Essays
-
American
Stories: A
History of the
United States,
Volume 1
(2nd Edition)
by H. W. Brands,
T. H. H. Breen,
R. Hal Williams
and Ariela J.
Gross
(Jul 25, 2011)
-
America Past
and Present,
Volume II (since
1865) (8th
Edition)
by Robert A.
Divine, T. H. H.
Breen, George M.
Fredrickson and
R. Hal Williams
(Oct 8, 2006)
-
-
America Past
and Present,
Volume 1 (9th
Edition)
by Robert A.
Divine, T. H. H.
Breen, George M.
Fredrickson and
R. Hal Williams
(Jan 15, 2010)
- The American Story ,with Robert A. Divine, T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, Penguin, New York, 2002
- Years of Decision: American Politics in the 1890s, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1978; reprint Waveland Press, Illinois, 1993
- The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Study of the Development and Military Use of the Atom Bomb, with Michael B. Stoff and Jonathan Fanton, McGraw-Hill, and Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1991
- The Democratic Party and California Politics, 1880-1896, Stanford University Press, 1973
Professor R. Hal Williams has been a professor in the Department of History at SMU since 1975. His research interests span the late 19th and 20th centuries. While he has written on topics that include the development and use of the atomic bomb in the 1930’s and the 1940’s, his main focus has been on American politics and American culture between the 1870’s and the 1920’s.
This was a fascinating and significant period in our country’s history. Issues involving the goals and outcomes of the Civil War, the treatment of African Americans, tension between the powers of the states and nation, and the challenges of burgeoning industrial and urban growth dominated the political system.
Voter interest and turnout were huge, ranging upwards of 80% or 90% in some areas in some elections. Sectional loyalties were strong, with the South becoming increasingly Democratic, much of the North increasingly Republican. A period of hotly contested politics came to an end in the elections of the late 1890’s, as the Republican party established a dominance that lasted, with the exception of the presidency of Woodrow Wilson (first elected in 1912 thanks to a split in the Republican party) until the victory of FDR and the Democrats in 1932.
Williams has traced these developments in detail in The Democratic Party and California Politics, 1880 - 1896, and Years of Decision: American Politics in the 1890’s.
In addition, he has had the opportunity to participate in a major publishing adventure, America: Past and Present, along with three distinguished historians at other institutions.
This book, as only textbooks can, involves both teaching and research on the years between Reconstruction and the Great Depression. It also summons the kind of narrative style, coherent story line, and compelling prose that can attract students in classrooms that Williams will never see. Now in its seventh edition, the book has been assigned and (hopefully) read by upwards of one million students, which extends the classroom almost beyond imagination.
Williams’ current project is entitled James G. Blaine: A Life in Politics. The leading political figure of his time, Blaine served in the House of Representatives during Reconstruction (including as Speaker of
the House, 1869 -75), in the Senate, and twice as Secretary of State (1881 and 1889 - 93); he ran for President in 1884. Blaine was the most prominent American political figure between Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. As Secretary of State, he was a key founder of the Organization of American States. |
