Walter Licht (born July 15, 1946) is an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

who specializes in

labor history Labor history or labour history is a sub-discipline of social history which specialises on the history of the working classes and the labor movement. Labor historians may concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and other fac ...

economic history Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and ins ...

, and the history of American

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

. He is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History Emeritus at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Life and career

Licht earned his B.A. at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and an M.A. in

Sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

before moving to

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

where he completed an M.A. and

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

. He has taught at the

since 1977, and is also the faculty director of the Civic House and the Penn Civic Scholars Program.

Works

* ''American Capitalisms: The U.S. Economy in Historic World Perspective''. (Princeton University Press, ''forthcoming'') * ''The Face of Decline: The Pennsylvania Anthracite Region in the Twentieth Century'' (Cornell University Press, 2005) . * ''Getting Work: Philadelphia, 1840–1950'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992/2000) . * ''Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995) . * ''Work Sights: Industrial Philadelphia, 1890-1950'' (Temple University Press, 1986) . * ''Working For The Railroad: The Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century'' (Princeton University Press, 1983/2014) .

References

Living people 1946 births People from Brooklyn Harvard University alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty University of Pennsylvania historian Walter H. Annenberg Professor University of Chicago alumni 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Princeton University alumni Historians from New York (state) American male non-fiction writers {{US-historian-stub