Then and Now
In a corridor at the AHA townhouse hangs this panoramic photograph of the “Founders Dinner,” which took place at the 1934 annual meeting, to celebrate the Association’s 50th anniversary. Waldo Gifford Leland (center dais table, behind bouquet), former executive secretary of the AHA, was “toastmaster” of the banquet. Of the 41 founders present in 1884, 5 were alive in 1934, but only 2 were able to attend the dinner: to Leland’s right is Clarence Bowen, the AHA’s first treasurer; to Leland’s left is J. Franklin Jameson, founding editor of the American Historical Review. A glance at this issue will prove that the fascinating photo doesn’t mirror the annual meeting of today: a place where historians of all backgrounds and fields come together to advance our common project. Yet the image’s uncanny reflection of the past reminds us that the Association must always strive for democracy and inclusiveness.
Staff
AHA Council Approves Statement on Right to Nonviolent Political Action
The AHA Council, at its January 5, 2017, meeting, approved the following statement: The AHA upholds the rights of students,…
Getting Warmer
On January 18, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA confirmed 2016 as the hottest year on record. Just…
Historians as Expert Witnesses
In January, the US Senate gathered for confirmation hearings on the nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who was denied…
Announcing the Revised History Discipline Core
The 2016 History Discipline Core is now available on the AHA website. It represents the AHA Tuning project’s effort to…
Townhouse Notes February 2017
Each February issue of Perspectives on History is dedicated to recapping the most recent AHA annual meeting—a professional institution that’s…
How Transparent Was the Obama Administration?
Note: Portions of this column appeared in different form on the National Coalition for History’s website. With the words “My…
Joyce Appleby (1929-2016)
Joyce Oldham Appleby died peacefully in her sleep on December 23, 2016, in Taos, New Mexico. Born on April 9,…
Karl Dietrich Bracher (1922-2016)
Historian of Nazism and Totalitarianism On September 19, 2016, Karl Dietrich Bracher, a leading historian of the Nazi regime and…
Marvin R. O’Connell (1930-2016)
Historian of Catholicism The Reverend Marvin R. O’Connell, professor emeritus of history at the University of Notre Dame, died on…
Response to “Generation Past”
To the editor: Thank you for David Spear’s fascinating article on Landmark Books (“Generation Past,” October 2016). Spear identified one…
Regarding the Annual Meeting
Editor’s note: The following letter was received in January 2016, shortly after the AHA’s annual meeting in Atlanta. To the…
AHA Member Spotlight: Lilian Calles Barger
Lilian Calles Barger is an independent scholar. She lives in Taos, New Mexico, and has been a member since 2008. …
The Paradoxes of Presidential Power: A Brief History of Executive Orders
We’ve all seen the photo ops over the past few weeks: President Donald J. Trump sitting at his desk in…
Using Charters to Teach Medieval History
The lowly charter. It lives in infamy, perhaps because charters—written records that cemented a variety of agreements about sales, leases,…
AHA Member Spotlight: Al Camarillo
Al Camarillo is professor of history and the Leon Sloss Jr. Memorial Professor emeritus at Stanford University. He lives in…
A Digital History Fact-Finding Mission to AHA17
On a cold January day, my history department colleagues at the State University of New York at Cortland—Randi Storch and…
Reliving Injustice 75 Years Later: Executive Order 9066 Then and Now
In February 1942, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which directed state…
AHA Member Spotlight: Amina Hassan
Amina Hassan is an author and adjunct faculty member at California State University, Northridge, and has been an AHA member…
Clothes as Historical Sources: What Bloomers Reveal about the Women Who Wore Them
My interest in textiles came from my grandmother and her collection of carefully preserved family heirloom quilts. My favorite was…
Historians’ Homecoming: The Perspectives Annual Meeting Special Edition
Each year’s February issue of Perspectives tries to evoke memories of the most recent annual meeting—January 5–8 in Denver, in…
“What Transferable Skills Do I Have?” Preparing for Careers within and beyond the Academy
Second to my fervent goal of not flubbing my paper presentation, I arrived at the 2017 AHA annual meeting hoping…
AHA Member Spotlight: Robert H. Berlin
Robert H. Berlin is the executive director of the Society for Military History. He lives in Prescott, Arizona, and has…
Today’s Banned Immigrants Are No Different From Our Immigrant Ancestors
Underpinning President Donald Trump’s recent ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries is the belief that these immigrants are…
The Future of History
As the final sessions of the 2017 AHA in Denver drew to a close on Sunday, January 8, the sun…
AHA Member Spotlight: Ellen R. Feingold
Ellen R. Feingold is the curator of the National Numismatic Collection at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.…