Steve Longenecker
Steve Longenecker (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins) teaches Early U.S. History and offers electives in American Religious History, the U.S. South, and the Civil War. In class he emphasizes that history is fun because human behavior, including in the past, includes infinite variety and surprise.Dr. Longenecker’s research specialty is American religious history with special emphasis on pre-Civil War Protestantism and sub-specialties in Pennsylvania Germans and Anabaptists. Among his books are Piety and Tolerance: Pennsylvania German Religion, 1700-1850 (Scarecrow Press, 1994) and Shenandoah Religion: Outsiders and the Mainstream, 1715-1865 (Baylor University Press, 2002). He is currently nearing completion of a book-length study of religious life in Gettysburg, Pa., before and during the Civil War. He has received an Award of Merit from the Pennsylvania German Society for his body of work.
Dr. Longenecker came to Bridgewater in 1989. He chairs the Department of History and Political Science and the Forum for Religious Studies, and he co-chairs the Civil War Institute.
His hobbies are baseball, toy trains, and music. He is a life-long Baltimore Orioles fan. He plays saxophone in the Bridgewater College Symphonic Band and the Screamin’ Eagles Pep Band. He is active in the Church of the Brethren. Prior to coming to Bridgewater, Dr. Longenecker taught social studies and coached wrestling in public high schools.
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