The 19th century witnessed a significant transformation in the organization of knowledge, marked by the rise of academic disciplines in the modern sense. This period saw the fragmentation of broader fields like philology and philosophy into more specialized areas of study, the establishment of new fields, and the institutionalization of these disciplines within universities and through the formation of learned societies and journals. One of the most significant developments was the splintering of philology, a field that had encompassed a wide range of textual and linguistic studies. Tasks long seen as facets of a single enterprise began to hive off as semiautonomous areas of scholarship. For instance, classical textual philologists increasingly focused on ancient Greek and Latin texts, while biblical philologists, often within theological institutions, concentrated on sacred texts. This division, though not always sharp around 1850, led to the formation of distinct fields. **Linguistics**, previously considered a branch of philosophy and deeply connected to philology, emerged as a scientific discipline in the 19th century. Thinkers began to apply scientific methods to the study of language. William Whewell in 1840 suggested ‘linguistic’ as a label for “the science of languages,” and Pickering coined ‘linguistics’ in 1839, which eventually became the standard term. This new discipline focused on the multisided study of language and languages, leading to diverse research areas like Amerindian languages, Indo-European comparative philology, and historical grammar. While figures like Max Müller argued for linguistics belonging to the natural sciences, others recognized its ties to the humanistic philological tradition. The shift from historical to synchronic approaches in linguistics further defined its disciplinary boundaries. The study of **literature** also solidified as a distinct academic discipline during the 19th century. Previously, the analysis of texts was often intertwined with rhetoric and philology. Figures like George Ticknor at Harvard (from 1819) and Thomas Dale at University College London (from 1828) were early instances of professors teaching literature as literature, rather than solely as an aid to composition. English literature spread through American colleges after mid-century. This new discipline drew from textual philology for scholarly editing and literary history, and from rhetoric for critical vocabulary. The formation of professional organizations like the Modern Language Association (1883) and learned journals marked the emergence of literature as a recognized field. Interestingly, as literature became its own discipline, scholars of English began to narrow their understanding of ‘philology’ to just the “study of words” or “linguistic science”. **History** underwent a significant transformation, evolving from a literary vocation to a leading discipline within the humanities. Edward Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (1776-88) is seen as a pivotal work that adapted philology to historical uses, defining what would become the modern discipline of history. It combined the narrative style of philosophic history with the research methods of philological antiquarianism. By the mid-19th century, ‘philological’ history became simply history for academic practitioners. The professionalization of history was evident in the tightening of research methods, the establishment of professorships and courses in universities, and the founding of learned societies like the American Historical Association (1884) and the publication of specialized journals such as the _American Historical Review_ (1895) and the _English Historical Review_ (1886). The 19th century also saw the emergence of **archaeology** as a distinct field from antiquarianism. While antiquarian fondness for relics of the past existed earlier, archaeology became a specialized study of “old structures and buried relics of the remote past”. However, its emergence as a well-bounded field was erratic in the first half of the century. **Art history** also began to solidify as a discipline in the United States in the late 19th century. Figures like Charles Eliot Norton and the establishment of graduate programs contributed to its development. Despite having a minimal presence in British universities before 1900, art history, where it existed, often displayed a philological approach, linked to classical archaeology. Professionalization was slower compared to other disciplines, with the College Art Association forming in 1912. **Anthropology** emerged as a discipline after 1860, though its definition and contents were debated. It aimed to be the study of humankind in its widest aspect, including physical anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, archaeology, and folklore. Key milestones in its institutionalization included the founding of museums (e.g., Peabody Museum at Harvard, 1866), professional associations (e.g., Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1871), and the establishment of professorships (e.g., Tylor at Oxford, 1884; Brinton at Pennsylvania, 1886) and dedicated journals (e.g., _American Anthropologist_, _Man_). Even the study of **religion** transformed. Biblical philology, which focused on divine revelation, found its place shifting among the new ‘humanities’. This led to the rise of **comparative religious studies**, a new humanistic discipline dedicated to the comparative study of ‘world religions’. This field, led by English-speaking scholars, drew its comparative impulse directly from philology, initially focusing on religions with ‘sacred’ texts. Professorships in comparative religion were established in American universities like Harvard, Boston University, and the University of Chicago from the late 19th century. The rise of these modern academic disciplines was closely linked to the growth of universities, particularly the emergence of research-oriented institutions. Universities provided homes for these new fields, with the establishment of specialized faculty positions, departments, and curricula. Learned societies and their journals played a crucial role in fostering a sense of disciplinary identity, setting standards for research, and facilitating communication among scholars. This professionalization often involved a narrowing of focus, as scholars within each discipline increasingly communicated primarily with each other. Despite the increasing specialization and the formation of distinct disciplinary boundaries, the shared origins in fields like philology often left open a basis for interaction, as seen in the later calls for ‘interdisciplinarity’. The rise of academic disciplines in the 19th century fundamentally reshaped the landscape of higher education and the organization of knowledge, laying the groundwork for the structure of universities and scholarly inquiry that continues to this day.