The annual meeting of the Association looms in the near future, marking our return to New York City for the fourteenth time. This will be our first appearance in the Big Apple since 1979, in a series that began in 1896 at Columbia University. This year we will be in the brand new Marriott Marquis Hotel, and we urge all members to be charitable if we encounter teething troubles because it’s the hotel’s first three months of official activity. (Since the time the Program was printed, for example, all of the meeting rooms have lost their serial numbers and now have been christened with prestigious names—we will have conversion tables at the registration desk!)
Another caveat that should be kept in mind by all attendees, New York is expensive! Even though we have obtained very reasonable room rates, there are no discounts at the bars or in the restaurants. Members should be guided accordingly and bear in mind that there are cut-rate outlets available—Nedicks or Chock Full o’Nuts are less expensive for breakfast than a prestigious hotel dining room. In any case, we hope for a good turn-out—New York has always been our most populous annual meeting site.
The fall of the year always sees the regular, semi-annual meetings of the Association’s three major divisional committees. This year they met in a tight time frame, Research Division October 18, Teaching Division October 19, and Professional Division October 25. A considerable portion of each committee’s work is concerned with catching up on developments in areas of the committees’ continuing interests. Other matters are acted on in the form of a recommendation to the next meeting of the Council of the Association, but many questions are decided by the committees in their meetings. The three committees are the backbone of the governance of the AHA, and their activities thus are of interest to all members.
The Research Division continued its consideration of the problem of a successor to the now out-dated Guide to Historical Literature. It continues to be torn between the alternatives of (expensive) computer-based bibliography and a less comprehensive approach. Both approaches have much to be said for them—and against them. To resolve the dilemma, the Division decided to seek funding for development of a paper that will clarify issues and options. The Division also approved the preparation of a statement critical of the trend in government declassification efforts, paralleling a recent statement of the AAUP on the same subject. The Division considered again the vast problem of book preservation, deacidification, microfilming and other methods, and the awful prospects of triage that may become necessary. It decided to stay in close touch with library organizations active in this important area.
The Professional Division decided to recommend to the Council the modification of a traditional limitation on one of the AHA’s many book prizes, and the AHR editor’s choice of a candidate for a vacancy on the Review’s Board of Editors.
The Teaching Division met for the first time with an ex officio observer present from the Society for History Education. It recommended to the Council the approval of two nominees to serve on the Board of Editors of The History Teacher, a further action to develop an ever closer relationship with this important affiliate of the AHA. The Division considered with regret the inability thus far of the Association to attract the necessary funds to launch a popular magazine of history and recommended to the Council that this matter be put aside until more favorable times. It recommended to the Council the renewal of the AHA’s annual subvention of $1,000 to the National History Day organization. It discussed a draft paper on the problems of part-time, intermittent, and temporary history faculty at the post-secondary level.
The Teaching Division devoted some time to the encouraging prospects for a rejuvenated series of special pamphlets on history for the assistance of secondary school (and other) teachers of survey courses in US history. An excellent prospect exists of a major publisher adopting this series, which has been developed by general editor Eric Foner of Columbia University, under the auspices of the Division. The Division hopes that it will be possible later to parallel the US series with one on other parts of the world.
The Professional Division’s most important issue was its work on the development of a code of ethics for the profession. It devoted considerable time to reviewing drafts of parts of the proposed code relating to the problem of plagiarism, of part-time employment, and of standards for public history, all of which are in the early draft stage. The committee expects to complete revision of these sections and of other parts of the code in time to bring it to the Council for a first review in the spring of 1986, after due consultation with affiliated organizations with a special expertise on aspects of a new code. The Committee recommended to the Executive Committee of the Council (which has approved) the publication in Perspectives of one last page of correspondence from both Professor Henry Turner of Yale and Professor David Abraham of the New School for Social Research on the controversy that has engaged them and many other historians during the past year (see p. 20). Another matter of concern to the Division was early reports of activity that could be pernicious by the so-called Accuracy in Academia movement to monitor and condemn classroom statements by university and college teachers not in consonance with what the self-appointed monitors perceive as an appropriate ideological or factual basis. While it is too early to sound the tocsin, the Division will expect to answer the question quis custodiet ipsos custodes for the historical profession.
A number of other activities engaged the headquarters staff attention during the early fall. The executive director testified on behalf of the Mary McLeod Bethune Museum and Archives before a Senate committee to support an increase in National Park Service support of this important historical museum and its unique archive of black women’s history. The Association was represented at a major conference in Philadelphia on Societies in Transition focused on Italians and Italian Americans in the 1980s, which was held at the Balch Institute. That in turn, led to a discussion with a representative of our affiliate, the Society of Italian Historians, concerning enhanced relations between our two organizations. Other full staff activities included participation in a planning meeting for a world history project sponsored by The Mershon Center of Ohio State University, and a book preservation committee meeting hosted by the ACLS Office on Scholarly Communications. More news on book preservation will be coming in a later issue of Perspectives.
