“The American Historical Association, 1884-1909”
REVIEW OF DR. JAMESON’S RECENT ARTICLE.
A noteworthy article upon the origin of the American Historical Association and its history during the past twenty-five years appears in the October number of “The American Historical Review.” The author, Dr. J. Franklin Jameson, is better fitted than any other man in the country to treat this subject, and he gives us the early history of the association with a genial sympathy that enlists one’s interest at once.
Prefacing his remarks with the statement that “no agency has been so potent in the advancement of American historical scholarship” as the association, Dr. Jameson points out the conditions of historical research and pedagogy in the year 1884, in which the association was founded. There was but one general historical journal. In all the universities and colleges of the country there were apparently only fifteen professors and five assistant professors who gave all their time to history. The subject was in many cases subordinated or annexed to other topics, including political science, English literature, geology, German and French. Yet, despite the small numbers of those engaged in teaching history, Dr. Jameson points out that there were giants in those days, men who were trained when the German system of history teaching was at its best, or who, like the great national literary historians, had advanced far in their labors.
The specific details of the organization of the association at Saratoga, September 10, 1884 will be of much interest to the younger history workers. With kindliness for diverging views, Dr. Jameson shows how early in the life of the association problems arose, the successful settlement of which had much to do with the future of the organization. Should the association be a small one, made up of forty or more “Immortals,” or should the appeal be made to a wider constituency, and all interested in history be invited to join? Should the association accept incorporation by the nation and government aid in its work? Should the meetings be held continuously in Washington? Should the annual meetings with the papers read at such meetings be the sole form of activity entered into by the association?
The solution of these and other questions, Dr. Jameson points out, giving credit in passing to the past and present workers in the association. He names particularly as steps in advance the gaining of a charter from the national government, and incidentally the placing of the papers of the association in the hands of the government for publication.
Taking the year 1895 as a critical point, he shows that the association had $8,000 in its treasury and current expenses of not over forty per cent. of its income, and yet that its work did not seem to prosper. From that year, however, the adoption of a new policy broadened the activities of the association. The support of the association was given to “The American Historical Review”; the American Society of Church History was affiliated with the main organization: a Committee of Seven on the Teaching of History in Secondary Schools was appointed, and several years afterwards made its famous report.
Later activities have been added from time to time; a Standing Committee on Bibliography, the Historical Manuscripts Commission, the Public Archives Commission, the establishment of prizes for original work in history, the start of the publication of a series of volumes of “Original Narratives of Early American History,” the formation of a Pacific Coast branch, the appointment of a Committee of Eight on the Teaching of History in Elementary Schools, which has but lately reported, and the coöperation with a British committee to prepare a select bibliography of modern English history.
While the field of activities of the association has thus expanded, the membership of the association has grown until now it stands at about twenty-five hundred. Its funds amount to $26,000. It has a revenue of $8,000 a year, and the government prints for it material which represents an outlay for printing of about $7,000.
Dr. Jameson closes his article with the statement: “Probably no historical society in the world is more numerous; it might perhaps be successfully maintained that none is more extensively useful. If the quality of all that it does is not yet of ideal excellence, it may be that its work is done as well as can be expected from an organization no member of which can give to its concerns more than a minor portion of his time. At all events, it has played an effective part in the historical progress of the last twenty-five years, and none of those who took part in its foundation at Saratoga, in that now remote September, need feel regret at his share in the transaction. That it may flourish abundantly in the future must be the wish of all who care for the interests ‘of American history and of history in America.’”