Making History: Scholarship and Professionalism in the Discipline

Robert Townsend

Advisor: Peter Stearns

Committee Members: Rosemarie Zagarri, Rosemary Jann

Johnson Center, Mtg Rm B
April 28, 2009, 08:00 PM to 07:00 PM

Abstract:

This dissertation uses the American Historical Association as a lens to study the dispersion of the historical enterprise into separate spheres of professional activity. Instead of treating “professional history” as the exclusive province of scholars producing interpretive articles and monographs, this study looks at three separate microprofessionalization projects—for scholars employed in academia (particularly at elite research universities), for those working on the tools and materials of historical research (particularly in archives and historical societies), and among history educators at the pre-collegiate level.