Joseph Rayback

Who was Joseph Rayback?

Joseph G. Rayback was a professor of history in the United States. He served in the United States Navy and earned a Ph.D. in American history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. For many years, he was a professor of history and chair of the department at Pennsylvania State University. He was faculty advisor to Phi Alpha Theta, the honorary in history and with Donald B. Hoffmann helped to organize the society on a national basis. He served on the editorial board of the journal, The Historian, published by Phi Alpha Theta. Following service at Penn State, Rayback taught American history at the University of Saskatchewan in western Canada. In 1966, he was appointed professor of history at Temple University. Among the courses he taught at the undergraduate level at Temple were American social and political history. At the graduate level he held seminars in Slavery and Antislavery and the Antebellum period.

Rayback studied the issues of American politics from 1830 to 1860 including federal politics of the slavery issue, and the rise of the Republican Party. He mentored dissertations in antebellum history, including the Antimasonic movement in New York State.