Henry C. Binford

Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
hcbin@northwestern.edu

Professor Binford received his Ph.D. from Harvard in the summer of 1973. He came to Northwestern as Assistant Professor of History in the fall of 1973, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1979. Since 1990 he has held a joint appointment in African-American Studies. His research centers on the evolution of cities,especially in America. He is the author of The First Suburbs: Residential Communities on the Boston Periphery, 1815-1860, and he is currently writing a book about nineteenth century slums.

In 1990-91 he spent a year as research fellow at the National Humanities Center, and he is now one of two Lloyd Lewis/NEH fellows at the Newberry Library. He has served as Master of Shepard Residential College, Director of the Program in American Culture, and Director of the Urban Studies Program. A recipient of the CAS Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1984, he has also received (jointly with Professor Carl Smith of English) an NEH course development grant, which led to a team-taught course on Humanistic Dimensions of Technological Change.