The Last Historians?

Chris Beneke

In January of this year, Stanley Fish caused something of a stir (again) with a blog entry titled The Last Professor, in which he discussed Frank Donoghue’s sharp and gloomy book: The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities. At the conclusion, Fish observes that he “timed it just right, for it seems that I have had a career that would not have been available to me had I entered the world 50 years later. Just lucky, I guess.” Here was a nice occasion for Fish to emphasize his own humility and for humanities professors to reacquaint themselves with the sensation of excruciating professional angst. Donoghue’s argument, as you might guess from the title, is that the modern non-profit university is increasingly run on a corporate model with teachers hired for short-term contracts and institutional goals defined by explicitly professional ends (on the student side of things) and financial success (on the administrative side). The picture he paints of the humanities job market is bleak. The picture he paints of the conditions of adjunct faculty is bleaker still. Donoghue takes pains to emphasize that the tension between the corporate world and the academic study of the humanities is as old as the tenured, research-oriented humanities professoriate itself. Moreover, he denies that we’re in a “crisis.” This is a long-term trend, he contends, rather than a short-term anomaly. Still, Donoghue makes it abundantly clear that he believes the academic study of humanities subjects to be on the tail end of a long slide toward irrelevance.

What should academic historians make of such a scary report—and what can they do to alter the dismal trajectory that Donoghue charts? The Last Professors offers few concrete recommendations, aside from his wise injunction to stop defending tenure on the grounds of academic freedom because that strategy only “exacerbate[s] the divide between the dwindling number of tenured professors and the growing rank of adjuncts.” And so, with The Last Professors in mind, but with no pretensions to originality or expertise, I offer the following unsolicited recommendations:

First, we need to forthrightly and repeatedly stress the value of the humanities in general, and the work of history in particular. That means, too, that we should think hard and maybe even talk a bit more about the larger value of the humanities in general, and the work of history in particular. And please, let’s try to avoid making the process look like an extended graduate seminar.

Second, we need to make sure that what we do with our students in the classroom and on-line is as conducive to their learning and thinking as it is distinctive. If you’ve seen the lectures at Academic Earth or listened to the lectures at iTunes University, you will have already realized that much of a history professor’s traditional teaching responsibilities can now be easily replicated and widely distributed. Making sure that we bring the latest research into the classroom in an engaging way will help to justify our scholarship, as well as our teaching.

Third, we should ensure that pay, benefits, and respect are more fairly distributed to all of the professionals in our field. For a group that votes overwhelmingly Democratic , tenured and tenure-track professors (as a whole) pay inexcusably little attention to their colleagues who do quite similar work on short-term contracts and for much less pay. Equity and enlightened self-interest both demand that the most privileged among us attend seriously to the conditions of those who now teach sixty-five percent of our classes.

Fourth, we must be engaged with popular works of history that both non-historians and historians will actually read and discuss. We should even be prepared to write such books ourselves.

Fifth, we need to stop pretending that all the work in our discipline is, or should be, of intrinsic interest to the rest of the world. To this point, we could substitute more rigorous teacher training for grad school research commitments and alter tenure and PhD requirements so that a series of article-length essays may be accorded the same worth as a four-hundred page dissertation. We should also reward good public history as generously as we reward good intra-academic scholarship.

Frank Donoghue’s dismal trends may indeed have originated long ago and his dark prophecies may take years to fulfill. But if we’re to avoid being the last generation of history professors, we will need to act quickly.

Reviews in the Chicago Tribune

Two reviews of interest appeared today in the Chicago Tribune. THS past president Eric Arnesen assesses a book on Levittown and civil rights and Katrin Schultheiss reviews a volume on Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier. Both Arnesen and Schulteiss also have essays in the April issue of Historically Speaking: Schultheiss, "The Ends of the Earth and the “Heroic Age” of Polar Exploration: A Review Essay" and Arnesen, "Reconsidering the 'Long Civil Rights Movement.'" (The latter is part of a feature, Civil Rights Historiography: Two Perspectives, which also includes David Chappell's piece, "The Lost Decade of Civil Rights.")

Le Corbusier: A Life by Nicholas Fox Weber Katrin Schultheiss, Chicago Tribune, 28 March 2009

Americans may be forgiven for not being intimately familiar with the work of the Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier. Unlike his contemporaries Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, he spent little time in the United States and designed only one significant American building, the Carpenter Center at Harvard University. His other major project in the United States, a failed bid to design the new United Nations headquarters in 1947, remained a source of deep resentment until his death in 1965. Read on>>>

Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America's Legendary Suburb by David Kushner
Eric Arnesen, Chicago Tribune, 28 March 2009

More than a half-century before our current disaster in the housing market, the United States confronted a very different sort of housing crisis. During the Great Depression of the 1930s and the economic boom of World War II, few private homes had been constructed. With demobilization after World War II, vast numbers of military veterans and their families, flush with cash and GI Bill-backed mortgages, were desperate for housing. A generation was ready to move, but a severe housing shortage initially thwarted their desires. Read on>>>

The Importance of Studying Ordinary Lives: An Interview with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

The forthcoming issue of Historically Speaking (April 2009) includes an interview with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University and president of the American Historical Association. Ulrich is the author of a number of influential books and essays on colonial history, material culture, social history, and women’s history. Her Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History (Random House, 2007) examines the appeal of that phrase and describes the life and work of women who “turned to history as a way of making sense of their own lives.” The following is brief excerpt from the interview.

Randall Stephens: In Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History you write: “History is a conversation and sometimes a shouting match between present and past, though often the voices we most want to hear are barely audible.” What have those barely audible voices said to us, and why do they matter?

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: What does Martha Ballard’s diary tell us that the papers of George Washington don’t about the same historical period? In my view, plenty. For instance, Martha Ballard’s diary turns on its head the conventional narrative of the rise of modern medicine, which charts the progress from primitive lay healers to scientific healers, championing the superiority of the latter. But when you compare Martha Ballard’s diary with the records of 19th-century physicians, you get two different pictures of childbirth. The physicians’ account books reveal a succession of dangerous cases. Yet when I go to Martha Ballard’s diary, I realize that dangerous cases were rare. Doctors and their tools were making childbirth more dangerous, not less so.

Another example: economic history. The conventional narrative says that late 18th- and early 19th-century America was in the throes of a consumer revolution. And, indeed, storekeepers’ accounts from Martha Ballard’s time and place portray an economy in which local inhabitants exchanged lumber for the manufactured goods brought in on ships. But Martha’s diary reveals that she and others were constantly spinning and weaving, making their own clothes. According to storekeepers’ accounts, a consumer revolution wiped out local production. Yet an ordinary woman’s diary shows that local production was still very important, as well as interwoven with the commercial marketplace. By studying Martha Ballard’s diary, you can understand the difference between a calico dress, which Martha’s daughter had, and all the other clothing and bedding that was made at home.

One more example: If you studied that period through legal records, you would think that the society has gone from policing private behavior, à la Puritan New England, to dealing only with economic behavior. That is the classic picture we got from historians who worked on court records. But go through Martha Ballard’s diary and you’ll see in action the old 1680 law about the midwife taking testimony at the height of labor in order to hold someone accountable for paternity. So I don’t think anonymous people need to be included in the historical record just because of fairness or justice. Studying them carefully makes for more accurate history.

Richardson's Rules of Order, Part II: Tips for Taking Notes in a College History Course

Heather Cox Richardson (Umass Amherst) offers up more from her handbook for history students. Note taking is a craft that takes practice and reflection to perfect. Richardson gives some cues here for how to take good notes, pitfalls to avoid, and the purpose of the whole process.

College history courses are designed not simply to cover a bunch of facts, but rather to interpret the meaning of those facts. Every instructor will have certain main points (or skills) that s/he wants you to understand before you finish the course. Usually, these themes will NOT be in the reading assignments for the class. Rather, the teacher will explain the themes through lectures. Assignments will reinforce those themes (sometimes by attacking them), and it is your job to put the different parts of the course together into a coherent whole.

Note taking, then, will be different than it was in high school. First of all, don’t get so frantic about scribbling everything down that you miss the point of the lecture. I notice that when I put up a power point slide that has words on it, students often seem to copy it down mindlessly without listening to my explanation of why these particular points are important to the larger story. My heart sinks, also, when I’ve given an important lecture that encapsulates how, say, the quest for political dominance in the 1850s led to the Civil War, and someone comes up after class to ask not for clarification or more information, but to ask how to spell the name of some obscure reporter I mentioned in passing. Avoid these forest-for-the-trees mistakes.

What you want in your notes is the general thesis of each lecture, its relevance to the larger theme of the class, and the points the teacher made to support that thesis. If you miss the details of some Supreme Court decision because you were too busy listening to jot them down, you can undoubtedly remember enough to look it up in your books, or on-line, or to ask another student for that information. Since the themes of a course are unique to each professor, it makes far more sense to get the themes and miss the details than to get the details and miss the themes.

You will, occasionally, run across a teacher who doesn’t seem to have any theme or thesis to his or her material, and is just going through it headlong, a bit at a time. This offers you a challenge, but also much more scope for your own interpretation. If the teacher doesn’t tell you why Andrew Johnson is important to American history, think it through for yourself. Why should you care about him? What do his life and his era say about yours? As you develop your answers to such questions after every lecture, you’ll come up with your own ideas about why the material is important. Far from being an empty exercise designed only to get you through a class, this will help you think about your own beliefs and interests, and may well help steer you toward a future career as you figure out what you really care about. (I speak from experience on this one!)

See also, Richardson's Rules of Order, Part I: Why Study History?

NCHE Conference Held in Boston

Randall Stephens

The National Council for History Education (NCHE) held its annual conference in Boston a couple weeks ago. By all appearances it was a terrific success. Approximately 800 educators--high school teachers, college professors, publishers, and administrators--gathered to promote the serious study and practice of history. Keynote lecturers included Lewis Lapham, David McCullough, Pauline Maier, and Sharon Leon. Participants fanned out across the city, touring historic sites and taking in the ambience. The theme for the conference this year centered on revolutions in historical perspective. Hence, presentations included:

Tories, Timid, or True Blue? Encouraging Historical Thinking Using Historic Sites

A Local Revolution: Researching Oral History, Artifacts and Local History to Create Community

Museums Understanding the Iranian Revolution: Historical Roots and Global Implications

Revolutions of 1968: Ushering in a Better World of Transnational Connections? A Look at Mexico City, New York, Paris, and Prague

Many academic historians might not know about this organization. I wasn't aware of it until several years ago. But it's been around in one form or another since 1988. State branches are extending its work as well. The NCHE is well placed to link "history in the schools with many activities sponsored by state and local organizations." The organization provides "a communications network for all advocates of history education, whether in schools, colleges, museums, historical councils, or community groups." Unlike Gilder Lehrman and other institutes, the NCHE focuses on American and world history, from ancient to modern.

With thousands of members across the country, the council does much good work for the profession and deserves greater attention from academic historians.

Surveys of the Fields

As a graduate student, I sure could have used some good field surveys to match my prelim exams. As a scholar, I could still use them. So I thought to start some blog conversations about literature and states of respective fields.

But before I do that, I want to solicit responses to my slate of fields below. Did I miss anything? Are some of my choices inconsistent with others? I offer national histories only for the largest countries or regions, or for those of particular historical importance (like Spain). For pre-modern periods, some of my choices reflect source availability or the lack thereof. Many fields obviously overlap others.

In neglecting certain narrower yet very rich fields, I am focusing now and first on starting field conversations broad enough for plausible prospects of a critical mass of discussants on an English-language blog (if we were to work very hard to get historians involved in starting a conversation in a given field).

What do you think of this list? (Soon I'll choose a field or fields and ask you about those per se, but for now, just the taxonomy suggested below.)

My draft fields list:
*additions, changes, & updates since the initial post.

Comparative & World Systems
World History: Prehistory to 1492. Since 1492. Since 1945.
Economic, Financial, & Labor History: Prehistory to 1492. 1492-1815. Since 1815. Since 1929.
Science and Technology: Prehistory to 1500. Since 1500. Since 1945.
International History: 1494-1815. Since 1815. Since 1945.
European Imperialism. Fifteenth Century to 1763. Since 1763.
Judaism: Pre-modern. Modern.
Christianity: Ancient and Medieval. Since 1517.
Islam (all periods).
Military: Ancient and Medieval. 1494-1789. Since 1789. Since 1945.
Environmental. To 1500. 1500-1800. Since 1800.
Social (including Women’s and Men’s). To 1500. 1500-1800. Since 1800.
Legal. To 1500. 1500-1789. Since 1789.
Business. To 1500. 1500-1800. Since 1800.

United States: Colonial to 1765. 1765-1815. 1815-1877. 1877-1945. 1945-present.
U.S. Intellectual (all periods).
*U.S. South (all periods).

Canada (all periods).

Latin America & Caribbean: Precolumbian and Colonial. Since 1798.
Mexico: Precolumbian to 1810. Since 1810.
Spanish Latin America (besides Mexico): Since 1810.
Brazil: Precolumbian to 1810: Since 1821.
Caribbean (all periods).

Europe: Medieval to 1500. 1500-1789. Since 1789. Since 1945.
European Intellectual History: Medieval & Renaissance. Renaissance to 1789. Since 1789.
Greece: Ancient. Byzantine. Since 1821 (or 1453).
Rome / Italy: Ancient. 1494-1796. Since 1796.
Spain: Medieval. Early Modern. Since 1808.
France: Early Modern. Since 1789.
England / Britain: Early Modern. Since 1688.
Germany: Early modern to 1740. Since 1740.
Russia: Medieval. 1598-1881. Since 1881.

Near & Middle East
Ottoman Empire / Turkey. Beginnings-1453. 1453-1922. Since 1922.
Egypt: Ancient. Modern.
Arabia (one field).
Persia: Ancient and Medieval. Early Modern. Modern.

Central Asia (all periods).

India: Ancient and Medieval. 1526-1858. Since 1858.

East Asia
Buddhism (all periods).
*China: Prehistoric-220. 220-1368. 1368-1911. Since 1911.
*Japan: Ancient and Medieval. 1550-1853. Since 1853.
Southeast Asia (all periods).
East Indies (all periods).

Oceania (all periods).

Australia and New Zealand (all periods).

Africa
Northern Africa: Ancient-1830. Since 1830.
Western Africa: Prehistoric to 1500. 1500-1880. Western and Central Africa since 1880.
Southern Africa (all periods).
Eastern Africa (all periods).

Richardson's Rules of Order, Part I: Why Study History?

Our first post comes from Heather Cox Richardson, professor of history at UMass, Amherst. Richardson is the author of a number of books on Reconstruction, the West, and 19th-century America. Her latest book, Innocence Lost: American Politics and the Road to Wounded Knee, will be published by Basic Books in 2009. Richardson is also director of the History Institute at UMass, which provides in-service training for K-12 teachers in Western Massachusetts through its weekday Conversations Series, day-long workshops, and summer seminars.

Here, Richardson offers up her thoughts on the study and teaching of history. This is the first installment of "Richardson's Rules of Order," a handbook for students. "I make no claims to represent how other scholars approach classroom learning," she says, "although some of what you find here may be of use in other courses."

"Richardson's Rules of Order, Part I: Why Study History?"
Heather Cox Richardson

History is the study of how and why things happen. What creates change in human society? What stops it? Why do people act in certain ways? Are there patterns in human behavior? What makes a society successful? What makes one fail?

These larger questions break down into smaller (but still big!) ones: Do great leaders create change, or do they follow popular trends? Is it economic prosperity that permits experimentation with new kinds of government? Do elites control society, or is it the less visible masses that move a nation one direction or another? How does the media affect the way we perceive others? Does someone’s gender change the way s/he sees the world? Are people motivated by power? By money? By religion? By a sense of fairness? By fear? How do societies come to embrace discrimination? What makes them break down discriminatory barriers?

Every single person needs to be able to think critically about these issues and the many, many others like them. You need to know how YOU think the world works. Your answers will be different than anyone else’s, since you have unique experiences that color the way you think about things, but you must be able to analyze your world intelligently in order to participate responsibly in society. When you pick a career, you’re making a statement about how you think society works. When you buy a car, when you send your kid to a certain preschool, when you buy a tube of toothpaste, when you volunteer your time for a charity… you’re making a statement about how you think society works. And when you vote, you make a very strong statement about how you think society works.

When you study history, you’re not just studying the history of, for example, colonial America. You’ll learn a great deal about the specifics of colonial America in such a class, of course, but you’ll also learn about the role of economics in the establishment of human societies and about how class and racial divisions can either weaken the stability of a government or be used to shore it up. While it’s unlikely that your boss in some high tech company is going to fire you if you can’t rattle off the events that led to the establishment of racial slavery in the American colonial Chesapeake, it’s extremely likely that, during your lifetime, you will see the members of some group here or elsewhere whipping up racial or ethnic fears in order to solidify their power. In that event, you must be able to weigh what you hear and see, deciding for yourself if those attacks are legitimate or are propaganda to preserve the interests of a certain segment of society. Why? Because your reaction to such a situation will help to determine its outcome, and it is highly unlikely that simply accepting everything you hear will lead to a good result. Learning to think through societal issues is critical to the establishment of a just society, and it is what history will teach you.

Besides, we have all the good stories.

THS Blog Launch

Greetings from Boston:

We have launched the Historical Society group blog to foster conversations and debates and to promote scholarly outreach. The blog will feature short entries and reviews by and interviews with some of the leading historians of the English-speaking world. We will highlight material in THS's two publications: Historically Speaking and the Journal of the Historical Society. Regional and national conferences will be announced along with news of Historical Society-sponsored lectures. The blog will also explore teaching at the secondary, college, and graduate level. . . Stay tuned.