Is History Flunking as a Profession?

Kenneth T. Jackson

Our profession is in trouble.

To be sure, as my friend and colleague Eric Foner recently argued in AHA Perspectives, there is some good news to celebrate. There has never previously been a time when so many talented individuals have produced such innovative work on such a vast array of topics. Meanwhile, David Kennedy, David McCullough, James McPherson, Stephen J. Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Jacques Barzun, to name only a few obvious examples, have continued to demonstrate that there is a huge general audience for well-crafted books on broad and important themes.

Hollywood has long exploited this popular interest in the past. In 1999, for example, all five Oscar nominees for best picture (Shakespeare In Love, Saving Private Ryan, Elizabeth, Life is Beautiful, and Thin Red Line) dealt with historical subjects. Similarly, exhibitions focusing on past events routinely bring tens of thousands of people who would never open a monograph into museums and historical societies. The History Channel is the most successful new cable venture of the past decade, and documentary films of every description fill our television screens every day and every evening. National History Day, the National Council for History Education, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute, and the Focus on Teaching efforts of the OAH and the OAH Magazine of History, among others, have made important strides in reconnecting historians at the college and university level with their counterparts in the nation's secondary and primary schools.

But much more remains to be done. We are in trouble at every level and in every way.

The problem of history begins in the primary and secondary schools. Although the fifty states and the sixteen thousand independent school districts across the land vary in their curricula, it is fair to say that they require little history and thus little history is taught to American youngsters. And while the subject remains the core of the various social sciences, history itself is too often neglected in social studies classes.

History educators at all levels are fighting an uphill battle. Many social studies instructors in high schools have scarcely studied history themselves. How can they teach what they do not know? State after state now certifies college graduates to teach social studies who did not major in history, who did not minor in history, or who did not take any history at any time. This problem continues even as I write. Indeed, the state of Illinois has threatened to remove history as a requirement for social studies certification. And New York State has not insisted on a history course for it social studies teachers for decades.

When history is taught, it should be presented so that students do not routinely dismiss our craft as the most boring of subjects. Otherwise, where we see drama and sadness, sacrifice and brutality, generosity and exploitation, savagery and tenderness, tears and laughter, passion and hate, they will see only a dull recitation of dates, places and dead people about which they literally could not care less. We need to re-create for our students exactly why each of us was inspired to study history.

Those of us in college and university classrooms face a different set of problems. Because universities as a whole devalue history, fewer and fewer resources are allocated to our departments. Even when history enrollments are substantial or when the need for history instruction is clear, deans and provosts across the country have shown a disturbing tendency to hire part-time or adjunct teachers rather than full-time, tenure-track professors. On occasion, such temporary appointments are desirable both for the instructor and for the institution. But in too many instances, the sole purpose is to save money by exploiting the large cohort of graduate students or historians who have been unable to secure regular positions, with the result that everyone in the classroom suffers.

For example, between 1975 and 1993, the number of non-tenure-track faculty appointments in higher education increased 88%, from 10 to 14% of all faculty and graduate students, while the number of probationary tenure-track faculty declined 9%, from 16 to 10% of all faculty and graduate students. Since 1975, the overall proportion of faculty and graduate assistants who are part-time or full-time ôtemporaryö in status has increased 11%, from 54 to 65%.

As historians in colleges and universities, museums and historical societies, we need to be more concerned about how history is faring in pre-collegiate institutions. Likewise, those of us teaching history in K-12 classrooms ought to be more connected to our colleagues in academic and public history. We need to reiterate the point that the devaluation of history is at the root of the problem. We must build the collaborative forces that can improve history education at all levels. We must also articulate for the public and for the holders of the purse strings exactly why history matters.

Even books, which are at the heart of our collective enterprise, are no longer much valued by the community at large. A third of a century ago, when I published my first book, any serious volume in American history could count on a guaranteed sale of perhaps fifteen hundred copies just to libraries, and the average print run was at least that much. In 2000, we can only look back wistfully at those days. Now, the number of sales that a publisher can expect from libraries in the United Sates is below five hundred. Under such circumstances, many important monographs never find their audience.

There is a relation between all these problems, and we should systematically address them all. I do not presume that this cursory analysis is complete, or that I have the solutions. Neither can the OAH, acting alone, solve our professional dilemma. But we can do something. We can intensify the conversation about the place of history in our schools and in our national life. To that end, I ask that those of you with similar or other concerns write to the OAH Newsletter or communicate directly with me, either by email at <ktj1@columbia.edu> or at the Department of History, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.