ESSAY AND COMMENT
Amateur and
Professional History:
an observation
The gulf which has separated the
professional from the amateur historian
is no newly eroded chasm. Ever since the
scientific study of history was in-
troduced into our academic communities
from Germany in the late 1870's,
the historian has universally held the
hobbyist in Clio's vineyard in near
disdain. There has been little direct
communication between the two
camps in spite of the fact that the
professional is somewhat dependent
upon the productions of amateurs of past
generations.
The field of good intentions has been
littered with the carcasses of futile
seminars and symposia designed to bring
the amateur more nearly into the
professional fold. One of the most
recent of these exercises was sponsored
by the National Endowment for the
Humanities and conducted by the
Office of State History of New York
state on September 15 and 16, 1967.
Two hundred and twenty-five "local
historians" assembled in Albany for
two full days of lectures and a panel.
According to Dr. Louis L. Tucker,
assistant commissioner for state
history, better known to Ohioans as the
former director of the Cincinnati
Historical Society, there are some 1,100
local historians in New York state who
are officially appointed by towns
and municipalities to serve as
"bird dogs" for history. Their functions are
collecting, preserving and writing about
local history, performing duties
similar in part to the county and municipal
historical societies of Ohio.
The purposes of the recent New York
Conference, Dr. Tucker relates,
were "to broaden the horizons of
our local historians; to enable them
to understand better the methodology,
value structure, and, yes, the per-
sonal convictions of outstanding
scholars." It was indeed a battery of such
big guns which were rolled out to cow
the 225 amateurs at Albany, only 20
percent of the total number of the
state's official local historians. Clinton
Rossiter and Paul W. Gates of Cornell
University, Princeton's Arthur S.
Link, author of some thirteen books, and
others equally outstanding let
forth their rumbling salvos. The papers
of the eight luminaries have been
published under the title, The
Challenge of Local History (1968) by the
Office of State History of the State
Education Department.
During the session but one local
historian walked out. The wonder is
that more did not do so, for among the
erudite and sweeping concepts
proffered by the experts for the
enlightenment (or enrichment, as the con-
ference was titled) of the amateurs,
there was but rarely a pertinent or use-
ful suggestion. Accustomed as they are
to talking only to their students and