Baala Shakya, Staff Photographer

In preparation for the country’s semiquincentennial, Yale history professors Beverly Gage, Joanne Freeman and David Blight will teach a one-time-only course called “America at 250: A History” this fall.

Next year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The course offered in fall 2025 will span American history from 1776 to the present day, focusing on how the national character and identity have evolved over time. The three professors will each teach eight consecutive lectures, focusing on their respective areas of expertise. 

“It’s a major restock, recalculate, rethinking kind of moment,” Freeman said. “And what’s wonderful about this course is you’re going to be thinking about these things leading into next year.”

Between them, the three professors share nearly 70 years teaching at Yale, as well as two Pulitzer Prizes, for Gage’s “G-Man: J. Edgar Hover and the Making of the American Century” and Blight’s “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.”

Freeman will lecture on the Revolutionary Period up to the 1840s, Blight will take over to teach up through Reconstruction and Gage will teach the 20th century up until the present day. 

The unusual length of time which the course will cover has led the three professors to take a unique approach to lecturing.

“We want each lecture to ask and answer a question,” Freeman said. “For example, the American Revolution course lecture might ask, was the revolution revolutionary? And if so, how much?”

The course has also been designated as a DeVane lecture series for the Fall 2025 Term, meaning that all members of the New Haven community are encouraged to attend lectures. Each class will also be recorded and uploaded to YouTube so that anyone can follow along with the material.

The public-facing nature of “America at 250: A History” does not stop there, however.

“After lecture, every Thursday, the three of us are going to go over to the broadcast studio, and record a conversation between the three of us about what we think about the week’s readings, debating each other’s lectures and kind of getting into history,” Gage said. “So we’ll have individual lectures, mostly, but everybody will be able to weigh in.”

History courses co-taught by three professors are rare. Peer advisor Ted Shepherd ’25, who has taken courses with Freeman and Blight, emphasized that course instructors are “some of the three top history professors, not just at Yale, but in all of America.”

Freeman, Shepherd said, puts a lot of thought into organizing the structure of the course, and Blight is “a master storyteller” able to teach history “in a really engaging way.”

Currently, the course is set to have eight discussion sections, which will accommodate 144 students, but more sections will be added as needed so that every student who wants to register for the course is able to.

Both Gage and Freeman emphasized that students from all majors and years are encouraged to take the course. 

“It is this generation of students who are going to have to invent some of these things anew about what the United States is and what its function in the world is,” Gage said.

The Yale Department of History was established in 1919.