What’s the place of a generalist historians’ organization today?

I spent eight years in academe as a student and 30 years in various faculty positions. Currently I work outside academe by my own choice. As editor of the JNCAH and a former president and program chair for the Association, I have a deep interest in the role that NCAH plays in bringing together historians across fields at different stages in their careers and in different occupational areas.

In some ways, this goes against the norm in the 21st century. Historians’ organizations tend to be specialty-focused. Even the national groups, like the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, are divvied up into specialty groups, as a look at their annual meeting programs would demonstrate.

Many scholars seem to gravitate toward specialist associations and groups when it comes to presenting papers. Certainly making contacts within one’s specialty can be a wise move. And feedback on the content of presentations is often very useful.

So what’s the modern-day role of a generalist association like the NCAH?

1. There’s the human, social component of the annual meeting. It is healthy to leave campus to associate with colleagues from other places.  If this can be done without having to invest a lot of time and money in the process, so much the better.  We live in an age of retrenchment.   The NCAH provides a cost-effective way of gathering with congenial colleagues for a little while.
2. Although many of them hate to admit it, most academic historians become generalists by necessity.  Why?   Two words:  survey courses.  World Civ.  Western Civ.  US Survey.   At my last place of academic employment, which I left as a tenured full professor after nearly 20 years on staff, about 75% of the classroom work I did was devoted to teaching the survey courses that were part of the general education curriculum.  My point is this:  we fool ourselves if we think that academic professional development should only focus on our narrow research interests.  To teach the survey course well requires a broad and current exposure to fields outside one’s own.  A generalist annual meeting, with papers presented on a wide range of fields, is an exciting opportunity to glean from the work of others, and perhaps to put it into practice in survey teaching.
3. And then there is the diverse nature of NCAH.  Members include not only academics but public historians, independent scholars, schoolteachers, and people whose paying occupations are outside the field of history entirely:  the occasional attorney, for example, or myself, an entrepreneur in a mixed world of editing, writing, and online bookselling.    There is positive energy that rises from associating with people who share a passion for history but whose lives do not necessarily conform to the rhythms and flow of academe.

I might have more to write on this subject, but I think that’s enough for now.

Kathy Carter
Managing Editor, JNCAH
Deep River Press