




































History and the Public Good: American Historical Association Presidential 

Addresses and the Evolving Understanding of History Education 

 
Christopher Berg 

State College of Florida 

Theodore Michael Christou 

Queens University 

 

Abstract 

This article examines a sampling of AHA 

presidential addresses that collectively concern 

the purposes of studying history. As individual 

artifacts, they document the particular anxieties of 

each outgoing president. Together, they note the 

relevance of history to one‘s own life and to the 

life of the state even as they express concern for 

the diminished role of the discipline as a 

transformative force in society. This concern is 

also a contemporary one as history educators have 

continued to express concern for the place of 

history in the public sphere and in the formal 

curriculum of schools. The article considers the 

relationship between history and the public good 

as depicted over time in the AHA in relation to 

history and social studies education. 

 

History is important to us, and 

knowledge of the past can have a 

profound effect on our consciousness, on 

our sense of ourselves. History is a 

supremely humanistic discipline: it may 

not teach us particular lessons, but it 

does tell us how we might live in the 

world. 

–Gordon Wood, The Purpose of the Past, p. 6 

Introduction 

Increasingly, history educators are 

attending to historical thinking rather than to the 

teaching of historical content exclusively. 

(Lowenthal, 2000; Ozment, 2005; Stearns, Seixas, 

& Wineburg, 2000). Historical inquiry is at the 

core of social studies and history education in 

various US states and Canadian provinces (Girard 

& Harris, 2012; Monte-Sano, 2008; Monte-Sano 

& De La Paz, 2012; Sandwell and von Heyking, 

2014). Students are asked to engage with history 

authentically. The cultivation of historical 

thinking and inquiry is useful in the history and 

social studies classroom but it is also a means of 

fostering engaged, critical citizenship (Feinberg, 

2012). 

 The professionalization of history came 

late to the United States; up until the 1880s, most 

of the professional history written in North 

America was by a select few who had the time 

and the resources to devote to its study (AHA 

Brief History, 2014). The American Historical 

Association (AHA) was created in 1884 and 

began to financially subsidize the American 

Historical Review (AHR), taking complete control 

of the journal in 1915. The AHR publishes an 

artifact that serves both as a vital source for 

understanding the historical development of the 

discipline: the annual presidential address of the 

AHA. Since 1884, these have served as ―a 

microcosm of the interests and concerns of the 

profession in various stages of its development 

over the past century‖ (AHA Presidential 

Addresses Archive, 2014).  

 This article examines a sampling of AHA 

presidential addresses and AHA-sponsored 

initiatives that collectively concern the purposes 



 38 

of studying history. As individual artifacts, they 

document the particular anxieties of each 

outgoing president. Together, they note the 

relevance of history to one‘s own life and to the 

life of the state even as they express concern for 

the diminished role of the discipline as a 

transformative force in society. This concern is 

also a contemporary one; history educators have 

continued to express concern for the place of 

history in the public sphere and in the formal 

curriculum of schools (VanSledright, Reddy, & 

Walsh, 2012).  

Select Historians and their Contributions

 Addresses were selected for their 

engagement with the question ‗why study 

history.‘  The six addresses concentrated upon 

here are inseparable from the particular 

intellectual passions and interests of their authors. 

The AHA presidents considered were, 

commensurate with their roles, high-profile 

academics from some of the United States‘ 

leading research institutions. Several have been 

pioneers in their respective fields and have won 

prestigious awards for their scholarship and 

service but those are peripheral considerations in 

light of a common theme found in each of the 

presidential addresses considered here: a personal 

defense of the study of history in an indifferent 

age. These addresses were all intended for a 

public audience and spoke to particular issues of 

immediate concern. Most importantly, these 

historians wrote at crucial periods for the 

discipline of history; each of the presidents 

considered here was explicitly addressing threat, 

real and perceived, from the vicissitudes 

associated with modernity, globalization, or 

postmodernism (cf. Carpenter, 2006; Evans, 

2004; 2006; Harlan, 1990; Orrill and Shapiro, 

2005, Wrobel, 2008). 

 These presidential addresses and AHA-

sponsored initiatives hoped to raise public 

awareness of the discipline of history in itself and 

as a subject of study in schools. Each, within their 

own context, expressed concern for the well being 

of both. Becker, for instance, in the early stages 

of the Great Depression, warned that history was 

on the brink of extinction. Pomeranz, in late 2013, 

observed that globalization is a force that has the 

potential to make history an anachronism. 

Attending to these addresses as sources is a 

means of exploring the evolving vision of history, 

as well as its purposes and relevance in our lives. 

Background: The History Academy and 

Progressivism, ca. 1890-1940 

The annual presidential address given by 

Carl Becker in the winter of 1931, titled 

Everyman his own Historian (1932), garnered a 

great deal of attention. But why did Becker make 

this address at this point in time?  What were the 

prevailing educational trends and how did they 

impact the study of history?  These considerations 

are an important backdrop to understanding this 

particular presidential address, its significance, 

and its relevance to this article. 

A progressive historian, Becker, like 

contemporaries Charles Beard and James Harvey 

Robinson, wanted to see the discipline of history 

move away from its traditional foundations, as 

embodied in the American Historical 

Association‘s Committee of Seven report, The 

Study of History in Schools (1898) and, instead, 

cast history within a social reconstructionist lens 

for the advancement of young students citizens-

in-training (Orrill & Shapiro, 2005; Wrobel, 

2008). The Committee of Seven‘s report was 

followed by a national commission, which 

culminated in the 1916 Commission on the Social 

Studies report. The 1916 CSS report symbolized 

the avant-garde of the progressive spirit in 

education and was adopted in the public schools 

(Dunn, 1916). The 1916 CSS report is, perhaps: 



 39 

The defining [progressive] document of 

the period. It is not just an important part of  our 

educational heritage, but of our national heritage 

as well because it demonstrates how  progressive 

reformers reconciled the seemingly contradictory 

intellectual currents of the period. . . . [The CSS 

report was] was not only a representative 

document of progressive education but was also 

reflective of the entire progressive movement 

(Fallace, 2009, p. 603; 616).  

John Dewey‘s influence upon the 1916 

CSS report, too, is undeniable; though Fallace 

(2009) suggested that Dewey‘s influence and 

presence was for the purpose of pedagogy, 

Jorgensen (2010) argued that Dewey ―was a much 

stronger influence on the 1916 committee than 

many modern scholars recognize‖ (p. 11). The 

progressive mindset, therefore, was inextricably 

tied to the report and, up until Becker‘s time, was 

the prevailing educational persuasion.  

External forces, such as the Great War, the 

rise of isolationism in the interwar years, the 

Great Depression, and other economic and 

political factors adversely affected the progressive 

movement. The motivations for writing such a 

presidential address – a call to social action – 

come into sharper focus when external forces, 

like the Great Depression, the waning of the 

progressive movement, and the attack of the 

social studies, are taken into account. The AHA 

Commission on the Social Studies convened in 

1929 to address some of the pressing educational 

issues associated with the teaching of social 

studies. The recommendations of the 

Commission, Conclusions and Recommendations 

(1934), were not politically motivated, as the 

resulting media frenzy implied, but was a clash 

over the role of objective (standardized) testing in 

the future of social studies (Schul, 2013). It is 

within this complex social milieu as well as the 

continuous struggle between the academy and 

social studies advocates that Becker wrote his 

address. 

Carl Becker’s “Everyman” (1932) 

Carl Becker‘s ―Everyman‖ address was a 

call to action, which set an important precedent 

that led to other prominent historians to defend 

the study of history as an academic discipline. His 

presidential address is, perhaps, the most cited 

address in the scholarly literature but, aside from 

that, most academics know little else about him. 

Though a Europeanist who taught a diverse 

curriculum including ancient, medieval, and 

modern history, Becker studied under the 

progressive American historian Frederick Jackson 

Turner at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 

the creator of the controversial ―Frontier thesis.‖  

Much like his mentor, Becker was a maverick 

who chaffed against mainstream currents that 

advocated a scientific approach to the study of 

history. Becker distanced himself from this 

popular school of thought by denouncing 

scientific history in favor of subjective history. 

This idea of the creation of history by individuals 

and historians alike was something he refined 

over the course of his career and was the essence 

of his presidential address (Mancall, 1990).  

 Unlike many of the historians considered 

in this article, Becker is best known for his 

presidential address rather than for his general 

scholarship, though he had published his 

dissertation, The History of Political Parties in 

the Province of New York, 1760-1776 

(1909/2012) and The Declaration of 

Independence: A Study of the History of Political 

Ideas (1922/2013) which is often seen as his most 

significant work. Though Becker‘s work has 

come under intense scrutiny in recent years, his 

ideas remain as scholars reference his timeless 

presidential address (Mancall, 1990). 

Becker made an astounding prediction: if 

historians were not careful, their work could be 



 40 

relegated to the dustbin of history. He warned of a 

clear and present danger, as Supreme Court 

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1919) famously 

remarked, which implicates the profession itself 

and is potentially inflicted by its own members. 

The public good demanded a ―usable‖ past that it 

could comprehend; sophisticated analyses rich in 

confusing historical jargon were obfuscating and 

alienating (Cashion, 2013).  

 Becker argued in his address that history 

is a public, not merely an academic, good. Each 

member of the public at large, ―Mr. Everyman,‖ 

is akin to an historian. Every citizen might not 

possess advanced degrees, disciplinary training, 

or professional status, but he or she practices the 

skills and habits of mind that characterize the 

historian on a daily basis. Each has a concern for 

the past. What distinguishes historians, Becker 

argued, is the burden of making history 

meaningful for others and helping to distinguish 

fact from fiction. ―Mr. Everyman is stronger than 

we are, and sooner or later we must adapt our 

knowledge to his necessities,‖ Becker noted. 

Academic history, disconnected from the public 

interest and the public good, is likened to the dry 

and isolated work of a lonely antiquarian. It is ―an 

imaginative creation, a personal possession which 

each one of us, Mr. Everyman, fashions out of his 

individual experience, adapts to his practical or 

emotional needs, and adorns as well as may be to 

suit his aesthetic tastes‖ (Becker, 1932, p. 228). 

William McNeill’s “Why Study History?” (1985)  

The years after World War II were 

relatively quiet for the AHA and they began to 

distance themselves even further from the public 

schools. While the history academy grew 

apathetic, the social studies advocates ―New 

Social Studies‖ and ―Newer Social Studies‖ 

movements of the 1960s and 1970s were in full 

swing (Evans, 2009). Though many of the 

programs outlined in these social studies 

initiatives, such as inquiry-learning and using 

primary sources, were abandoned, this period of 

social studies resurgence was an important 

stepping-stone for the social studies as they 

experienced a creative phase that would influence 

the social studies in the twenty-first century. It 

was not until Arthur Link gave his presidential 

address at the annual meeting in 1984 that a 

renewed interest was publicly given in 

reestablishing ties between the academy and the 

public schools and renewing a once profitable 

partnership (p. 155). Link was highly influential 

in his role as president and afterward, as the head 

of the second National Commission on Social 

Studies in the Schools in the mid- to late-1980s 

(Harlan, 1990). Mehlinger (1988) referred to the 

calling of a National Commission for the Social 

Studies as an ―once-in-a-lifetime opportunity‖ 

and likened it to the appearance of Halley‘s 

Comet since ―national commissions on the social 

studies may appear only once every 70 years or 

so‖ (p. 195; p. 196). Link‘s determinative role in 

this period explains McNeill‘s active involvement 

not only in AHA matters, but also in the use of 

his celebrity as the ―Father of World History‖ to 

write a spirited defense of the study of history as 

well as serving in advisory roles to the National 

Commission and the Bradley Commission. The 

partnership of Link and McNeill led to traditional 

and to world history supplanting the social studies 

once again.  

William McNeill is perhaps most 

responsible for laying the foundation for modern 

world history studies by creating modules in 

Western Civilization at the University of Chicago 

in the mid-twentieth century. McNeill, like many 

of the individuals considered here, was influenced 

both by his father, who was a theologian and an 

historian, and by his teachers in high school and 

in college. Learning about ancient and medieval 

history in high school and later anthropology in 



 41 

college changed McNeill‘s conceptualization of 

history and it was here, he later observed, that he 

began to see history through a much larger, global 

lens. It was not until McNeill chanced upon 

Toynbee‘s monumental twelve-volume work, A 

Study of History (1934-61), that he began to 

devote his scholarship to world history. He began 

to seriously consider writing his own world 

history survey following his invitation to 

Chatham House by Toynbee himself. The 

distinctive difference was not only in the study‘s 

aim to publicize a new world history but also in a 

digestible single- rather than multi-volume 

format. This magisterial work would come to be 

known as The Rise of the West (1964) and won 

the National Book Award (Goodier, 2010).  

 McNeill was known for pursuing 

historical studies in unconventional ways and did 

not believe archival work was the only 

worthwhile endeavor. Indeed, McNeill‘s son, the 

historian John McNeill of Georgetown 

University, attributed his father‘s war-time 

experiences as the guiding force that changed the 

trajectory of his academic research. McNeill 

helped to legitimate other forms of academic 

research, such as oral histories and memoirs, and 

embraced complimentary disciplines to help 

construct narratives that would otherwise be 

problematic. McNeill‘s contributions are still 

widely disseminated today (Goodier, 2010).  

 William McNeill has been praised as a 

pioneer in the field of world history and wrote an 

award-winning book, The Rise of the West (1963) 

that was widely used as a college textbook. Still, 

his mission was not only to foster historical 

scholarship but also to promote the field of world 

history through a scholarship for promising 

educationists in secondary and tertiary education; 

this extant scholarship was named in his honor 

and is sponsored by the World History 

Association. Though written over fifty years ago, 

The Rise of the West (1964) is still cited as one of 

a handful of definitive works in world history 

and, in 2009, McNeill was honored with the 

National Humanities Medal.  

More than five decades later, William 

McNeill (1985) revived Becker‘s call to 

historians to make history accessible and 

meaningful for students and for the general 

public. In his article ―Why Study History?‖ he 

observed: ―the study of history is indeed 

worthwhile and necessary for the education of 

effective citizens and worthy human beings. As 

such it can both make us wiser in our public 

choices and more richly human in our private 

lives‖ (McNeill, 1985, para. 1). History, he 

argued, is the intellectual inheritance of humanity 

writ large. ―Only an acquaintance with the entire 

human adventure on earth,‖ McNeill argued, 

―allows us to understand these dimensions of 

contemporary reality‖ (para. 4). 

 McNeill‘s revitalizing essay was the result 

of a commission from the AHA who believed, as 

much as Becker did in 1931, that history was 

becoming marginalized not only from society but 

from public education and schooling. McNeill 

articulated a vision for history that emphasized its 

practical application to everyday life. Further, he 

argued that the challenges of everyday life 

demanded that history relates to the challenges 

faced by the public at large. 

 History, McNeill (1985) explained, had 

three aspects: a) public/local history; b) national 

history; and, c) global history. The discipline thus 

played a seminal role in cultivating local, but also 

global, citizenship. In a world shaped by 

internationalization, open markets, and 

information access, history had a humanizing role 

to play. At the core of the vision is a demand of 

self-knowledge. This was precipitated on a 

sensitive study of one‘s relationship to others and 

one‘s context. 



 42 

Studying alien religious beliefs, strange 

customs, diverse family patters and 

vanished social structures shows how 

differently various human groups have 

tried to cope with the world around 

them. Broadening our humanity and 

extending our sensibilities by 

recognizing sameness and difference 

throughout the recorded past is therefore 

an important reason for studying history, 

and especially the history of people far 

away and long ago. For we can only 

know ourselves by knowing how we 

resemble and how we differ from others. 

Acquaintance with the human past is the 

only way to such self knowledge (Level 

III: Global History section, para. 2-3). 

 

Peter Stearns “Why Study History?” (1998) 

Peter Stearns, a prolific author who has 

served as the Chair of the Advanced Placement 

World History committee, collaborated with a 

community of scholars in the late 1990s which 

produced a ground-breaking collection of essays 

titled Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History: 

National and International Perspectives (2000). 

This work was co-edited with Peter Seixas and 

Sam Wineburg, leaders in history education in 

Canada and the United States, respectively. In 

recognition of his abilities as both a scholar and 

teacher, Stearns was invited to present a lecture 

series sponsored by The Teaching Company on 

―A Brief History of the World,‖ selected from the 

top 1% of university professors in the United 

States.  

In a complementary article commissioned 

by the AHA, Stearns (1998) argued for a 

―bottom-up‖ approach to the study of history. His 

tone is similar to that of Becker‘s (1932) and 

McNeill‘s (1985). He takes a practical and 

utilitarian approach, arguing that the discipline of 

history holds the potential to unravel many of 

life‘s most pressing problems. While Becker 

challenged his contemporaries to make history 

accessible to a popular audience to avoid 

annihilation or obsolescence, Stearns took a 

different approach; he argued that historical 

thinking served to meet the complexities of a new 

and modern age: ―This, fundamentally, is why we 

cannot stay away from history: it offers the only 

extensive evidential base for the contemplation 

and analysis of how societies function, and people 

need to have some sense of how societies function 

simply to run their own lives‖ (Stearns, 1998, 

emphases added). 

 Stearns‘ address touched upon various 

subject, including the ―Importance of History in 

Our Own Lives,‖ ―History Contributes to Moral 

Understanding,‖ ―History Provides Identity,‖ 

―Studying History is Essential for Good 

Citizenship‖ and ―History is Useful in the World 

of Work.‖  He itemized numerous skills that the 

study of history helped to cultivate, which were 

useful in the lives of every citizen, including: the 

ability to assess and to interpret evidence, 

conflicting interpretations, and historical 

continuity. The articulation of these basic 

competencies was conspicuously absent from 

previous AHR publications. Stearns‘ eloquent 

defense of history illuminated the potentiality of 

history for considering the past but also for living 

thoughtfully in a world that was incessantly 

evolving. ―Historical study,‖ he argued, 

―contributes to our capacity to use evidence, 

assess interpretations, and analyze change and 

continuities. No one can ever quite deal with the 

present as a historian deals with the past—we 

lack the perspective for this feat; but we can move 

in this direction by applying historical habits of 

mind, and we will function as better citizens in 

the process‖ (Stearns, 1998, 7.5; 8.2). For Stearns, 



 43 

history amounts to a ―laboratory of human 

experience‖ (8.2). 

 Becker (1932), McNeill (1985), and 

Stearns (1998) were concerned about the state of 

affairs in the history academy as well as its apathy 

and disconnect of the public good. Their calls to 

action garnered momentum in the mid-1990s 

when an abundant corpus of literature relating to 

the teaching of history and social studies 

education blossomed (cf. Stearns, Seixas, and 

Wineburg, 2000).  

Making Sense of the Future: The 21
st
 Century 

James Sheehan “How do we learn from 

History?” (2005)  

James Sheehan is Emeritus Professor of 

modern European history at Stanford University. 

Sheehan has had a distinguished career as a 

teacher and a scholar. Sheehan wrote Museums in 

the German Art World: From the End of the Old 

Regime to the Rise of Modernism (2000) and 

Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?: The 

Transformation of Modern Europe (2008). 

Sheehan‘s service to the profession includes 

being an editorial board member to several 

prestigious journals, a member of the Institute for 

Advanced Study at Princeton University, and a 

corresponding fellow of the Royal Historical 

Society. Professional accolades include several 

celebrated fellowships, including a National 

Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim 

fellowship. Sheehan‘s academic excellence has 

not been reserved to scholarship; he has won 

numerous teaching awards from several 

universities. 

James Sheehan was president of the AHA 

in 2005 and he wrote a short address titled ―How 

Do We Learn From History?‖ His address 

dovetails with others, noted above, particularly 

the contributions of Becker (1932), McNeill 

(1985), and Stearns (1998). While advocating the 

value and merit of the study of history, Sheehan 

(2005) outlined its significance in making 

strategic and political decisions that affect polity 

at the national level. His two examples are 

noteworthy – the occupation of Germany in 1945 

as a historical pretext for the occupation of Iraq in 

2003 and the ―Munich analogy‖ of appeasement 

against Hitler in 1938 and Saddam Hussein in the 

early 2000s. In both cases, history was 

misappropriated in order to suit preconceived 

notions and to manipulate a sensitive and 

emotional citizenry. The problem, Sheehan 

explained, is not that the comparisons were made 

but in how they were made and for what 

immediate purposes. These claims and 

comparisons needed to be ―tested‖ in order to 

discern their applicability (Sheehan, 2005, para. 

7). Historians, Sheehan continued, "do not need to 

be persuaded that studying history is worthwhile." 

(Sheehan, 2005, para. 1).For others, the purposes 

of history should be more explicit and related to 

the broader aims of a state‘s citizenry. This 

involves the cultivation of historical 

consciousness and knowledge in students; this 

aim is implicated in the aim of developing civic-

mindedness. 

The AHA presidential addresses noted 

share a conviction that historical consciousness 

equips students to confront the challenges and 

demands of an ever-evolving world. It is 

characterized as is an indispensable part of a 

worldview oriented towards civic engagement; no 

citizen can escape the grip of history:  

We constantly tell stories about the past 

to our students, friends, children—and to 

ourselves—stories that are supposed to 

convey moral and practical lessons about 

how to behave . . . and, of course, 

historical lessons are a part of every 

political discussion and debate. Again 

and again, our political leaders use the 



 44 

past to warn, admonish, and inspire the 

public; to criticize their opponents; and 

to justify their own policies (para. 3). 

Sheehan acknowledged that we inhabit an 

increasingly complex world, while he 

testified that history was an essential tool 

that could enable citizens to decipher this 

world‘s complexities. These include 

increasingly interconnected work contexts, 

rapidly changing technologies, and 24/7 

news networks that permeate every corner of 

society. Such complexities stand as tides and 

waves; being able to navigate the rough 

waters of civic life, we argue, is essential. 

History serves as a rudder in the storm for 

students cast upon a sea that is always in 

flux. Applying historical thinking skills to 

contemporary life is crucial in determining 

what is the correct course of action, whether 

in small matters or in the polling booth: 

―What we learn from history,‖ Sheehan 

(2005) cautioned ―depends entirely on how 

we do it‖ (para. 8). Sheehan thus attends to 

history education and to the teaching and 

learning of history as a seminal aspect of its 

health and vitality in the public sphere. 

William Cronon and Storytelling 

William Cronon came to prominence 

when he published his award-winning book, 

Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West 

(1991). His influence upon environmental history 

and the American West can be felt in history 

classrooms today, as his book is required reading 

across various educational contexts. Cronon has 

had an unwavering commitment to mentoring a 

new generation of future historians and scholars 

and has been an advocate for public history 

outreach and conservation.  

In 2012, William Cronon offered one of 

the most authoritative presidential addresses in 

the AHA‘s history; his aim was to draw the 

academy‘s attention to a number of pressing 

concerns, which included, primarily, the survival 

of history in a postmodern age. Cronon noted that 

only ―a small handful explore the role of history 

in public life, and a still smaller handful (the 

fingers on one hand are probably sufficient to 

count them) discuss the teaching of history‖ 

(Cronon, 2013, p. 2). His presidential address 

took the form of a ―meditation‖ on the current 

state of the field and its future (p. 3).  

Cronon pulled no punches: ―I feel even 

more strongly that the discipline as a whole is 

facing greater threats and challenges than at any 

time in the past half-century . . . public support 

and funding for history . . . are in decline‖ (p. 3). 

The greatest threat to history and to education in a 

broader sense, he argued, is a consequence of its 

encounter with the digital age. Cronon lamented 

the fact that cultural literacy is on the decline; 

students, he argued ―no longer read books for 

pleasure‖ (p. 4). He continued:  ―Where texts and 

tweets and Facebook postings have become the 

dominant forms of communication, reading itself 

is more at risk than many of us realize‖ (p. 4). 

Search engines such as Google have transformed 

the ways that students of history search for and 

interact with knowledge and evidence: ―If a piece 

of information cannot be Googled, it effectively 

does not exist for them‖ (p. 4). Cronon summed 

the problem facing 21
st
 century historians and 

their institution as the following: 

In a distracted world where even 

undergraduates at top universities are 

increasingly challenged to read the kinds 

of books we have traditionally written, 

and at a moment when there seems to be 

widespread public doubt about whether 

to continue supporting the study of the 

past as this organization has traditionally 



 45 

understood that activity, what is the 

future of history? (p. 5). 

The historian‘s future, Cronon suggested, depends 

on a solution that is both simple and complex:  

storytelling. The story of history, how it is 

written, and how it is communicated has 

gradually shifted away from the general public 

and toward the heart of the history academy. This 

epistemological ―shift‖ has inadvertently isolated 

history from its lifeblood – the common person – 

resulting in historians ―adopt[ing] vocabularies 

and ways of speaking that have the effect of 

excluding outsiders who do not belong to that 

profession‖ (p. 6). Not only has this ―shift‖ 

alienated its greatest potential audience, but it has 

also forgotten its fundamental purpose: ―to pass 

that love [of history] on to others who do not yet 

share it. Nothing we do is more important.‖ (p. 6). 

In order to redress the balance, historians must 

make the effort to popularize history. ―It is our 

job, not theirs,‖ Cronon chides his colleagues in 

the academy, ―to persuade them of its importance 

and teach them its fascinations. Other 

professionals can perhaps afford to be boring, but 

not us‖ (p. 7). 

 Popular venues for storytelling include 

notable books and films that connect the public 

with historical themes and personalities but one of 

the most basic, yet often underrated, venues is the 

classroom. A substantial portion of Cronon‘s 

(2013) presidential address is devoted to his 

undergraduate mentor Richard Ringler, who is 

remembered as a compelling teller of stories. 

Cronon admits that he was left ―under the spell of 

this teacher‖ (p. 16). The classroom, Cronon 

continued, offers the opportunity to reconnect 

students with history in a forum that can engage 

them deeply: ―We just need to keep looking for 

the best and most engaging ways to tell our 

stories, and to remember always to be on guard 

against boredom‖ (p. 16).  

Teaching is not restricted to the physical 

classroom; in fact, the public outside the 

classroom itself is the perfect laboratory for 

teaching and storytelling. In a routine visit to 

Ringler‘s office, Cronon learned testified that he 

learned the most important lesson that his mentor 

had to teach him:  academics are fallible, finite 

human beings. When Ringler pondered what 

Cronon believed to be a trivial question, Cronon 

was astounded when Ringler matter-of-factly 

said, ―I don‘t know‖ (p. 17). Intrigued by the 

question Cronon posed, they worked side-by-side 

for the next half hour searching for answers. For 

Cronon, he recalled, this was a life-changing 

experience: 

I do not remember what that question 

was. I do not even remember whether we 

actually answered it. What I do 

remember was that Dick Ringler—whom 

I regarded as the most brilliant and 

learned teacher I had ever known—had 

responded to a casual undergraduate 

question by saying ‗I don‘t know.‘  He 

had then taken that question seriously 

enough to spend half an hour in my 

company puzzling through the process of 

figuring out what its answer might be. I 

will never forget that moment as long as 

I live (Cronon, 2013, pp.17-18). 

Cronon noted that there were many morals to the 

story he was recounting yet one of the utmost 

significance was that the classroom is ―where we 

can show our students—and, by extension, our 

non-professional readers and ourselves—the 

larger meanings of our work‖ (p. 18). Ultimately, 

as noted above, history‘s relationship to the 

public good must be meaningfully communicated 

to students. The alternative can be alienating. 

Echoing Carl Becker‘s 1931, address, Cronon 

observed: ―Our ultimate responsibility is to living 

history, which withers into professional boredom 



 46 

if we speak only with each other or with our 

graduate students. The digital revolution has 

created endless opportunities‖ (Cronon, 2013, p. 

18). Yet, he continued, these opportunities – 

exemplified by blogs, websites, social media, and 

online video – will only be memorable when 

conveyed with care and with passion. 

 

Kenneth Pomeranz and the Future of History 

 Kenneth Pomeranz‘ book, The Great 

Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of 

the Modern Economy (2000), won numerous 

awards and suggested that the Industrial 

Revolution could have just of easily occurred in 

China as it did in Great Britain. In short, it 

reconceptualized the way economic historians 

view China and its place in the early modern 

period. Like the other addresses examined here, 

Pomeranz relates history to his personal 

experience, but his thoughts stand out for the 

concentration on his own education and his 

motivations to encourage historical thinking 

(Laichas, 2007). 

Pomeranz, Cronon‘s successor as 

president of the AHA, persisted with a cautionary 

tone. His focus was not narrowly defined to the 

United States; the relationship between history 

and civic mindedness was a global concern. His 

address, titled ―Histories for a less National Age‖ 

recognized the achievement and endurance of 

national histories; these narratives, he argued, 

come with a price, as they ―include powerful 

political pressures to focus education more 

narrowly on what will supposedly yield 

immediate economic returns, rather than on 

nurturing knowledge and habits of thought 

relevant to the reflective citizen or individual‖ 

(Pomeranz, 2014, p. 3). For Pomeranz, who cited 

research by Rosenzweig and Thelen (1998), the 

growing divide between the present and the past 

is in part due to the disconnect that average 

people feel with their own national histories. 

Pomeranz contended that what was missing was a 

clear sense of individual citizens‘ historical 

consciousness, or, their sense that they are 

connected to and included in the national 

narratives that are told. Histories that are more 

international and global with respect to 

perspectives and warrants have the potential to be 

more inclusive. Such histories would entail 

confrontation between and reconciliation of 

several national narratives, each of which is 

necessarily biased and perspectival (Pearcy, 2011; 

2013; 2014). Pomeranz‘s quest for an ―inclusive‖ 

and ―coherent‖ history supersedes his loyalty to a 

national history that does not adequately define or 

encompass a diverse population‘s corporate and 

individual identity (Pomeranz, 2014, p. 11).  

 History, he continued, is a ―public 

service‖ that is unlike any other discipline other 

than literature that a diverse student population 

―can turn to for nationally based courses (p. 12). 

The principal purpose of history education is 

―preparedness for citizenship‖ (p. 13). Using 

language that permeates rhetoric descriptive of 

the 21
st
 century, Pomeranz defined this as an age 

of globalization, a world that is qualitatively quite 

different from the world experienced in previous 

generations, and a world that requires of its 

citizens constant and quick adaptation. History 

education that does not help students to 

understand, to frame, and to act within this 

context of dynamic change fails to perform its 

most basic yet essential function: 

If globalization has an implication for us 

as civic educators, it is not simply that 

‗once upon a time, history made national 

citizens; now it must make world 

citizens.‘ Identities are multiple, and 

often mutually reinforcing rather than 

competitive; so, too, are the contexts for 



 47 

public action. As David Hollinger put it, 

in a slightly different context, we also 

have obligations to ‗a public smaller than 

the species‘ (Pomeranz, 2014, pp. 13-

14). 

Pomeranz, like Cronon, saw history as a lens for 

not only communicating the past but also for 

sharpening transferable skills to students for 

lifelong use. Historical consciousness is, in many 

respects, a second order skill, which depends on 

facility with reading, writing, and a general 

inclination towards critical thought. These skills 

are essential for analyzing and interpreting not 

only the past but also the present. Together, the 

application of first and second order skills is 

integral aspects of civic mindedness: 

These are important tools for students to 

hone; they provide leverage on vital 

intellectual questions about structure, 

agency, and about possibilities for 

empathetic understanding of experiences 

remote from our own. But they are also 

highly practical skills that give students 

leverage on questions they might well 

confront in non-academic careers. This is 

not, of course, the only way history can 

matter, but it is one that should find 

ready takers,  while actually moving 

our pedagogy closer to what we often, all 

too revealingly, call ‗our  own work‘‖ 

(p. 21). 

History, in sum, serves a purpose in helping the 

polity understand the present, as well as the past. 

As the presidents of the AHA persistently 

acknowledged, history is not an antiquarian 

pursuit for the few but a necessity for the many. 

History‘s necessity is amplified the by 

complexities of life in the 21
st
 Century. How 

might we use history and for what purpose? ―Our 

discipline,‖ Pomeranz argued, ―has a rather 

unusual relationship to time, space, and place, and 

we live in a moment when many people wonder 

which pasts, if any, one must engage with in order 

to navigate something called ‗today‘s world‘‖ 

(pp. 21-22).  

His response, while prescient, is not 

particularly novel. More than a century earlier, 

Captain John Paul Jones, writing to his friend the 

Marquis de Lafayette after the Revolutionary war 

in 1780 noted:  ―Here follows my political 

profession. I am a citizen of the world, totally 

unfettered by the little mean distinctions of 

country or of climate, which diminish or set 

bounds to the benevolence of the heart‖ (Mahan, 

1898). Pomeranz might agree; national histories 

have served their purpose and are anachronistic in 

the present age, where imagined boundaries no 

longer divide. Histories are radically different in 

content, scope, and shape; a greater meta-world 

narrative whose sole focus is the human story. 

History’s Response in the Schools 

 ―The goal of public education,‖ Feinberg 

(2012) argued, ―is to renew a public by providing 

the young with the skills, dispositions, and 

perspectives required to engage with strangers 

about their shared interests and common fate and 

to contribute to shaping it‖ (p. 19). The act of 

renewal described by Feinberg is the desired 

outcome of studying history. Revitalizing and 

replenishing an apathetic public is achievable 

through history but challenges in and outside the 

classroom persist. 

Signature Pedagogies 

 What is a signature pedagogy?  Shulman 

(2005) described them as, ―characteristic forms of 

teaching [and learning] . . . that organize the 

fundamental ways in which future practitioners 

are educated for their new professions‖ (p. 52). 

―In these signature pedagogies,‖ Shulman 

observed, ―novices are instructed in critical 

aspects of the three fundamental dimensions of 



 48 

professional work – to think, to perform, and to 

act with integrity‖ (p. 52). Proficiency, like 

learning, is achieved gradually over time where 

students are allowed to learn the fundamentals 

while exploring and creating a usable past that 

fills an immediate need in the present. History 

anchored in the past has little value for the 

present; extrapolating meaning and value from 

the past for use in the present is when history 

fulfills its true purpose and teleological function. 

Learning history, much like Shulman‘s model, is 

a procedural process: beginning in elementary 

school and building upon that knowledge in 

secondary and higher institutions of education 

facilitate a maturation process that enables 

students to enter civic society as contributors 

rather than bystanders. ―One thing is clear,‖ 

Shulman concluded, ―signature pedagogies make 

a difference. They form habits of the mind, habits 

of the heart, and habits of the hand‖ (p. 59).  

 One notable example of a signature 

pedagogy in history that has gained traction is 

Calder‘s (2006) ―Uncoverage‖ model, which 

seeks to place the student, not the curriculum, at 

the center. Though a departure from the 

traditional history curriculum that stressed and 

tested for general historical knowledge, Calder‘s 

model, instead, focused on bridging historical 

knowledge with historical thinking. Calder 

advocated for selected sampling – the 

―uncovering‖ of specific events, figures, and 

forces – rather than rushing to ―cover‖ the whole 

textbook. While many applauded Calder‘s 

suggestion, others were less than enthusiastic 

about rethinking the way history was taught in the 

classroom (Pace, 2004; 2011). It was, perhaps, 

easier for newer faculty to adapt to the 

paradigmatic shift demanded by a new approach 

to history education that demanded a degree of 

sensitivity toward learners displaying myriad 

learning pathways. 

Teaching American History Grant Program 

 The Teaching American History grant 

program, funded by the federal government via 

the Department of Education since 2000, was an 

initiative to reinvigorate professional practice by 

focusing on professional development of teachers. 

Specifically, this program connected interested 

public school history teachers with history 

professors to increase their subject-matter 

knowledge, acquire greater content knowledge, 

and learn new pedagogical skillsets to create a 

more dynamic learning environment. But, some 

scholars have been skeptical of the Teaching 

American History grant program‘s altruistic 

mission, which is simply a veiled attempt at 

discrediting the social studies and consolidating 

political clout through the agency of the National 

Council for History Education (Singer, 2005, p. 

200). The push toward ―traditional‖ American 

history is visibly present after 2003 but has this 

reorientation negatively affected the professional 

development of teachers and student 

achievement? 

However, an unintended benefit, argued 

De La Paz, Malkus, Monte-Sano, and Montanaro 

(2011), emerged where ―historians changed in 

their perspective of how they interacted with and 

supported teachers, and teachers gained a much 

deeper appreciation for teaching about historical 

information as well as an understanding of how to 

situate and analyze historical sources‖ (p. 495). 

De La Paz et al. (2011) studied the effects of one 

such TAH grant and examined its efficacy in 

terms of student outcomes (e.g., writing responses 

to document-based questions). The authors found 

that a ―reasonable‖ amount of professional 

development can have a significant effect on 

student outcomes as teachers become more 

familiar with primary source material and their 

instructional value in the classroom. How much 

professional development is necessary?  The 



 49 

authors found that 30 or more hours of 

professional development over the span of 6-12 

months was optimal; in cases where teachers 

engaged in less than 12 hours per year, there was 

no significant effect on student outcomes (pp. 

520-521). The authors made four 

recommendations for future consideration in 

TAH-directed programs: 1) the analysis of  

primary source material in classrooms; 2) 

acquisition of historical content/knowledge; 3) 

professional development opportunities with 

academics/historians; and 4) instructional support 

implementing new lessons and the like (pp. 521-

522). The Teaching American History initiative 

has served as a medium of professional 

development for public school teachers and, as 

evidenced by De La Paz et al.‘s study, it has 

positively affected on student outcomes, 

The Problem of Textbooks in History 

 The ―textbook problem‖ is not new to 

history or the social studies. The first national 

controversy erupted over the Rugg textbook in the 

1930s because of its alleged unpatriotic and 

politically charged content presentation (Evans, 

2006). However, the content of textbooks has 

remained little unchanged since Rugg‘s bold 

attempt to introduce a radical new textbook that 

used ―lively and engaging‖ text accentuated by 

the ―frequent use of photos, drawings, and 

cartoons‖ to capture the attention and imagination 

of students (p. 16). Proponents of the status quo 

quickly attacked Rugg‘s vision and his novel 

ideas were dismissed and forgotten (Carbone, 

1977; Karolides, 2006). The textbook-centered 

curriculum, however, has persisted in spite of its 

problematic nature.  

The teacher recitation method of 

instruction, a favorite of history teachers and 

professors, is dominated by the textbook 

(Mehlinger, 1988; Wineburg, 2001). The 

following excerpt is Mehlinger‘s (1988) 

understanding of the recitation method in action:  

Teacher assigns reading from a textbook; 

students complete the reading; teacher 

poses questions to determine if students 

understood the reading assignment. 

Some teachers ask their students to write 

answer to questions that cover the 

reading; some teachers intersperse the 

recitation with anecdotes and 

information that extend the textbook 

treatment; occasionally issues are framed 

that provoke lively discussion. But 

nearly everywhere it is the same: 

directed discussion is the method for 

teaching social studies. It is not 

surprising that social studies is among 

the most boring subjects for students. (p. 

204). 

Furthermore, this method, Mehlinger observed, is 

the ―easiest way to teach‖ and ―textbooks support 

[these] practices‖ (p. 204). The problem lies in 

that history and social studies instruction has 

changed relatively little since the introduction of 

the history textbook; though scholars have drawn 

attention to the glaring factual errors and 

omissions present in textbooks, not to mention the 

political and national biases in their narratives, 

the nature of textbooks remains the same 

(Altbach, Kelly, Petrie, & Weis, 1991; Anyon, 

1979; Apple 1995; Apple, 2000; Apple, 2004; 

Cherryholmes, 1988; Foster, 2011; Foster & 

Howson, 2010; Paxton, 2002; Moreau, 2004; 

Zimmerman, 2002). This is a disturbing trend as 

though scholars have been critical of the 

textbook, its popularity and resilience are 

indisputable 

Paxton (2002) argued that students ought 

to be at the heart of the curriculum and, 

consequently, textbooks, which were valuable 

curricular tools, need to evolve in order to meet 



 50 

the needs of modern classrooms. The problem 

with textbooks, he argued, is that they are written 

in a peculiar ―vernacular‖ that ―is instantly 

recognizable to anyone whose youth was spent 

laboring within the walls of a public high school 

in the United States. This mode of writing has 

earned its own ignominious label: textbookese‖ 

(p. 198). Because of their intrinsic value, 

textbooks should abandon the voice of the 

―omniscient author‖ and insert a ―visible author‖ 

who expresses ―his or her point of view or 

personal beliefs about the content under 

discussion‖ (p. 198). This is an important step, 

Paxton argued, to kindle a mental conversation or 

dialogue between student and textbook (cf. 

Reisman, 2012a; Reisman, 2012b; Reisman, 

2014).  

Until the orientation of textbooks change, 

students will continue to be disengaged from 

learning history because textbooks ―are the best-

known historical text‖ and ―serve a number of 

important roles in history classrooms . . . 

substantially influencing curricula‖ (p. 198). As 

noted above, Wineburg (2001) revealed that the 

vast majority of college students implicitly trusted 

the content of textbooks. This is a problem that 

should be garnering more attention and scrutiny; 

Paxton (2002) found that ―through their choice of 

rhetoric, not to mention their sheer size and 

weight, history textbooks exude authority. By the 

time students reach high school, they know well 

the apparently sagacious voice of history 

textbooks, and they place their trust in it‖ (p. 

233). As Wineburg, Paxton, and colleagues have 

argued, textbooks are a powerful curricular tool 

that not only affects classroom instruction, but 

also the attitudes, beliefs, and conceptions of 

impressionable students. In an extensive review 

of conciliatory and critical traditions within 

textbook analysis research, Foster (2011) 

concluded: 

 

Textbooks are seen as powerful 

instruments with which to present a 

particular version of the nation‘s past. At 

the heart of all critical research is the 

fundamental realization that all 

textbooks offer a selected version of the 

past. No books offer neutral knowledge. 

No textbook offers content that is 

objective and value-free. The authors of 

history textbooks deliberately include 

some information and exclude others. 

Very often these choices are made for 

ideological reasons and typically they 

reflect the values, beliefs, and attitudes 

of powerful groups with long traditions 

of dominance in society. As a result, 

therefore, textbooks have long been a 

major site for the construction and 

contestation of national, regional, and 

international identities and are, 

understandably, the constant subject of 

critical study by international scholars. 

(pp. 13-14).  

 

Though scholars have been critical in their 

appraisals of history textbooks, discernible 

progress toward eliminating these deficiencies 

from history textbooks has been excruciatingly 

slow (Williams, 2014). As the primary curricular 

agent, the textbook shapes students‘ 

understanding of the past in profound ways. The 

Rugg textbook, perhaps, might be just what is 

needed to revitalize history instruction as well as 

a narrative that is crisp and engaging and free of 

errors and outdated information. 

There have been several defenses of the 

study of world history, popularized by such 

luminaries as William McNeill (1985) and Peter 

Stearns (1998) on behalf of the American 

Historical Association, but Jerry Bentley‘s Why 

Study World History? (2007), argued forcefully 



 51 

for reestablishing both world history‘s 

prominence as a discipline and as a school 

subject: 

 

Of all the fields of scholarship, world 

history offers the deepest and richest 

understanding of the world and its 

development through time, it has 

excellent potential to promote 

constructive engagement with that which 

is different, and it has strong potential as 

well to foster the development of good 

judgment, with the possibility that good 

judgment will transmute in some cases 

into genuine wisdom about the 

fundamental issues confronting the 

contemporary world [emphasis added]. 

(para. 31). 

 

For Bentley, the study of world history, and 

national history through a world-historical lens, 

was essential, a necessity for sober-minded 

individuals in a postmodern age. ―World history,‖ 

Bentley concluded, ―is one of the big intellectual 

issues of our times‖ (para. 2). Thus, history is 

framed as a means of helping the public to 

understand the world beyond the nation state and 

one‘s particular place within a larger narrative. 

This marks a subtle shift from a national to an 

international perspective. While the presidential 

addresses were originally concerned with U.S. 

history and the role that it played in the public 

sphere, the addresses took an increasingly world-

historical outlook and reflected on the realities of 

the 21
st
 century for a global citizenry. 

Conclusions 

 The AHA presidents profiled in this 

article attended to the role that history plays in a 

changing society. In the public sphere, the 

discipline has been challenged to demonstrate its 

value to the lives of citizens and to concentrate on 

why the past is important to the present. This 

involves a paradigmatic shift from pure academic 

history to scholarship that is committed to the 

public good. How, in other words, can history be 

inclusive?  

The cognitive learning models discussed 

in this article are relatively new in history and 

social studies education but the success enjoyed 

in related cognate fields is encouraging. Effective 

history education can help students of history and 

the public at large to think of the discipline 

beyond the confines of classroom and textbooks. 

As Barzun (1991) noted: ―The truth is, when all is 

said and done, one does not teach a subject, one 

teaches a student how to learn it‖ (p. 35). 

Engaging students and the public alike in 

historical debate and dialogue are means of 

exercising the virtues of historical practice and 

thinking. The late medievalist Norman Cantor 

wrote a popular survey of medieval history that is 

still used in undergraduate classrooms today. A 

believer in popular history, Cantor (1967) wrote 

that the student of history ―should be awakened to 

a deeper understanding of both himself and 

society; that excellence in historical study should 

be claimed by the student as a right that opens the 

door to an endless world of discovery and 

meaning‖ (p. 6). What is clear is that history‘s 

purposes and functions have been and will remain 

contentious. Yet a persistent concern within the 

AHA, as is made evident by its presidential 

addresses, is that history is inextricably linked to 

the public and to the public good. History, at its 

best, is an interactive, communal activity that 

facilitates reflection on what it means to be 

human in place and time; at its worst, it is an 

isolated and exclusive activity participated in by 

only a few.  

 

 



 52 

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