User Profile

Timothy Cuff is an Associate Professor of History at Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA. He teaches a variety of courses in U.S. History, specializing in the nineteenth century. He also teaches World Geography and is an instructor in the College’s First Year Inquiry program. His research interests focus on the social and biological effects of economic development. His 2005 book, The Hidden Cost of Economic Development: The Biological Standard of Living in Antebellum Pennsylvania, (Ashgate, 2005) describes spatial and social variation in human height across Pennsylvania among birth cohorts between 1815 and 1845. It indicates that regions most removed from areas with the greatest levels of economic development had the highest mean stature and argues that both nutrition and disease were likely influences on this spatial variation. An active member of the Social Science History Association, Cuff’s work has also been published in Agricultural History, Historical Methods, and Pennsylvania History. He has served as a book reviewer for The American Historical Review and as a referee for the Journal of Economic History and Economics and Human Biology.

• Ph.D. History, University of Pittsburgh, 1998
• M.A. History, University of Pittsburgh, 1988
• M.A. College Student Personnel Administration, Bowling Green State University, 1979
• B.A. Political Science, Westminster College (PA), 1978