AHA in the News

The staff and leadership of the American Historical Association are frequently quoted by the media. 

  • AHA Congressional Briefing Featured in Article on University of Minnesota Professor’s Visits to Capitol Hill (November 2023)

    Nov 22, 2023 - 

    The AHA’s October 20 Congressional Briefing on “Historical Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence” was featured in an article from the University of Minnesota about Charles Babbage Institute director Jeffrey Yost’s visits to Capitol Hill in late October. The briefing placed the current conversations and policy debates on artificial intelligence into historical context, and featured Yost alongside Janet Abbate (Virginia Tech), Matthew Connelly (Columbia Univ.), and moderator Matthew L. Jones (Princeton Univ.). A C-SPAN recording of the briefing will be available for streaming soon.

  • AHA Manager of Teaching and Learning Co-Authors Article in NCSS’s Social Education Journal (November 2023)

    Nov 20, 2023 - 

    Brendan Gillis (AHA manager of teaching and learning), Beau Dickenson (Rockingham County Public Schools), and Chris Jones (Virginia Assoc. for Curriculum Development) co-authored an article that was published in the November/December 2023 issue of Social Education, the flagship journal of the National Council for the Social Studies. In “Defending History: Educators Stand Up to Protect Virginia’s Social Studies Standards,” the authors emphasize that “[t]he story of how Virginia’s educators defended the curriculum on behalf of their students can serve as a model for teachers nationwide in the face of increased efforts to politicize history and social studies education.”

  • AHA Executive Director Quoted in Stateline Article (October 2023)

    Oct 10, 2023 - 

    The AHA’s 2021 statement requesting that the California State Legislature amend the list of exceptions to AB1887, a law that banned state-funded travel to specified states with anti-LGBTQ laws, was featured in a Stateline article by Matt Vasilogambros. The article described California’s new “Bridge Project,” which is a “public messaging campaign in conservative-leaning states designed to spread a nonpartisan message of acceptance.” The AHA had urged the state legislature to provide an academic exception for thestate-funded travel ban. “Surely we want to learn about LGBTQ+ culture and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people,” executive director Jim Grossman said. “The prohibition on using state funds for the purposes of learning was counter to the intent of the statute.”

  • Perspectives on History Article by AHA Council Member Featured in Online Magazine (October 2023)

    Oct 10, 2023 - 

    AHA Council member Sherri Sheu’s September 2023 Perspectives on History article “Johnny Horizon Environmental Test Kit” was featured in a blog post by Jennifer Sandlin for the online magazine Boing Boing. “I've been enjoying a recurring column called “Everything Has a History,” which provides the histories of everything from 20-sided die to elevator sounds to Big Mouth Billy Bass, and much more,” wrote Sandlin.

  • AHA Council Member Discusses Teaching US History with Ken Burns for TIME (September 2023)

    Sep 14, 2023 - 

    AHA Council member Katharina Matro (Walter Johnson High School) joined documentarian Ken Burns in a conversation for TIME about teaching “complete history” in K–12 schools at a time when concerns about and legislation banning or limiting “divisive concepts” still dominate classrooms in many US states. “History is about learning how people make decisions in difficult or less difficult circumstances and then deciding . . . how would I have acted, what would I have done?” Matro said. “I think we can ask that question in all kinds of circumstances, and it gives us tools for making decisions ourselves and interrogating ourselves and holding ourselves accountable. And that's what I would want students and children to take away from history education.”

  • AHA Congressional Briefing Aired on C-SPAN (September 2023)

    Sep 08, 2023 - 

    The AHA’s July 28 Congressional Briefing on immigration on the southern US border was aired on C-SPAN and is available for streaming. During the briefing, Geraldo Cadava (Northwestern Univ.), Nara Milanich (Barnard Coll., Columbia Univ.), and Mae Ngai (Columbia Univ.) presented historical perspectives on the southwestern border as the main site of controversy over immigration to the US. 

  • AHA Executive Director Publishes Miami Herald Op-Ed on New Florida Education Standards (August 2023)

    Aug 15, 2023 - 

    AHA executive director Jim Grossman has published an op-ed in the Miami Herald on the Florida Department of Education’s new African American history standards, which “miss the crucial point when it comes to American slavery: The institution was grounded in property rights, and that property was human.” Grossman wrote, “In high school, the curriculum mentions‘contributions’ 23 times (55 in the full K-12 document) without one mention of ‘white supremacy’ and only a single reference to ‘lynching.’ Students will learn about the exploits of patriotic Black soldiers without learning why none of these warriors were awarded the Medal of Honor during World War I or II. . . . [T]he remedy for discomfort is not to ignore or marginalize the lasting effects of legal, economic, social, and cultural institutions that condoned buying and selling other humans for nearly 250 years.”

  • AHA Executive Director Quoted in NBC News Article on Hillsdale College (August 2023)

    Aug 03, 2023 - 

    AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in an NBC News article by Tyler Kingkade about Hillsdale College’s growing influence as a resource for conservatives overhauling K–12 education policy. “What they’ve done is they’ve simply left stuff out in an attempt to shape a vision of patriotism,” Grossman said of Hillsdale’s “1776 Curriculum.” “What they also are trying to do is replace an approach to teaching that teaches students how to think with an approach that teaches the students what to think.”

  • AHA Executive Director Quoted in Christian Post Article on Backlash to Hillsdale Curriculum (August 2023)

    Aug 03, 2023 - 

    AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in a Christian Post article by Samantha Kamman about the backlash to Hillsdale College’s conservative “1776 Curriculum” for K–12 schools. The article also cited the AHA’s April 2023 letter to the South Dakota Board of Education expressing concerns about the state’s social studies standards, which failed to meet the AHA’s Criteria for Standards in History/Social Studies/Social Sciences after being reworked in a partisan political environment by a a retired Hillsdale professor.

  • AHA Executive Director Quoted in Washington Post Article on Tennessee K-12 Education (July 2023)

    Jul 31, 2023 - 

    AHA executive director Jim Grossman was quoted in an op-ed in the Washington Post by Greg Sargent on a lawsuit by teachers in Tennessee challenging a law restricting the teaching of race and gender. “Can I teach that in the state of Tennessee, for over a hundred years the textbooks said one race is superior to another?” Grossman asked. “It’s true. . . . All teachers choose what is important,” he said. “It is utterly impossible to teach in a situation where every decision can be questioned by an uninformed parent with the force of law behind it.”

  • AHA Communications Manager Quoted in Scientific American Article (July 2023)

    Jul 28, 2023 - 

    Alexandra Levy, AHA communications manager, was quoted in an article in Scientific American by Tom Metcalfe. Levy discussed the vast scale of the Manhattan Project and the secrecy surrounding the making of the atomic bomb, as well as J. Robert Oppenheimer’s role. “His great gift was bringing together scientists, engineers and other technicians to collaborate on and solve problems,” Levy said. 

  • AHA Sends Letter to New College of Florida Expressing Concern over History Professor’s Nonrenewal (July 2023)

    Jul 27, 2023 - 

    The AHA has sent a letter to Richard Corcoran, president of New College of Florida, expressing “deep concern about New College’s decision not to renew the contract of Erik Wallenberg, a visiting assistant professor in the Department of History.” “Our apprehension stems from evidence that Wallenberg’s contract was not renewed because of his politics and his comments about institutional governance, rather than his qualifications or job performance,” the AHA wrote. “Indiscreet tweets by a member of the college’s board of trustees raise concerns about the possibility of inappropriate governing board interference and a violation of academic freedom.”

  • AHA Executive Director Featured in ABC News Article on “1776 Ideals” Political Messaging (July 2023)

    Jul 20, 2023 - 

    AHA executive director Jim Grossman spoke with ABC News about the historical context behind Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s invocation of “1776 ideals” on the campaign trail, as well as previous conservatives candidates’ use of 1776 as a shorthand for certain values. “We have, from the very beginning, had vast disagreements of what the spirit of ‘76 is," Grossman said, noting that the contradictions around “liberty” in the founding documents have spurred debate to this day. “If you look at the early to mid-19th century, what you will see are vast debates over whether the Constitution was a pro-slavery or anti-slavery document. . . . [The documents] were written by men who grew up in a world where it was considered normal and acceptable to own, buy, and sell other people.”

  • AHA Letter to Placentia–Yorba Linda Unified School District Published in California History (July 2023)

    Jul 19, 2023 - 

    The Summer 2023 issue of California History has republished the AHA’s January 5, 2022, letter to California’s Placentia–Yorba Linda Unified School District opposing the proposed Resolution No. 21-12,“Resolution Opposing the Teaching of Critical Race Theory.” Along with the letter, California History included an introduction by AHA executive director James Grossman and the June 2021 Joint Statement on Legislative Efforts to Restrict Education about Racism in American History, issued by the AHA, the American Association of University Professors, the Association of American Colleges & Universities, and PEN America and signed onto by 155 organizations.

  • AHA Member Awarded 2023 Stuart L. Bernath Scholarly Article Prize for American Historical Review Article (June 2023)

    Jun 27, 2023 - 

    Congratulations to AHA member Emilie Connolly (Brandeis Univ.), who was awarded the 2023 Stuart L. Bernath Scholarly Article Prize for her article “Fiduciary Colonialism: Annuities and Native Dispossession in the Early United States,” which was published in the March 2022 issue of the American Historical Review. The Bernath Scholarly Article Prize is awarded annually by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations “to recognize and encourage distinguished research and writing by junior scholars in the field of diplomatic relations.”

  • American Historical Review Article Awarded 2023 Dorothy Ross Prize (June 2023)

    Jun 26, 2023 - 

    Congratulations to Gili Kliger (Harvard Univ.), whose article “Translating God on the Borders of Sovereignty” was selected as the winner of the 2023 Dorothy Ross Prize for the best article in US intellectual history by the Society for US Intellectual History. Kliger’s article was published in the September 2022 issue of the American Historical Review. 

  • AHA Director of Research and Publications Quoted in New York Times Memorial Day Article (June 2023)

    Jun 05, 2023 - 

    AHA director of research and publications Sarah Weicksel was quoted in a New York Times article by Livia Albeck-Ripka on the history of Memorial Day. Weicksel spoke about the establishment of Memorial Day on the last Monday of May as part of a larger effort to create three-day weekends, explaining, “They wanted it to be an opportunity for people to be able to gather.”

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