THE CONTRIBUTION OF LOCAL HISTORY TO THE
COMMUNITY*
by HENRY
CLYDE HUBBART
Professor of History, Ohio Wesleyan
University
As we all know, the day of the supremacy
of political or
national history has passed; instead we
have many historical cate-
gories. The mighty torrent of history
has been sluiced into various
channels: the economic, the social, the
constitutional, the interna-
tional or diplomatic, and, more
recently, the intellectual, the re-
gional, the local. This is true not only
in the area of phenomenal
fact, but likewise in the area of
interpretation or historical philos-
ophy. If one feels that he and everyone
else is his own historian,
he has many schools of interpretation to
draw on. There is the
older, optimistic school of progress,
and the newer, pessimistic
school of decline. There are schools of civilization cycles, of
pendulum swings, of cataclysm.
To choose from all this for a short
informal talk the appar-
ently modest field of local or regional
history might argue that
one thinks it is relatively unimportant
or that at most is a mere
decorative feature. Far from
it. Local history is not merely
added; it is integral and fundamental.
Too much history has been
written from above, from the important
great documents; some of
it still, let us admit, is produced in
ivory towers. It needs to come
up from the grass roots, up from where
the people live. Especially
do cultural and social history need to
be treated on the local levels.
It thus becomes tempered, and enriched,
humanized, and made
more realistic. The general is not
complete without the concrete,
the regional, the environmental.
For the sake of better historical
composition nothing could be
more fruitful than that the writers of
formal and supposedly more
* This article was given as a paper at
the annual meeting of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society at
the Ohio State Museum, Columbus, April 16,
1948.
298
LOCAL HISTORY 299
respectable and more scholarly history
should expose themselves to
the material of this field. Each one of
these writers might well,
at one time or other, attempt to write a
state history, a county or a
college history, or a family genealogy;
or might well interest him-
self in the work of a county historical
society, or might become a
connoisseur of some handicraft, or of
folklore, or folk music, or
even of antiques. Historical formalists
used to say "no documents,
no history," but one might well say
"without much fundamental
local data, no history." And, to
bend another classic historical
cliche to our purpose, how can history
without this local emphasis
really be wie es eigentlich gewesen
ist?
It is remarkable how the sages, the
prophets, the poets, the
artists, and the novelists appear to
excel the historians in skilfully
building up their contributions directly
out of the local scene.
They find in homely surroundings
abundant raw material for their
wise sayings, their deep insights, their
artistic masterpieces, their
dramas of human conflict, tragedy, and
comedy. To them the saga
of the locality reveals its wider and
deeper meanings. This fact,
no doubt, helps explain the enduring
quality of their work.
Henry D. Thoreau, that sage of Concord,
that intense student
of his environment, once said that he
had traveled much in the town
of Concord. This is a statement at once
paradoxical, naive, and
profound. Another Concord sage, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, said, "I
ask not for the great, the remote, the
romantic; . . . I embrace the
common, I explore and sit at the feet of
the familiar, the low."1
Such "provincialism" is akin
to greatness. Good things can come
out of Nazareth. Thomas Hardy, the great
novelist, out of the
rustic, homely life of his Wessex
country of south England pro-
duced powerful stories of human conflict
and destiny. His work
is an excellent example of the universal
rising out of the local.
In Gray's "Elegy," ambition
and grandeur might mock the
homely joys and the obscure destiny of
the rude forefathers of the
hamlet, and hear with a disdainful smile
the short and simple
annals of the poor, but the poet reminds
us that potential empire
builders, artists, John Hampdens, and
Oliver Cromwells lay in those
graves. The last few decades in American
literature have pro-
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
duced regional novels which, delving
deeper than the former novels
of mere local color, reach down to more
significant life issues.
But if literature and art appear to
excel history along these
lines, it is not because general
historical movements do not have
many forms of local incidence. Indeed
the community relationships
of national or general history are often
its most important aspect.
The state, the county, or the local
community is a microcosm, and
historical forces that are nation-wide
and world-wide in scope find
expression in it. It is tied to
movements that reach far beyond its
borders. National legislation,
especially in these days of the social-
ized state, reaches down to the small town
and the farm.
International trade and world war bear
down heavily on the
neighborhood. What is the story of the
frontier, the conquest of
the continent, if not primarily a story
of the people in their heroic
struggles of home building? It is
civilization in transit; it is the
accepted institutions of society seeking
a new home and a local
habitation.
The national leaders and platforms of
Republican and Demo-
cratic parties are often of less real
importance than are their local
makeup and behavior. In this or that
community what are they
composed of? Negroes, whites,
foreign-born, laborers, farmers,
Catholics, Protestants? How do their
neighborhood bosses and
machines behave? Moreover, state
legislation has a very great
local impact, and most of the problems
of law and order, courts,
schools, and churches are primarily
community concerns. In short,
on all sides we see subject matter for
local history. A group of
this type hardly needs to be reminded of
the abundance of material
and the currently increasing interest
along these lines. Mention
need only be made of the wave of
present-day interest in folklore,
folk art and music, the flood of books
of a regional nature on our
rivers and our lakes, on American local
speech, and on the general
subject of American regionalism-to say
nothing of the collections
and the work of the great state
historical societies such as this.
If there is truth in these contentions,
then of course local his-
1 Emerson's Complete Works (Riverside ed., 12 vols., Boston, 1885), I, Nature,
Addresses, and Lectures, 110.
LOCAL HISTORY 301
tory makes a great contribution to the
community itself. It gives
to the people of the community a sense
of the meaning and the
dignity of their environment; a sense of
background and reserve;
a sense of continuity and personal
intimacy with the past that a
study of general or national history
cannot give. A people sees
that its own community life has
validities and justifications. A
study of the local settlement and
development of a township or
county brings a realization that the
processes of civilization have
been at work near at hand; that there
has been enacted in one's
own neighborhood significant scenes in
the larger drama of our
national history. The romance or the
tragedy of the frontier is
seen being enacted on a local stage
right here at home. Indians
once lived here; here people were once
involved in great catas-
trophes like the Civil War or the two
World Wars, or great de-
pressions; here prosperity waves and
important political campaigns
had their local repercussions. Of
course, this respect for the rich-
ness of neighborhood tradition and fact
must not be allowed to
descend to mere blind credulity and
sentimentality; always the
sense of historical objectivity must be
preserved.
It has been aptly said that much of our
cultural nationalism
and patriotism has its roots in the
locality. Marco Bozzaris and
his Greek compatriots fought for their
homes; they struck for their
altars and their fires, for God and the
green graves of their sires.
A. E. Zimmern has said that the sense of
nationality is a "corporate
sentiment of peculiar intensity,
intimacy, and dignity."2 It "recalls
an atmosphere of precious memories, of
vanished parents and
friends, of old customs, of reverence,
of home, and a sense of the
brief span of life as a link between
immemorial generations."
Local history, of course, develops an
interest in family history.
If members of certain families see more
clearly the part that their
own ancestors played and thus get an
exciting interest in genealogy,
this interest need not be a mere matter
of family sentiment and
pride or of boresome family detail in
which no one is interested;
it can be made to be historically
constructive. The type of gene-
alogical work which helps one to
"establish a Revolutionary line"
so that one can be entitled to join some
society or other is, of
course, on a higher level than the type
which, for a consideration,
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
is willing to help one trace his lineage
back to William the Con-
queror "if necessary." But the
best kind of genealogical work
functions on a higher level than either
of these, and is often found
to be on a par with the best historical
scholarship both in its
methodology, its accuracy, and its
productive results. In the in-
vestigation of county and church
records, in documentary study of
wills, deeds, and marriage and birth
certificates, and in work in
the varied types of material to be found
in state historical society
libraries, the trained historian can get
many "pointers" from the
genealogist.
Interest in local history also binds the
citizen of the com-
munity to his fellows by other ties than
those of his immediate
business or social interests or
responsibilities. Let him establish
an acquaintance with certain older men
and women whose memo-
ries go back sixty or seventy years. Let
him note their intimate
knowledge of the neighborhood and its
local lore, their pithy and
expressive speech that bristles with
localisms. Let him read through
the county histories or the township
atlases and a new world opens
before him, one that is often positively
fascinating. An interest in
local history overcomes the feeling of
uprootedness and transience
that is so characteristic of Americans
and which perhaps contributes
largely to American nervousness and
restlessness. If a person has
been compelled to take up residence in a
distant large city, he may
still cherish his old home ties; in
fact, as he matures, he can and
often does, on returning home, see
values in the old place that he
entirely missed while living there. I
once had a student who, upon
graduation from college, felt that New
York City was the only place,
and, going there to live, he soon took
on all the marks of the
modern city dweller. He wrote back that
he had "learned to
loathe" his old home in the Middle
West. It is quite likely, how-
ever, that this uprootedness, this
loathing, created more unhappi-
ness than pleasure for his mature life.
He had no real home.
Also, an intense local historical
interest provides an altogether
valid substitute for the vapid
amusements so prevalent in our day
which often bring little or no
satisfaction.
2 A. E. Zimmern, "Nationalism and
Internationalism," Foreign Affairs, I, No. 4
(June 15, 1923), 120.
LOCAL HISTORY 303
Again the geography of the home region
takes on new meaning
to one who is interested in local
history, as do also the fundamental
geology of the region, the archaeology,
and the agricultural and
general economic development. Perhaps a
reference to a certain
Ohio county is in keeping here. This
county is about one hundred
and forty years old; it has had abundant
reason for the growth of
a lively historical interest and for the
establishment of a vigorous
historical society. The settlement and
development of its townships
present good historical material. Its
county seat once had a real
chance of becoming the capital of the
state; it is the birthplace of
a president of the United States; it was
a minor center of mobili-
zation in the War of 1812; it was the
seat of a pioneer college
that has grown into a large institution.
It was one of those Ohio
towns which were once accorded, and
perhaps deservedly so, the
label "classic."
And yet this county during all this time
had no effective county
historical society. Several were formed
only to pass out. Even
the demolition by a prominent oil
company of the presidential
birthplace, although it brought a wave
of indignation at the sheer
vandalism involved and incited a group
of earnest souls to form
another society, did not produce
permanent results. The flame of
interest again flickered out.
More recent developments in the county,
however, seem to
have produced better results. The decision
of the United States
War Department to construct a large
conservancy dam in the county
brought the condemnation of thousands of
acres of land. The
threat that scores of farms and homes
would be destroyed or cov-
ered with water brought to the people of
the valley the desire to
put on record what was happening, and to
memorialize their com-
munity life that so soon was to face
extinction. The result of this
and other factors was the formation
recently of a county historical
society that will perhaps persist.
Moreover, the digging up of some
Indian remains by an energetic woman in
the same area helped to
give these developments an
archaeological turn. This archaeolog-
ical and historical society was brought
into the picture, and today
several people of that county have a
much more direct interest in
archaeology than they had before.
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
In addition, a new interest in the
geology and geography of
the county has resulted. The state
geologist of Ohio was called
upon to address the new county
historical society on the geology,
geography, and natural resources of the
county, and for the first
time many people in the county learned
that one of their own
citizens had prepared an elaborate
report on the geology and geog-
raphy of the county for the state
geological survey. An interest
in local history develops and begets
other local interests, and vice
versa.
Finally, local history, we must insist,
is not mere antiquarian-
ism; it is not senile sentimentality and
reminiscence. Possessing
a validity in its own right, it presents
a chapter in human expe-
rience and is a part of man's universal
endeavor. The best in
so-called provincialism has nothing to
apologize for. Being, as it
is, a microcosm, the local community
reflects things greater than
itself. An interest in local history is
not a sign of senility; it is
rather an evidence of the maturity of a
civilization. As civili-
zation matures, the saga of the locality
takes on greater significance.