About the OAH
The Organization of American Historians (OAH) is the largest scholarly organization devoted to the history of the United States, and to promoting excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of that history. An international non-profit membership organization, the OAH has over 6,000 members who are university and college professors as well as individuals employed in a variety of scholarly and institutional settings, including libraries, museums, national parks, and historical societies.
Our Mission
The mission of the OAH is to promote excellence in the scholarship, teaching and presentation of American history, to encourage wide discussion of historical questions, and to advocate for history and the equitable treatment of all practitioners of history.
Our Vision
The OAH seeks to be a public-facing, dynamic scholarly society—one that honors the accomplishments of previous generations while advancing and advocating for the study and practice of history today. This means growing OAH into a broad community for all historians and a hub, host, and incubator for rigorous and trusted U.S. history.
Guiding Principles
Advancement of Scholarship
The OAH advances the teaching and practice of American history through its numerous publications, programs, and initiatives. The organization’s quarterly Journal of American History is the leading scholarly journal in the field. The OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program brings prominent speakers to the public, and the organization’s awards, prizes, and its annual conference recognize and foster the best historical scholarship.
Historical Advocacy
The OAH promotes open access to historical resources and scholarship, the exhibition and preservation of artifacts, the discussion of historical questions, and the dissemination of knowledge. We ardently support the respectful and equitable treatment for all practitioners of history. The OAH actively participates in the National Humanities Alliance and the National Coalition for History.
Professional Integrity
The OAH believes honesty and integrity must be the basis for all historical scholarship. Historians seek truth about the past to provide insight to the present and the future. The OAH condemns any action that undermines this belief. The falsification and deliberate distortion in the teaching of history is an ethical violation of the principle of truth on which the historical profession is based.