Academic Degrees...history and practice of awarding degrees

ERIC offers .pdfs of Academic Degrees: Earned and Honorary Degrees Conferred by Institutions of Higher Education in the United States.  The entire work was published by the U.S. Office of Education in 1960 and includes over three hundred pages and was split into two separate files, part 1 and part 2.

Eells and Haswell surveyed institutions and historical documents to build lists of over 2,400 degrees, both earned and honorary, awarded.  They also included a number of descriptive chapters that can serve as a good foundation and reference for anyone interested in knowing more about academic practice.