A Century of Local History Writing

Abstract

The historiography of local his tory is, in many ways, like the subject itself-a local phenomenon. The quantity and quality of material available will vary tremendously by community, depending on the community's conscious ness of its history, the celebration of sig nificant anniversaries, the presence of graduate programs in local or urban his tory, and the activity of local historical societies or amateur historians. Many books may be available only in the county studied, in the state's historical society library or archives, or in a major college or university library in the ' region studied. While finding sources may be more difficult, some general thoughts will help guide teachers through the material avail able in their community. There is a basic historiogra phy to the writing of local history that is well outlined in Carol Kammen's, On Doing His tory: Reflections on What Do, Why, and What It Means (Nashville: American Asso dation for State and History, 1986). Kammen's heavily annotated chapter on Local History and Historians sets out the readily identifiable major periods of writing one will find, de pending on the age of the community studied. She notes that the writing of local history began in sixteenth century England and at about the same time in France, where it grew out of interest in nobility, castles, coinage, parishes, ar morial bearings, and lineages (p. 13). Transferred to the United States, those European interests became, in the nineteenth century, wealthy businessmen and industrialists, prominent homes, churches, and lineages. histories completed after the 1840s and after the 1876 Centennial were written, almost entirely, by white men, bent on extolling the progress their communities had made in conquering the wilderness (and the Native Americans therein) and launch ing a successful community that would, with God's grace, become the next Athens or Rome. The Centennial provided a proper opportunity to celebrate the past,