UAH Department of History

Sam Thomas signed up for his first college-level history class in the fall of his sophomore year because it was at 11:00. That morning, Ken Wolf helped him answer the question that had been tormenting him since his arrival on campus, "What am I doing here?" Shortly thereafter, he declared a history major and the rest is, well, history.

Sam graduated from Pomona College in 1991, and in light of the fact that the US Army had paid for college, the only polite thing to do was to spend four years on active duty. He joined the Army to see the world, and was not disappointed. His initial foray to Oklahoma was uneventful, but this was followed by longer deployments to Germany, a short stint in Kuwait, and six months in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where he served with the United Nations Protection Forces. Faced with the prospect of a return to Oklahoma, Sam left the Army, and returned to school, taking a M.A. at the University of Rochester and his Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis. After finishing his degree, Sam spent three years at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.

At UAH, Sam will teach world history surveys, and upper-division courses on early modern Europe, Africa, gender, and the history of medicine. He is particularly looking forward to taking students to England as a part of a summer course. His current research is on religious life in early modern England, and his next project is a social history of English midwifery from 1660 to 1780.

He enjoys spending his free time with his wife, Nikki, and their sons Spencer and Oliver. At the moment, he spends the bulk of his leisure time mowing the lawn.

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