The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials. It publishes The American Historical Review five times a year, with scholarly articles and book reviews. The AHA is the major organization for historians working in the United States, while the Organization of American Historians is the major organization for historians who study and teach about the United States.
The group received a congressional charter in 1889, establishing it "for the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical manuscripts, and for kindred purposes in the interest of American history, and of history in America."
Contents |
As an umbrella organization for the profession, the AHA works with other major historical organizations and acts as a public advocate for the field. Within the profession, the association defines ethical behavior and best practices, particularly through its "Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct"[1] The AHA also develops standards for good practice in teaching and history textbooks, but these have limited influence[2] The association generally works to influence history policy through the National Coalition for History.[3]
The association publishes The American Historical Review, a major journal of history scholarship covering all historical topics since ancient history[4] and Perspectives on History, the monthly news magazine of the profession.[5] In 2006 the AHA started a blog focused on the latest happenings in the broad discipline of history and the professional practice of the craft that draws on the staff, research, and activities of the AHA.[6]
The association's annual meeting each January brings together more than 5,000 historians from around the United States to discuss the latest research, look for jobs, and discuss how to be better historians and teachers. Many affiliated historical societies hold their annual meetings simultaneously. The 2011 Annual Meeting will be held in Boston, MA January 6–9, 2011. The theme of the meeting will be History, Society, and the Sacred. The Association's web site offers extensive information on the current state of the profession, tips on history careers, and an extensive archive of historical materials(including the G.I. Roundtable series, a series of pamphlets prepared for the War Department in World War II).
The Association also administers two major fellowships, 24 book prizes, and a number of small research grants.
As James J. Sheehan (2005) points out, the association always tried to serve multiple constituencies, including archivists, members of state and local historical societies, teachers, and historians, who looked to it - and not always with success or satisfaction - for representation and support of people. The early leaders of the association tended to be gentlemen with the leisure and means to write many of the great 19th-century works of history, such as George Bancroft, Justin Winsor, and James Ford Rhodes. Much of the early work of the association focused on establishing a common sense of purpose and gathering the materials of research through its Historical Manuscripts and Public Archives Commissions.
From the beginning, however, the association was dominated by historians employed at colleges and universities, and served a critical role in defining their interests as a profession. The association's first president, Andrew Dickson White was president of Cornell University. and its first secretary, Herbert Baxter Adams, established one of the first history Ph.D. programs to follow the new German seminary method at Johns Hopkins University. The clearest expression of this academic impulse in history came in the development of the American Historical Review in 1895. Formed by historians at a number of the most important universities in the United States, it followed the model of European history journals. Under the early editorship of J. Franklin Jameson, the Review published several long scholarly articles every issue, only after they had been vetted by scholars and approved by the editor. Each issue also reviewed a number of history books for their conformity to the new professional norms and scholarly standards that were taught at leading graduate schools to Ph.D. candidates. From the AHR, Sheehan concludes, "a junior scholar learned what it meant to be a historian of a certain sort".
Meringolo (2004) compares academic and public history. Unlike academic history, public history is typically a collaborative effort, does not necessarily rely on primary research, is more democratic in participation, and does not aspire to absolute "scientific" objectivity. Historical museums, heritage movements and historical preservation are considered public history. Though public history originated in the AHA it separated out in the 1930s due to differences in methodology, focus, and purpose. The foundations of public history were laid on the middle ground between academic history and the public audience by National Park Service administrators during the 1920s-30s.
The academicians insisted on a perspective that looked beyond particular localities to a larger national and international perspectives, and that in practice it should be done along modern and scientific lines. To that end, the association actively promoted excellence in the area of research, the association published a series of annual reports through the Smithsonian Institution and adopted the American Historical Review in 1898 to provide early outlets for this new brand of professional scholarship.
In the area of teaching, the association's Committee of Seven Report on The Study of History in Schools [7] largely defined the way history would be taught at the high school level as a preparation for college, and wrestled with issues about how the field should relate to the other social studies.[8] The Association also played a decisive role in lobbying the federal government to preserve and protect its own documents and records. After extensive lobbying by AHA Secretary Waldo Leland and Jameson, Congress established the National Archives and Records Administration in 1934.
As the interests of historians in colleges and universities gained prominence in the association, other areas and activities tended to fall by the wayside. The Manuscripts and Public Archives Commissions were abandoned in the 1930s, while projects related to original research and the publication of scholarship gained ever-greater prominence.
In recent years, the association seems to have recognized their problem and tried to come to terms with the growing public history movement. Meanwhile, the association also seems to be losing ground in its efforts to be a leader among academic historians, as well. The association started to investigate cases of professional misconduct in 1987, but ceased the effort in 2005 "because it has proven to be ineffective for responding to misconduct in the historical profession."[9]
The 2010 Annual Meeting was held in San Diego, CA. January 7–10. The theme of the meeting was Oceans, Islands, Continents.
The 2009 Annual Meeting was held in New York, N.Y. January 2–5, 2009. The theme of the meeting was Globalizing Historiography.
The 2008 Annual Meeting was held in Washington D.C. January 3–6, 2008. The theme of the meeting was Uneven Developments.
The 2007 Annual Meeting was held January 4–7, 2007 in downtown Atlanta. The theme of the meeting was "Unstable Subjects: Practicing History in Unsettled Times." A list of all the meeting's sessions and events is available in the 2007 online program. But the meeting gained the most public attention at the time for a controversy that arose when Atlanta police arrested a distinguished professor for jaywalking between hotels, and held him in jail overnight.[10]
The 120th Annual meeting of the American Historical Association took place 5–8 January 2006 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In attendance were more than 5,600 participants. The AHA sponsored over 200 official AHA panels and some 110 other panels were sponsored by affiliated history societies. The diverse panels included sessions on ancient, world, comparative, and American history. Over 150 private and non-profit companies, commercial, and university presses exhibited their wares in the exhibit hall. AHA's Theodore Roosevelt- Woodrow Wilson Public Service Award was presented to Steven Spielberg. The prize was given to him for his founding of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. Stanford University Professor James J. Sheehan delivered his presidential address, "The Problem of Sovereignty in European History." Dr. Arnita Jones, the Executive Secretary, reported a disturbing trend: "Individual membership has for long been drawn significantly on tenured faculty members in higher education institutions, but the percentage of tenured and tenure-track faculty has shrunk over the years, with serious implications for our membership base."
Presidents of the AHA are elected annually and give a president's address at the annual meeting: