High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Cornell University Department of History is an academic department in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University that focuses on the study of history. Founded in 1868, it is one of Cornell`s original departments. Its first faculty included university president Andrew Dickson White and English historian Goldwin Smith. In 1881, the department named Moses Coit Tyler the first professor of American history in the United States. Three of Cornell`s twelve presidents have been members of the department: Andrew Dickson White, Charles Kendall Adams, and Hunter R. Rawlings III. The longest teaching member of the faculty was Frederick Marcham who, upon completing his graduate work at Cornell in 1924, continued lecturing until a month before his death in 1992 – a total of 68 years.