Department News

UPenn Professor to Speak at Annual History Lecture

Dr. Thomas Childers, the Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak on “The Best Years of Their Lives? Americans Return Home from the Second World War, 1945-1950" at Union’s Eighth Annual Carls-Schwerdfeger History Lectureship on October 12, 2004. His lecture, which will take place at 7:15 pm in the G.M. Savage Memorial Chapel, is free and open to the public.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Tennessee, Professor Childers earned his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and his Ph.D. in history at Harvard University. He has taught at UPenn since 1976, and has also served as a visiting professor at Smith College, Swarthmore College, and Trinity Hall College, Cambridge.

At UPenn, Professor Childers has won several awards for his classroom teaching, including the Ira Abrams Award for Distinguished and Challenging Teaching in the Arts and Sciences (1987), the Friar’s Award for Outstanding Teacher at the University (1989), and the Richard S. Dunn Award for Distinguished Teaching in History (1999). In 2000, on a vote of the entire graduating class at UPenn, Dr. Childers received the prestigious Senior Class Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Professor Childers has authored or edited many books and articles. Among his books are The Nazi Voter (1983), The Formation of the Nazi Constituency (1987), Reevaluating the Third Reich: New Controversies, New Interpretations (1993), Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II (1995), and In the Shadows of War: An American Pilot’s Odyssey Through Occupied France and the Camps of Nazi Germany (2002). He is currently working on book that deals with the problems that American soldiers faced upon their return home from the Second World War.

In addition to his evening lecture, Dr. Childers will deliver a lecture during the day on “A Summons to Memphis: Elvis and the Making of Modern Musical Culture.”