Rethinking Presidential Scholarship

Abstract

1 November 1948 issue of Life magazine is a collector's item because of a picture on page thirty seven captioned, The next president of the United States travels by ferry over the broad waters of San Francisco bay. picture is of Thomas E. Dewey. Of greater significance, however, is an article that begins on page sixty-five called Historians Rate U.S. Presidents. article was written by Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., who had summoned fifty-five of his fellow historians to grade each president as either near great, average, below aver age, or failure. When Schlesinger tallied up the results, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Andrew Jackson scored as great presi dents, Ulysses S. Grant, and Warren G. Harding were rated as failures, and the rest fell in between (1). Schlesinger's results?and those of his several imitators?were interesting. But the important lessons to be learned from them may be more about presidential scholars than about presidents. What standards do scholars use to evaluate presidents? Against what image of the presidency do they measure the Lincolns and Grants, Reagans and Clintons?