Rate My Professor Douglas Montagna

Douglas Montagna serves as Associate Professor of History at Grand Valley State University, where he specializes in 19th-century U.S. history and religion. He has been a faculty member since 2000, initially as a Visiting Professor from Fall 2000 to May 2003, then as Assistant Professor starting Fall 2003, and later promoted to Associate Professor. Prior to joining GVSU, Montagna held instructor positions at Northern Illinois University from 1993 to 2000, Columbia College Chicago from 1996 to 2000, Elgin Community College from 1996 to 1997, and Illinois Institute of Technology in 1999. His academic credentials include a Ph.D. in American History from Northern Illinois University (December 2000), with a dissertation entitled “A Faith for Changing Seasons: Education and the Refinement of Methodism in Indiana, 1800-1872”; an M.A. in Early American History from Northern Illinois University (1984); an M.B.A. from State University of New York at Binghamton (1989); and a B.A. in History from Hamilton College (1982).

Montagna's research centers on 19th-century American religious history, particularly Methodism in the Midwest, exploring themes of education, violence, honor culture, and antislavery movements. Notable publications include “Ohio, Evangelical Religion, and the Merging of the Antislavery Movement: Joshua R. Giddings, Salmon P. Chase, and Their Remarkable Crusades Against Slavery” in Studies in Midwestern History (2019); “Education and the Refinement of 19th Century Methodism in the Midwest” in Methodist History (2006, Vol. XLIV, No. 2); “‘God Bless the Methodist Church’: The Origins of the Methodist-Republican Alliance Before the Civil War” in Methodist History; and a chapter on the History of Christianity in the Antebellum Midwest in The Oxford Handbook of Midwestern History (2025). He received the Pew Program in Religion and American History Dissertation Fellowship for 1995-1996 and a Grand Valley State University service award in 2026. Montagna has delivered numerous presentations at conferences including the Ohio Valley History Conference, American Society of Church Historians, and Great Lakes History Conference. He serves on the editorial board of the Grand Valley Journal of History and has mentored students in the McNair Scholars Program.