Jump to content

Organization of American Historians

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Welsh (talk | contribs) at 19:08, 21 August 2010 (Link repair: Frank H. Hodder -> Frank Heywood Hodder - You can help!). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Organization of American Historians (OAH), formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, is the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of American history. OAH's members in the U.S. and abroad include college and university professors; historians, students; precollegiate teachers; archivists, museum curators, and other public historians; and a variety of scholars employed in government and the private sector.

The organization's mission is to promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, and encourages wide discussion of historical questions and equitable treatment of all practitioners of history. Membership is open to all who wish to support its mission.

In 2010 its individual membership is approximately 8,000 and its institutional membership approximately 1,250. For its 2009 fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, the organization's operating budget was approximately $2.9 million[1]

The organization's headquarters are in Bloomington, Indiana on the campus of Indiana University. The organization moved to Indiana in 1970 from Salt Lake City, Utah.

History and background

The Mississippi Valley Historical Association was formed on October 17 and 18, 1907 at a meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska, of seven historical societies of the Mississippi Valley. The organization, devoted to studying the Mississippi Valley region, began a tradition of holding an annual meeting each year, and began quarterly publication in 1914 of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review. As the scholarly emphasis of the organization and its journal developed and spread over time, its initial emphasis on the Mississippi Valley waned, in favor of an approach focusing more broadly on the United States. In recognition of this, and of the publication of the fiftieth volume of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, the name of the journal was changed to the Journal of American History and the organization, correspondingly, and by approval of the voting majority of its membership through a mail ballot[2], was rechristened in on Friday, April 23, 1965 as the Organization of American Historians [3].

The OAH was admitted to the American Council of Learned Societies in 1971.

The OAH's current president is David Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley (2010-2011). The organization's president-elect is Alice Kessler-Harris, Columbia University (2010-2011). For the most up-to-date list of officers and members of the OAH Executive Board, visit http://www.oah.org/about/execbd/

List of OAH Presidents

Template:Multicol

Template:Multicol-break

Template:Multicol-break

Template:Multicol-end

References

  1. ^ "OAH Treasurer’s Report, Fiscal Year, 2009", Robert Griffith, OAH Treasurer, February 8, 2010 http://www.oah.org/publications/reports/treasurer09.pdf
  2. ^ Official Notice to Members of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, Journal of American History, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Sep., 1964), pp. 351-352.
  3. ^ William D. Aeschbacher, "The Mississippi Valley Historical Association, 1907-1965", Journal of American History, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Sep., 1967), pp. 339-353.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Organization_of_American_Historians&oldid=380194172"