William H. Schneider
Email: whschnei@iupui.edu
Tel: 317-274-7220

Dr. William Schneider is Professor of History and Director of the Medical Humanities program based in the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University. He also has an appointment as Professor of Philanthropic Studies in the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and an adjunct appointment in the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics in the School of Medicine.

He came to IUPUI in 1989 to chair the History Department, a position he held until 1995, and served as Associate Dean in the School of Liberal Arts from 1998-2003. Prior to coming to Indiana, he was in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Dr. Schneider received his B.A. in History from Stanford University, his M.A. from Duquesne University, and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania.

He has authored many articles, edited volumes and two monographs on modern French history and the history of science and medicine. He has received Fulbright and National Science Foundation fellowships, plus research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Institutes of Health. He teaches classes in the history of medicine, global health and humanitarian assistance, as well as modern European history.

Teaching Interests (click title for recent syllabi)

Research Interests

  • History of Western medicine in Africa and China
  • The history of genetics and eugenics
  • The history of serology and immunology
  • The history of healthcare philanthropy and international humanitarian assistance
  • The origins of HIV AIDS
  • The history of blood transfusion

Selected Publications

Schneider, W.H, . The History of Blood Transfusion in Africa (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, publication summer 2013)

Tamara Giles-Vernick, Didier Gondola, Guillaume Lachenal, and William H. Schneider, “Social history, biology and the emergence of HIV in colonial Africa,” Journal of African History, 54, 1  (2013), 1-20

Schneider, W.H., “Histoire de la transfusion sanguine en Afrique : « qui a donné du sang?” in Les enjeux du don de sang dans le monde. Entre altruisme et solidarités, universalisme et gestion des risques, eds. J. Charbonneau et N. Tran (Rennes: Presses de l'École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique, 2012), 77-94

Schneider, W.H., The Story of One Life,  co-editor (with Marta Balinska) of translation and annotation of autobiography of Ludwig Hirszfeld, immunologist who discovered Mendelian inheritance and population genetics of ABO blood system and who survived the Warsaw Ghetto (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2010)

Schneider, W.H., "Pioneers and Pathfinders: Arnault Tzanck, MD (1886-1954)," Transfusion Medicine Reviews , 24 (2010), 147-50

Schneider, W.H., “Smallpox in Africa during colonial Rule,” Medical History (2009), 53: 193-228

Schneider, W.H., “Blood Transfusions in the Early Years of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa,” American Journal of Public Health, (June 2006), 984-94, co-authored with Ernest Drucker

Schneider, WH. (2003) "The Model American Foundation Officer: Alan Gregg and the Rockefeller Foundation Medical Divisions," Minerva. 41:155-66

Schneider, WH. (2003) "Blood Transfusion between the Wars," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences. 58:187-224

Schneider, WH. (2003) "War, Philanthropy, and the Creation of the French National Institute of Hygiene," Minerva. 41:1-23

Schneider, WH. (2002) Rockefeller Philanthropy and Modern Biomedicine: International Initiatives from World War I to the Cold War (2002) editor and contributor of, The Men Who Followed Flexner: Richard Pearce, Alan Gregg, and the Rockefeller Foundation Medical Divisions, 1919-1951, pp. 7-60

Schneider, WH. (2001) "Charles Richet and the Social Role of Medical Men." Journal of Medical Biography. 9:213-19

Schneider, WH. (1997) Blood Transfusion in Peace and War, 1900-1918. Social History of Medicine. 10:105-126

Schneider, WH. (1996) Special issue of History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences on The First Genetic Marker: Blood group Research, Race and Disease, 1900-1950). Guest Editor and author of, "The History of Research on Blood Group Genetics: Initial Discovery and Diffusio,". 18:273-303

Picard JF and Schneider, WH. (1996) "L'histoire de la transfusion sanguine dans sa relation a la recherche medicale," Vingtieme siecle, 49:3-17

Schneider, WH. (1995) "Blood Group Research in Great Britain, France and the United States between the World War,"s Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 38:77-104

Digital Scholarship

Project co-director, of web portal, “Western Medicine in China, 1800-1950”http://ulib.iupui.edu/wmicproject/

Co-organizer and contributor,"Simian Viruses and Emerging Diseases in Humans," website with presentations at the Paris conference, June 9-10, 2010, available at:   http://www.simianviruses.univ-paris-diderot.fr/SympoJune2010/

Principal author and content provider, “Profiles in Science: The Alan Gregg papers” National Library of Medicine http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/FS/ (2008)

Project director, “Fit to Breed: Eugenics in Indiana” http://www.iupui.edu/~fit2brd/ (2008)