Editor's Corner: The Organization of American Historians and Public History. A Progress

Abstract

THE 1972 ANNUAL MEETING of the Organization of American Historians (the Mississippi Valley Historical Association was renamed the OAH in 1965) was at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, a pleasant lodging on the northwest rim of Rock Creek Park. In those days there was no public history functioning under that name, but I recently pulled down the program to see if it was there in fact. Too busy in 1972 working on the Program Committee to attend many sessions and not at that time particularly attuned to history off-campus, I now find in the 1972 program a significant degree of attention to public history. The president of the National Trust was a commentator on a lead, Wednesday night session on Comparative Aspects of Historical Preservations, there was a session on and Material Culture, (Overlooked or Overrated? was the subtitle of the first paper), and a panel discussion on Non-Teaching Careers in History matched two university press executives with the Archivist of the U.S. and Bob Utley of the National Park Service. Still, all the organization's Executive Board, past presidents, and members of the Nominating and Program Committees were university professors. There was a standing Committee on Historical Sites; I certainly do not recall how it got there, or what was its charge. In those days, what we now call public history was fortunate to make even that much imprint on the annual meeting and ongoing activities of the OAH. The 1978 annual meeting program (pulled down at random) again listed all officers and major committee members as having university affiliations, and the only session remotely engaging public history practice or issues (A