Every year, the department hosts a distinguished historian who teaches one course not usually offered by the department that is offered exclusively to history majors. Previous Jones Professors include a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a past president of the American Historical Association, a recipient of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques in 1977 for his contribution to French culture, recipients of Fulbright Professorships, a Guggenheim Fellow and a winner of a U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction.
The visiting professorship is named for Dr. Lewis Pinckney Jones, who came from his native Laurens to Wofford as a student in the 1930s. After commanding three combat vessels during World War II he joined the Wofford faculty in 1946 and earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1952. At the end of World War II, he returned to his alma mater to teach English and history. With wit, charm and a keen mind he mesmerized Wofford students for the next 40 odd years, first as a young assistant professor and then as chairman of the department. Not only did Jones inspire Wofford students through his teaching, but through his writing and his innumerable public speeches to various meetings of book clubs, civic organizations and historical associations all over South Carolina. He soon established himself as the premier historian of his native state, equally recognized by his professional colleagues as well as by an enthusiastic public. Wofford honored him in 1972 by naming him the first holder of the prestigious William R. Kenan Jr. Professorship; the state of South Carolina recognized him in 1987 by inducting him into the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest honor. Jones wrote several books and articles on South Carolina history.
George Dean Johnson Jr. '64, who majored in history at Wofford, and his wife, Susu, endowed the Lewis P. Jones Visiting Professorship in History in 1996 to honor Jones and his wife, Denny, for the academic and social stimulation they had provided Wofford students for more than 40 years.
Spring 2025: Pieter Judson, European University Institute in Florence, Italy, “Eastern European Nationalism”
Spring 2024: Karen Cox, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, “Public History”
Spring 2023: Michael Kazin, Georgetown University, “The Radical Tradition in the United States”
Spring 2022: (none due to COVID pandemic)
Spring 2021: (none due to COVID pandemic)
Spring 2020: Joanne Ferraro, San Diego State University, “A Social and Cultural History of the Renaissance”
Spring 2019: Warren Kimball, Rutgers University (Emeritus), “Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and the Creation of Today’s International Playing Field”
Spring 2018: Ann C. Carmichael, Indiana University (Emerita), “The Black Death”
Spring 2017: Ellen Ross, Ramapo College of New Jersey (Emerita), “The First World War: The Home Fronts"
Spring 2016: Brian Wills, Kennesaw State University, “Civil War Biographies”
Fall 2014: William and Carla Rahn Phillips, University of Minnesota (Emeriti), “The History of Spain”
Spring 2014: Judith P. Zinsser, Miami University of Ohio (Emerita), “Biography: Fact or Fiction”
Fall 2012: Lloyd C. Gardner, Rutgers University (Emeritus), “The Imperial Presidency”
Spring 2012: Irina Podgorny, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, “Nature and Antiquities in the Americas: Museums and Collections in Nineteenth-Century Scientific Culture”
Spring 2011: Daniel Howe, University of California at Los Angeles and Oxford University (Emeritus), “Antebellum American Reform Movements”
Spring 2010: Alessandra Lorini, University of Florence, Italy, “The United States and Cuba from the Nineteenth Century to the Present”
Spring 2009: Manfred Berg, University of Heidelberg, Germany, “Comparative US and German History”
Spring 2008: David Streckfuss, IES Coordinator for Thailand, “Environmental History”
Spring 2007: Kenneth W. Harl, Professor of Ancient History, Tulane University, "War, Society, Great Captains"
Spring 2006: Steven Ozment, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern Europe, Harvard University, "Germans and Their History"
2004-2005: William E. Leuchtenburg, Kenan Professor, UNC-Chapel Hill, "The American Presidency Since FDR"
Fall 2003: Janice Susan Gothard, Murdoch University, Western Australia, “Exploring Australian History”
Spring 2003: Susanna Delfino, University of Genoa, Italy, “Economic History”
Spring 2002: Lucy Riall, Birkbeck College, University of London, “Italian Nationalism”
Spring 2001: Carol Bleser, Clemson University, “Reconstruction History”
Fall 2000: Eugen Weber, University of California, Los Angeles, “19th Century European Intellectual History”
Spring 1999: Catherine Clinton, Harvard University, “History of the Antebellum South”
Spring 1998: Robert V. Remini, University of Illinois, Chicago, “Jacksonian America”
Fall 1996: Dewey Grantham, Vanderbilt University, “Modern America Since 1945”