For History's Sake, Associations Advance the Field

Abstract

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY (AASLH), like many history organizations, originated to address the special needs and interests of a subgroup of a larger organization, in this case, the American Historical Association (AHA). A significant challenge the AASLH and the myriad of similar organizations now face involves collaborating, or recollaborating, in order to address the needs of the field while continuing to maintain individual identities and unique membership services. The roots of the Association for State and Local History go back much further than the year 1940, when the Association wrote its constitution. The Conference of State and Local Historical Societies was organized in 1904 at the annual meeting of the AHA. As a program of AHA, the Conference brought together primarily the directors of state and local historical societies that began popping up in the late nineteenth century, but also included history faculty, archivists, librarians, and a handful of history museum directors. In 1939, the Conference began losing steam, and members of the Conference's leadership worried that the primary problem was that issues important and unique to state and local history organizations were getting lost in the larger AHA meeting. Dr. Christopher C. Crittenden, secretary of the North Carolina Historical Commission, became chair of the Conference of State and Local