About Jim Downs
Born 1973. Jim Downs is a historian.
Jim Downs is an American historian. He is the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Studies and History at Gettysburg College. Downs is a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow. He earned his PhD at Columbia University under the direction of Eric Foner. He received his BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania, his MA in American Studies from Columbia University, where he also earned his M.Phil in History. With the support of the Andrew Mellon New Directions Fellowship, he returned to graduate school, where he studied medical anthropology, global health, and epidemiology at Harvard University.
Books Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine (2021) Stand by Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation (2016) Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction (2012)
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Important facts
People in Jim Downs's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
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Frequently asked questions
Who is Jim Downs?
American historian
When was Jim Downs born?
Jim Downs was born in 1973.
What is Jim Downs's occupation?
Jim Downs is a historian.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Jim Downs. https://biography.guide/jim-downs/
MLA: "Jim Downs." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/jim-downs/.
Chicago: "Jim Downs." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/jim-downs/.
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