as::: 0-'N \j 0 00 0-\,..) 0\ a ,....-j ~ ~ • ~ ~ -... ~ \j \,..) 0 ~ 0-;:... a ~ 'N ~ 4- ~ 0 Z 0- ~ -< ~ ~ .......z s::: ~ 0 \j r:/) \,..) Z ::r:: E-< o-;:... Z ....... <::u ~ ~ E r:/) ~ Contents Letters of Submittal and Transmittal ..................... Act of Incorporation .................................. Presidential Address .................................. Background ......................................... Constitution and Bylaws ............................... Officers, Council, Nominating Committee, Committee on Com- mittees, and Board of Trustees for 1981 ................ Officers' Reports Vice-Presidents: Professional Division .............................. Research Division ................................ Teaching Division ................................ Executive Director .................................. Editor ............................................ Controller ......................................... Membership Statistics ................................. Minutes of the Council Meeting ......................... Minutes of the Ninety-fifth Business Meeting .............. Committee Reports ................................... Prizes and Awards .................................... Report of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association ........................................ Report of the Program Chairwoman ...................... Program of the Ninety-fifth Annual Meeting ............... iii Letters of Submittal and Transmittal June 15, 1981 To the Congress of the United States: In accordance with the act of incorporation of the American Historical Association, approved January 4, 1889, I have the honor of submitting to Congress the Annual Report of the Association for the year 1980. Respectfully, S. Dillon Ripley, Secretary SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, D.C. June 15, 1981 To the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution: As provided by law, I submit to you herewith the report of the Ameri­ can Historical Association, comprising the proceedings of the Associa­ tion and the report of its Pacific Coast Branch for 1980. This volume constitutes the Association's report on the condition of historical study in the United States. Mack Thompson, Executive Director AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIA nON WASHINGTON, D.C. v Act of Incorporation Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Andrew D. White, of Ithaca, in the State of New York; George Bancroft, of Washington, in the District of Columbia; Justin Winsor, of Cam­ bridge, in the State of Massachusetts; William F. Poole, of Chicago, in the State of Illinois; Herbert B. Adams, of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland; Clarence W. Bowen, of Brooklyn, in the State of New York, their associates and successors, are hereby created, in the Dis­ trict of Columbia, a body corporate and politic by the name of the American Historical Association, for the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical manuscripts, and for kindred purposes in the interest of American history, and of history in America. Said Association is authorized to hold real and personal estate in the District of Columbia as far as may be necessary to its law­ ful ends, to adopt a constitution, and make bylaws not inconsistent with law. Said Association shall have its principal office at Washing­ ton, in the District of Columbia, and may hold its annual meetings in such places as the said incorporators shall determine. Said Association shall report annually to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, concerning its proceedings and the condition of historical study in America. Said Secretary shall communicate to Congress the whole of such report, or such portions thereof as he shall see fit. The Regents of the Smithsonian Institution are authorized to permit said Association to deposit its collections, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and other ma­ terial for history in the Smithsonian Institution or in the National Mu­ seum, at their discretion, upon such conditions and under such rules as they shall prescribe. The real property situated in Square 817, in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, described as lot 23, owned, occupied, and used by the American Historical Association, is exempt from all taxation so vii long as the same is so owned and occupied, and not used for commer­ cial purposes, subject to the provisions of sections 2, 3, and 5 of the Act entitled, "An Act to define the real property exempt from taxation in the District of Columbia," approved December 24, 1942. (Approved, January 4, 1889, and amended July 3, 1957.] viii PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS American Historians on the European Past* DAVID H. PINKNEY SIR HANS SLOANE, THAT TIRELESS SEARCHER AFTER COLLECTIBLES whose vast accumulations became the nucleus of the British Museum, wrote on the flyleaf of his Natural History of Jamaica a verse from the Book of Daniel that is an appropriate preface to this essay. "Many shall run to and fro," it read, "and knowledge shall be increased." Many American historians of Europe have run to and fro across the Atlantic in recent decades, and historical knowledge has indeed been increased. I am less certain that its quality matches its quantity. I made my frrst trip across the Atlantic in 1936, not yet as a histo­ rian but as a recent college graduate attracted to the study of modem European history by my college teacher, Frederick Artz. In Europe I was fascinated by the living presence of history that I had, until then, seen onlyin the reflection of other men's words. The rich evidence of Britain's and the Continent's past impressed on me more than any books the long course of European history, the immense complexity of its many interweaving national elements, and the strangeness of much of it to an American raised and educated in the Middle West. I recall asking myself in the autumn of 1936, when I entered gradu­ ate school at Harvard, if I should not tum from European history, which then loomed so formidably, to the history of the United States, to which I could bring the understanding of a native son. I did not make the change, and I have no regrets, for I have found European history endlessly fascinating. Yet the question has remained with me, not in a personal way but as a question for all Americans of my branch * Reprinted by permission American Historical Review 1981. All rights reserved. AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION of the profession. Can Americans, making their careers in the United States or Canada, I be significantly productive historians of modem Eu­ rope or of any of its national states? My colleagues in French history know that this is essentially the question to which I addressed two articles on what I called ''The Di­ lemma of the American Historian of Modem France.' '2 The dilemma is the choice between writing monographs based on exhaustive re­ search in archives in the manner of the French university historians of our time or writing books that are primarily syntheses of monographic scholarship, intended for American and English readers, whose contri­ bution for the international scholarly community is an outsider's in­ sight into the history of France. The first year of the 1980s is an appropriate time to consider the ac­ complishments and failures of American historians of all of modem Europe. Just half a century has passed since the establishment of the Journal of Modern History, a landmark in the development of modem European history as a professional academic field in America. At that time-the late 1920s-the number of American scholars in the field was small. Chester P. Higby of the University of Wisconsin, the prin­ cipal moving spirit behind the effort to create a journal of modem Eu­ ropean history, identified 250 American historians of modem Europe in 1926, when he circulated a questionnaire on teaching, research, and writing in the area. The number of replies to that questionnaire- 160-is itself eloquent testimony to the smallness of this group of his­ torians just over fifty years ago. Their replies reveal a narrow range of scholarly interests. The principal national concentrations were in Brit­ ish history and French history, and the most popular research topics were World War I and the French Revolution. Although more than one-fifth of those who replied had received at least some of their train­ ing in Germany, few worked in German history, and even fewer in Eastern European history. Fewer than one-half had ever done research in European archives and libraries. 3 I For this essay I have defined "American historian" as a historian who is a citizen or long-term resident of the United States or Canada who had his or her training in an American or Canadian university or, in the case of a scholar working in Continental Eu­ ropean history, in a British university. 2 Pinkney, "The Dilemma of the American Historian of Modern France," French Historical Studies, 1 (1958): 11-25, and "The Dilemma of the American Historian of Modern France Reconsidered," ibid., 9 (1975): 170-81. 3 Higby, "The Present Status of Modern European History in the United States," Journal of Modern History, 1 (1929): 6-7; William H. McNeill, "A Birthday Note," 2 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS THE MOST WIDELY ACCLAIMED AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION to modem Eu­ ropean historical scholarship in the interwar years was in diplomatic history, and two of its landmarks-Sidney Bradshaw Fay's The Ori~ gins of the World War (1928) and Bernadotte Schmitt's The Coming of the War, 1914 (1930)-appeared