2006: A Year of Anniversaries

Lee W. Formwalt

Although 2007 officially marks the one-hundredth birthday of the Organization of American Historians, 2006 is filled with other important OAH anniversaries. Not only do we begin the yearlong centennial observance at our ninty-ninth annual meeting this spring in Washington, D.C., but this year we also celebrate the silver anniversary of the OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program, the twentieth anniversary of the OAH Magazine of History, and the fifth anniversary of our production of the Talking History radio program.

Each of these OAH initiatives—the lectureship, the magazine, and the radio show—contributes in important ways to accomplishing our Strategic Plan. That plan, developed by the executive board in November 2002, established four important goals for the organization to achieve by the time of the OAH Centennial in 2007:

1. expanding connections with members and broader audiences;
2. expanding its leadership at all levels of history education;
3. transforming its annual meeting so it is less rigidly structured and more dynamic, innovative, and interactive; and
4. increasing revenues and diversifying its funding sources so as to ensure greater financial independence and support for further programming.

I am pleased to report that we have made important strides in achieving each of these goals and the lectureship, OAH Magazine, and radio show especially demonstrate the progress we have made in the first two–reaching a broader audience and affecting history education at all levels.

The OAH Distinguished Lectureship program had its origins a quarter century ago when President-elect Gerda Lerner proposed it to the executive board as a means of fundraising that would also "help history departments and others attract historians as guest lecturers." OAH Executive Board members in 1981 were invited to participate as lecturers and the fee of $600 paid by the host institution would be donated to OAH. The program grew gradually over the years and by 2000, we had over a hundred lecturers who earned a $1000 fee for OAH. Average annual income was around $30,000.

In 2001 we reexamined the Lectureship Program, rechristened it the OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program, established three-year terms for lecturers, and President Ira Berlin appointed over fifty new lecturers. Under the very able leadership of Annette Windhorn, we have aggressively promoted the program, appointed larger numbers of distinguished historians to the program, and instituted a flexible fee schedule that begins at $1,000. Today we have three-hundred lecturers who deliver more than one-hundred Distinguished Lectures a year generating $125,000 in revenue for OAH.

The Lectureship Program is a very successful fundraiser (goal 4 of the Strategic Plan), but it also brings some of the very best American history to a wide range of audiences (goal 1) including a number of Teaching American History (TAH) projects (goal 2). The TAH program, operating through the U.S. Department of Education for several years, has distributed nearly a half-billion dollars in grants to some five-hundred local education agencies or school systems to provide professional development for precollegiate teachers of American history. OAH Distinguished Lecturers have assisted in this program all across the country, including Puerto Rico, helping teachers learn the latest developments in the field and at the same time making a gift of their services to OAH. We have much to celebrate on this silver anniversary of Gerda Lerner's brainchild.

Last month we published the first number of volume 20 of the OAH Magazine of History. Originally funded by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Magazine was designed in 1985 "for junior and senior high school teachers." Over the last two decades it has grown in size and circulation, improved in appearance, and expanded its audience to include professors teaching the introductory U.S. history survey at community and four-year colleges and universities. For most of its history, the Magazine had been assembled each quarter by a guest editor, usually a historian specializing in the theme of the issue, Director of Publications Michael Regoli, and a graduate assistant.

The 2002 Strategic Plan called for the expansion of the Magazine from four to six issues a year and hiring a full-time editor. Although this would double the cost of production, the plan also called for increased circulation. Kevin Byrne of Gustavus Adolphus College joined us as a full-time editor eighteen months ago and we began bimonthly publication last year. Over five years our circulation doubled to 12,000 as National Council for History Education members and a number of teachers in TAH projects subscribed. The TAH teachers have joined the OAH in record numbers increasing our History Educator membership from 600 six years ago to over 1,700 today (19 percent of the OAH membership). These members receive the Magazine as their professional publication rather than the Journal of American History. What is even more encouraging is the number of regular OAH members who have elected to subscribe to the Magazine (about 19 percent of the regular membership). Clearly the Magazine is coming to be recognized as the major publication for teachers of the U.S. history survey at levels 11-14—from high school juniors and seniors to college freshmen and sophomores.

The thematic issues of the OAH Magazine of History cover many of the traditional subjects discussed in the survey from slavery and Jim Crow to the Great Depression and World War II. It also covers topics in more recent history that many teachers never had in their own training, like Vietnam, conservatism, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Magazine also familiarizes teachers with new areas of historical research; for example, next month's issue will focus on the history of sexuality. Last summer, Magazine subscribers received a compact disc that accompanied the Teaching History with Music issue. We are still receiving requests for the CD.

Our third and youngest anniversary this year celebrates the five years that we have produced our weekly half-hour radio program, Talking History. Even more so than with the Distinguished Lectureship program, Talking History allows OAH to disseminate the best American history to a broad audience outside academe. When Bryan Le Beau brought his radio show to OAH, we eagerly signed on, first as cosponsor, then coproducer, and now producer. Talking History is indeed the "radio voice of the Organization of American Historians." It is now carried on twenty-two radio stations in the U.S. in university towns and in cities as big as San Francisco and New York. More important, Voice of America carries Talking History literally around the world. Recent email from listeners in Spain, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, suggest that OAH is getting American history into the far corners of the globe. To make sure that everyone has access to Talking History, especially those out of listening range, we have archived on the OAH web site every program that has been produced, and beginning this year, each episode is available as a podcast.

Five years of Talking History, twenty years of the OAH Magazine of History, and a quarter century of Distinguished Lecturers—we have much of which to be proud and to celebrate as we prepare for our Centennial Year.