The Founders and the Universities ...

by Cliopatria

In his column for US News and World Report, "Forgetting the Founding Fathers", Michael Barone notes that distinguished American historians of the Revolutionary and Early National periods at Brown, Harvard, and Yale have recently or are now retiring. Their departments have not replaced them with historians of similar interests in the founding fathers. Barone quotes Lance Banning of the University of Kentucky to the effect that diplomatic, intellectual, military, and political history in the revolutionary era have been"out of fashion" for some time and that graduate schools have even discouraged students with those interests because they are unlikely to be hired.

That is true beyond early American history, says our colleague, KC Johnson. Barone quotes him as saying:"Among public university departments with more than 10 Americanists, only three (Ohio State, Virginia and Alabama) contain a majority of U.S. history faculty with research interests in American politics, foreign policy, legal institutions, or the military." Using KC's data, Barone says that"About 20 percent of the American historians on these faculties specialize in political, diplomatic, or constitutional history; and some of those approach the field from the ‘race/gender/class framework.'"

These are matters that KC, Tim Burke, and others have debated here and elsewhere. You don't have to buy into a conservative academic agenda, however, to recognize that the founding fathers and mothers have done extremely well in the book market recently, that there is very substantial public interest in these fields, and that public institutions have a peculiar responsibility to promote critical inquiry into the nation's political history. The tough reality that Barone doesn't address is that the job market for historians of any field is grim. The adjunctified academy simply has little room for or resources to nourish the new Bernard Bailyns, Edmund Morgans, and Gordon Woods. Thanks to Stephen at Big Tent for the tip.

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David Lion Salmanson - 6/9/2004

Geez, just about every kid of my generation (currently in our mid-thirties) can recite the Preamble by heart - albeit we sing it - thanks to Schoolhouse Rock. I taught the jingle to my 10th grade history class and every US textbook has the full text of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in it. What makes you think students don't know it?

The popularity of biography is due to it's clear structure. The popularity of military history has nothing to do with the merits of the particular history in question. Military history is popular for the same reason war movies are popular: there are a lot of men out there who like violence and find it entertaining. Now before you go jumping all over me about this you should know: I spent two years working on an exhibit on the Revolutionary Army for Fraunces Tavern Museum, I've TAed courses in military history and directly or indirectly worked with and been influenced by many military and diplomatic historians including John Shy and especially Brad Perkins. The reason why the leading lights of colonial history aren't being replaced with similar-style historians is that they were so damn good they didn't leave much for others to do. Are you going to get a job doing a biography of Richard Stockton or exploring the role of the coffee trade in the shaping of colonial culture? Not only would I rather work on the latter, I'd rather read the latter when it is done.

Finally, what many colonialists see as the most important book of the last 15 years or so is chock full of diplomatic and military history - it is Richard White's Middle Ground but like Morgan's and Bailyn's best work it is much more than that. White's book is not easy going, in part because so many of the actors are French and Native Americans with unfamiliar names and the place names don't register and there is not a lot of what you might call plot, but then again American Slavery American Freedom and Ideological Origins of the American Revolution weren't exactly page turners either.

Carl Patrick Burkart - 6/7/2004

Commentators bring up two points: the first that historians are missing out on marketing possibilities by ignoring political and military history, and second, that children aren't taught the wisdom of the "founding fathers" in schools.

The second point is explained by the flowering of social history of the last 30 years. If teaching is to reflect the scholarship that has been produced, this means that more time will be paid to social developments and less to memorizing writings of the framers. If history is meant to be the study of the past, rather than character education with "great men" as models, this tradeoff seems inevitable. (Perhaps political philosophy of the the men who fought to ratify the constitution would be better taught in the "government" classes that most high schools teach).

Having said that, perhaps even social historians should pay attention to public interest in political figures in military evens. In particular, biographies of "great men" (and women) can take social and cultural history into account. Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler does a good job of this. I'm told that George Rable's _Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!_ also does a good job of using the interest in the military aspects of the Civil War to point to broader issues. Eric Arnesen is also at work on a biography of A. Philip Randolph that should apeal to a broader audience than most labor historians are able to garner.

Lawrence Brooks Hughes - 6/7/2004

It is interesting how fast these books are selling, despite the dearth of information put out by college instructors.

When you take your kids to Constitution Hall or Mount Rushmore, as I have in recent years, you will observe a high percentage of foreigners at both places. Furthermore, when you talk to the foreigners, you often find they are much more at home with Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Washington, and their accomplishments, than are most of your fellow citizens.

Our public schools have, of course, dropped the torch. I think it dates to about 25 years ago, in most areas. If in doubt, ask them when they eliminated the high school requirement for memorizing the Preamble, and you will have a rough fix on when it happened where you live.

I think it's fortunate the Founding Fathers pushed such a powerful set of ideas, because it is these glorious ideas which are now satisfying the hunger of a whole generation who were shortchanged in K-12 and college.

The Founders' brew was so strong, in fact, that we can count on the Old World to rescue the New, in the event the dereliction of our teachers is not reversed.

Michael C Tinkler - 6/6/2004

It's an especial pity that academic historians will fail to earn all that LUCRE out there for military history! What two fields are more POPULAR in the literal sense of selling books via the History Book Club than Miliatry and Biography? My advisor bought his first no-previous-owner car with the proceeds of a History Book Club selection with a Fall of Rome theme. I know a former high school principal who retired early to turn out a few more Civil War books.

Oh, well - the academy's loss. Just don't whine about the sad truth that no one but research libraries wants to buy the books produced . . . . Of course, not very many English professors find much of an audience for their work about literature, either, so maybe History is just catching up.

Also, military history certainly doesn't have to be rightist. My undergraduate advisor was Ira Gruber at Rice, who writes about Revolutionary war (and other 18th/19th C) British Army stuff and he's certianly not a man of the right.