History: Professional Scholarship in America by John Higham

History: Professional Scholarship in America Reviews

• 
  Mark Bowles

  Intent of book: Discuss the development of professional studies of history in the United States
  * Founding of the historical profession (Objectivity Enthroned)
  * Interwar years of relativism (Objectivity Besieged)
  * In the 1940s & 1950s reconstructs Objectivity with relativism
  * Post 60's was the discrediting of a unifying theme. Too much fragmentation.
  * The Historical Profession
  * In the 17th, history was written by Puritans to chronicle God's will
  * In the 18th & 19th were the patrician (aristocratic) historians, people with private wealth
  * After 1870 came the professional historian, trained in a university setting
  * In 1884 the American Historical Association formed to regulate the work of the historian
  * Formative Years
  * The 1880s saw the professional overtake the amateur historians
  * Journals such as Nation and Atlantic Monthly helped to codify the goals of the professional historian
  * Herbert Baxter Adams (1880s-90s at Johns Hopkins) was the first promoter of professional history thru the AHA
  * In 1895 a new leadership emerged which sought to separate the AHA from the government. An alliance formed between local historical societies and the professionals (ex. Mississippi Valley Historical Association)
  * By 1907 the AHA reached its current form.
  * John Franklin Jameson became president (1st notable historian who did not study in Europe). He remained president until 1928.
  * Growth Since 1907
  * After 1907 the AHA was very small, 2000 members, and uncomplicated
  * The main area of steady growth throughout this century is the research effort. This is due to an intricate communication network and improved system of higher education
  * Communication network included improvements at the Library of Congress (interlibrary loan, standardized catalog), formation of new libraries, photocopies of documents
  * Universities began to offer non-American fields. This began with Ancient history, and to a lesser extent Medieval history. Modern European studies received the least attention. American history was also widening and was becoming more interested in the present.
  * In the 1920s & 30s European dictatorships drove many scholars into exile in the U.S.
  * WWII brought the need to understand non-European countries
  * The 1960s completed histories global outlook with African, Persian, & Tropical histories
  * Specialties of history include: history of warfare & science
  * Distribution and Recruitment of Talent
  * The main problem with this expansion was uneven distribution among different fields (ex. Ancient and Medieval history)
  * The main cause of talent shortages were the Ph.D. system. It forces student to specialized areas where little generalization can occur, deprives a ranging education.
  * Also, the best and brightest went into industry and not graduate school
  * Today this is not so much the case
  * The Historian and His Audience
  * The claim is that the historian in his ivory tower does not appeal to the layman because he writes a very boring story
  * The audience that did increase was the historians students and other college educated professionals (white-collar)
  * This new audience wanted to understand the world and was also interested in biography. The relations between professor and public were enhanced after WWII. The sophistication of the public increased and accepted the historians works.
  * Theory
  * Objective relativists: attacked the Scientific historians in the 20th
  * Scientific History: American Orthodoxy (tradition)
  * Scientific historians: (circa 1875) early professional historians who believed that science led to objectivity
  * Arose from a change from romanticism to realism and the influence of scientific thought like evolution.
  * Represent history as it actually was (like photographs)
  * The narrative was replaced by institutional history
  * Adopted positivist theory: search for laws of history
  * The New History (1910-45 was the struggle for reform)
  * Laymen claimed scientific history was unreadable (this criticism was not heeded)
  * More influential criticism was by the social scientists. They were impatient with the historians reluctance to discover historical laws
  * These criticisms made the historians defensive
  * The Progressives attempted to bring history more in line with contemporary life
  * The New History
  * Subordinated the past to the present (only aspects of the past were studied that were relevant to the present) [present minded]
  * Widened the scope of history. Not just politics anymore.
  * Aligned itself with the social sciences
  * They cherished objectivity yet because of the nature of historical evidence knew that they could never attain it.
  * Relativism
  * In the 1920s & 30s the scientistic side of the New History was the main emphasis of scholars. They still tried to find historical laws while at the same time aligning themselves with the social scientists
  * Relativism arrived with Carl Becker. Becker was a true progressive. Suspicious of facts.
  * He paved the way for Charles Beard. He was transformed in the 1920s into a more humanistic scholar. He began to recognize the subjectivity of history. "Written History as an Act of Faith" (1933)
  * By 1946 much of the relativistic outlook was taken for granted and there was less of a conflict between scientific objectivity and relativism
  * The Renewal of History
  * After WWII a revival in confidence in historical knowledge arose
  * History was an effort to tell the truth about the past. Present-mindedness became outdated.
  * History declared an intellectual independence from the social sciences (thus 2 of the components of the New History were rescinded)
  * A historians personal subjectivity was no longer considered a definite problem
  * Relativity in the 30s put the historian into the present
  * Relativity in the 50s emphasized the values of historians subjectivity
  * American History
  * Intro
  * Here we turn from the theories the historians have professed to the actual history that they have written
  * Each school of thought has emphasized particular aspects of American history
  * Orthodox scientific historians: these are the conservative evolutionists. History resulted in a more perfect union
  * Progressive new history: Rather than unity they represented diversity
  * Post-Progressives: post WWII. They believe neither in the unity nor diversity of history
  * The Conservative Evolutionist as Amateur
  * Men who wrote history in their leisure due to the money that they had (1875-1900)
  * Moses Coit Tyler: explored the intellectual history of the colonial period
  * John Bach McMaster: Wrote the story of national progress to the Civil War
  * James Ford Rhodes: discussed sectional conflict from a northern pt. of view
  * These men were objective in their approach
  * The Conservative Evolutionist as Professor
  * They furthered the ideas of scientific history
  * They withheld moral judgments, they let the reader make they own judgment of the impartial facts
  * They gave up the study of social and intellectual life in favor of the study of institutions (which were impersonal and therefore objective)
  * Herbert Levi Osgood: wrote the institutional history of the Colonial period. Pioneer of the Imperial School (English centered view of the American revolution)
  * William A. Dunning: studied the reconstruction period without a Northern bias. Thus, southerners flocked to him and this became the "Dunning School"
  * Edward Channing: Most ambitious and main achievement of the Conservative Evolutionists. Wrote the history of the U.S. in 6 volumes based on primary sources
  * The Rise of Progressive History
  * Though the progressives espoused the ideals of the conservative New Historians they were more concerned with change and reform
  * More interested in change than continuity (not present-mindedness)
  * Less interested in institutions than the surrounding environment
  * Frederick Jackson Turner: Frontier Thesis was the belief that westward expansion explained the features of America
  * Charles A. Beard: described Jeffersonian democracy and the constitution in terms of economics
  * The Ascendancy of Progressive History
  * Prior to WWI there were 2 equal camps: Conservative evolutionists (Yale, Harvard) & Progressive (Columbia, Wisconsin)
  * By the 20s & 30s the conservative history had fallen into neglect
  * Progressive history dominated and broadened the historical narrative
  * They spoke of the common man and the democratic experience. Ex. Beards Rise of American Civilization (struggle between minority businessmen and British ruling class)
  * Crisis in Progressive History
  * History was littered with too many mistakes to claim it was unending progress
  * Beard saw the Civil War as a necessary step towards progress. The revisionists saw it as a blunder.
  * Economic historians revolted against Turner.
  * A Search For Stability
  * Post WWII the crisis began to stabilize
  * Scholarship became more national as sectional differences disappeared
  * Legacy
  * A Time of Troubles
  * The 60s were a difficult time because it was a generation that felt no relation to the past or future (riots etc.)
  * Those who sought guidance from history found no support from previous interpretation
  * The historians job crisis was bad in the 70's as many Ph.D.'s were turned out
  * The one area of continuity during this period was in specialization of research
  * Pluralism was the new framework for American history. Michael Kammen described the American people comfortable with contradictions in life. America is heterogeneous.
  * Emphasis was placed on economics. Fogel & Engerman's econometric historians. Time on the Cross went too far by saying the slaves and owners benefited economically from slavery. Social history came under criticism.
  * Political history was also pluralistic. An integrated story was not told, but one of segmented voting electorates (differing religious and ethnicity)
  * Postscript: Objectivity Reexamined
  * Subjectivity and science were joined
  * Loss of interest in the debate over historical knowledge
  * This was revitalized in the 1980's with Peter Novick's That Noble Dream