Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890-1970 (review)

For liberal, university-based historians looking for evidence to use in refuting the right-wing mantra of the culture wars—that the nation's campuses are dominated by left-wing thought-police eagerly indoctrinating students with political correctness, multiculturalism, and hate-America-first ideas—Historians in Public is not the answer. The book, however, does confront the lesser included offense—that academic historians know more and more about less and less; that they write in jargon decipherable only by other members of the sect; and that they are lost in poststructural and postmodern theory rather than doing their job, which is to illuminate the narrative of the human experience in ways that will enrich and inform citizens. On this charge, Tyrrell and his evidence pronounce the profession "not guilty."

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Tyrrell documents the struggle of professional historians to find ways to share their knowledge with the public. By examining the practice of history from 1890 to 1970, from the onset of self-conscious professionalism to the shattering of the profession during the unrest of the 1960s, Tyrrell is able to tell the story of early and continuing efforts to lure the public into an engagement with history; to make history useful in public-policy discussions; and to link academia to state, local, and public history organizations.

Tyrrell deduces from the official records of historical societies, contemporaneous newspapers and journals, and the papers of prominent figures that "the threat to history is a recurrent, exaggerated, and often misunderstood one and that history has adapted to and influenced its changing publics more than the profession is given credit for, though not evenly and not always in ways that are readily apparent" (2). Rather than being a full history of History, Tyrrell follows the thread of the relationship between practicing historians of the United States and the American public, whether the public appears in the guise of a mass audience or a group organized by state, local, genealogical, or patriotic institutions.

Of particular interest is Tyrrell's treatment of the profession's attempt to ensure that the teaching of history in schools is well structured and appropriate. This goal involves finding a place for history as part of "civic education," in which it must compete with the social sciences for scarce space in the social-studies curriculum. Tyrrell insists that the attacks on history in the schools have been poorly informed, wrong in assuming that the problem stems from history's professionalization and specialization, and generally overly simplistic in evaluating the politics of the school curriculum. Although never more than a minority of academic historians was ever interested in promoting history in schools, and although their success tended to ebb and flow, the effort of the profession has been constant.

Through the avalanche of information, there is a discernible narrative line in Historians in Public. "Scientific History was challenged by Progressives, who sought with some effect to reconnect with wider audiences; combat excessive specialization; apply history to the pressing social problems after 1900 through government agencies and policies; and make the teaching of history more relevant to the lives of the more democratized schools after 1920. Attempts were also made to revive state and local history and put it on a more professional and yet more 'popular' basis" (252). The result is a picture of a profession constantly debating not only the content of the history being propagated but the purposes of that history as well.

The jeremiad that Tyrrell effectively undercuts has grown more insistent since 1970, especially that aspect of it that alleges political bias. With the debate about "who we are as a nation" made more urgent by the war in Iraq, any attempt to bring Tyrrell's story...