In a move that brings the History Department closer to refilling its depopulated American wing, President Derek C. Bok last month extended tenure offers to two American historians from outside universities.

Drew G. Faust, a University of Pennsylvania expert on the antebellum South, and William E. Gienapp, a University of Wyoming specialist in nineteenth century party politics, said in interviews yesterday that they had not decided whether to accept the Harvard offers.

The two tenure offers come several months after University of Chicago diplomatic historian Akira Iriye accepted a lifetime post at the University. Before the Iriye appointment, the department had not added a senior Americanist to its ranks since 1980.

The appointments of Faust and Gienapp would also help bolster the department's offerings in nineteenth century history, a field which will suffer a major loss when Warren Professor of American History David H. Donald retires in two years.

The offers to Faust and Gienapp were endorsed by the department and reviewed by ad-hoc committees of outside scholars this spring before going to Bok for final approval.

Should both scholars join the Harvard faculty, "it will certainly add new blood," said Columbia University American historian Eric Foner, who two years ago turned down a Harvard tenure offer. "It will prove that the Harvard History Department is able to bring in good people in American history."

Faust's husband Charles Rosenberg, a pre-eminent historian of science who teaches at Penn, also has received a tenure offer from Harvard. Faust said yesterday that she and Rosenberg were "very seriously considering" their offers and planned to visit Cambridge next month before reaching a final decision this fall.

Faust would become the third woman in the department's nearly 30-member senior faculty. If Faust and Rosenberg accept the tenure offers, they would not begin teaching at Harvard until the fall of 1990, she said.

Faust, who last year published The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South, is a leading figure in U.S. Southern history. She is now working on a book about Confederate women in the Civil War.

Gienapp, who was a visiting associate professor at the University last fall, said he would decide this month if he will accept the lifetime post at Harvard. He added that he could start teaching at the University in September. "If [my wife and I] decide to do this, we would like to do it as soon as possible," he said.

Gienapp said he was also considering whether or not to accept a visiting professor post at the University of California at Los Angeles. But he added that "I would consider it a real opportunity to teach at Harvard and be part of such a distinguished faculty."

Trumbull Professor of American History Donald Fleming said Gienapp was well regarded for his analysis of changes in voting behavior which led to the genesis of the Republican party in the 1850s. Fleming added that the scholarly technique Gienapp had developed could be applicable to "other great political transitions."

But one outside scholar of American history, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he was surprised that Harvard's history department had agreed to offer a lifetime post to Gienapp,whose work the scholar called "narrow."

The professor said the appointment could signala growing feeling of urgency in the departmentbecause of the depletion of scholars in theAmerican wing, a problem which will be exacerbatedin coming years because of impending retirements.

Gienapp has published one book, The Originsof the Republican Party, 1852-1856. The youngscholar, who has been honored at Wyoming for histeaching ability, is currently working on atwo-volume textbook to be used in introductoryAmerican history courses