The 34th annual meeting was held on December 29–31 at the Hollenden Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. AHA President William Roscoe Thayer (Harvard University) gave the presidential address, “An Historical Retrospect,” at the joint session with the American Political Science Association on Monday, December 29.
The meeting originally scheduled for 1918 was cancelled due to the flu pandemic. According to the 1918 annual report,
At the annual meeting of the American Historical Association held in Philadelphia in December, 1917, it was voted to hold the meetings for 1918 in Minneapolis, but provision was made whereby the executive council was authorized to change the place of meeting or to abandon the meeting altogether should it consider such action desirable in view of the emergency conditions created by the war. Exercising this authority the council decided, during the course of 1918, to hold the meetings for that year in Cleveland, Ohio, as at the time when the council was obliged to make its decision the speedy termination of hostilities could not be foreseen, and conditions of railroad travel were such that it seemed desirable to have the meetings as near as possible to the geographical center of the association’s membership.
An excellent program was prepared and all arrangements had been made for what promised to be a series of uncommonly successful sessions, when the recrudescence of influenza in epidemic form compelled the public health authorities of Cleveland to advise against holding the meetings. The council therefore voted to abandon the meetings, and the members of the association were notified to that effect in season to prevent serious inconvenience.
By vote of the association, passed in prevision of such an exigency, the officers elected in December, 1917, are continued in office until the next annual meeting, which is to be held in Cleveland in December, 1919.