The Historian and the Federal Government

Abstract

OR specialists in United States history, nothing has more influence upon research than the policies of the federal government-policies that also affect teaching and employment. The way in which the government documents its operations, maintains records of lasting significance, protects them against destruction, insures equal access to all scholars at the earliest possible date, and provides finding aids is of primary concern to our profession. Appropriations for the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and other facilities can shape the course of writing in many fields. Publication of source materials is a practice as old as the republic. Recently, the allocation of federal funds has supported advanced research, teaching abroad, graduate training, and the preservation of manuscript collections. Although there is no book-length account of the influence of governmental policies on historical writing from the early nineteenth century to the present, several individuals have dealt with parts of the subject. John Higham, Walter Rundell, Lester J. Cappon-among others-have noted the government's contribution to an emergent profession, have described the wide range of federal historical activities, and have stressed the interests shared with archivists and editors.1 The purpose of this essay is neither to retrace the trail blazed by earlier authors nor to break new ground in unexplored areas, but rather to discuss some of today's important questions and to see how the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association have responded to them. It will consider the renewed drive for an independent National Archives, the changing focus of the National Historical Publications Commission, the continuing controversy over presidential libraries, the future course of the