Organization of American Historians
Encyclopedia
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
History of the United States
The history of the United States traditionally starts with the Declaration of Independence in the year 1776, although its territory was inhabited by Native Americans since prehistoric times and then by European colonists who followed the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492. The...

. OAH's members in the U.S. and abroad include college and university professors; historians
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, students; precollegiate teachers; archivists, museum curators, and other public historians; and a variety of scholars employed in government and the private sector. The OAH publishes the Journal of American History
Journal of American History
The Journal of American History is the official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, the official journal of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association...

, the OAH Magazine of History. Among its various programs, OAH conducts an annual meeting each spring, and has a robust roster on its OAH Distinguished Lecturership Program.

The organization's mission is to promote excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, and encourage 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

Headquarters

The organization's headquarters are in Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....

 on the campus of Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

 in the Raintree House (also referred to as the Millen-Stallknecht House, #105-055-80021 in City of Bloomington Historic Sites and Structures Inventory). The Raintree House is a Greek Revival style brick house. The house gets its current name from two large raintrees (Koelreuteria paniculata
Koelreuteria paniculata
Koelreuteria paniculata, with the common name Goldenrain tree, is a species of Koelreuteria native to eastern Asia, in China and Korea...

), which stand on the property. Built by William Moffett Millen c. 1845, it is an excellent example of the Georgian house plan favored by well-to-do farmers in southern Indiana and the Upland South in the mid-nineteenth century.

History and background

The Mississippi Valley Historical Association was formed on October 17 and 18, 1907 at a meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska
The City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....

, 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
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

 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
Journal of American History
The Journal of American History is the official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, the official journal of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association...

and the organization, correspondingly, and by approval of the voting majority of its membership through a mail ballot, was rechristened on Friday, April 23, 1965 as the Organization of American Historians.

Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

 was selected as home for the editorial offices of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review predecessor to the Journal of American History
Journal of American History
The Journal of American History is the official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, the official journal of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association...

in 1963. Prior to relocating to Indiana, the editorial offices were located at Tulane University. The organization moved its business offices to Indiana in the summer of 1970 from its home on the campus of the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

 in Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...

.

The OAH was admitted to the American Council of Learned Societies
American Council of Learned Societies
The American Council of Learned Societies , founded in 1919, is a private nonprofit federation of seventy scholarly organizations.ACLS is best known as a funder of humanities research through fellowships and grants awards. ACLS Fellowships are designed to permit scholars holding the Ph.D...

 in 1971. It is a foundational partner in both the National Coalition for History, the National Humanities Alliance as well as National History Day.

Information about OAH governance, officers, and its committee structure http://www.oah.org/about/

List of OAH Presidents

  • Francis A. Sampson (1907)
  • Thomas M. Owen (1907–1908)
  • Clarence W. Alvord (1908–1909)
  • Orin G. Libby (1909–1910)
  • Benjamin F. Shambaugh (1910–1911)
  • Andrew C. McLaughlin
    Andrew C. McLaughlin
    Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin was an American historian born to Scottish immigrant parents. He received his bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Michigan. By 1903 he was a respected historian and in 1914 he was named President of the American Historical Association...

     (1911–1912)
  • Reuben G. Thwaites (1912–1913)
  • James A. James (1913–1914)
  • Isaac Joslin Cox
    Isaac Joslin Cox
    Isaac Joslin Cox, Ph.D. was an American professor of history.-Biography:He was born at West Creek, Ocean Co., N. J.. He graduated from Dartmouth College and for several years did research in Mexico...

     (1914–1915)
  • Dunbar Rowland (1915–1916)
  • Frederic L. Paxson
    Frederic L. Paxson
    Frederic Logan Paxson was a Pulitzer Prize winning American historian. He had also been a President of the Organization of American Historians. He had degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University...

     (1916–1917)
  • St. George L. Sioussat (1917–1918)
  • Harlow Lindley (1918–1919)
  • Milo M. Quaife (1919–1920)
  • Chauncey S. Boucher (1920–1921)
  • William E. Connelley (1921–1922)
  • Solon J. Buck
    Solon J. Buck
    Solon Justus Buck was the Second Archivist of the United States.His academic career, never straying very far from his interest in the history of agricultural communities, started with a brief appointment to Indiana University followed by two years at the University of Illinois, which he left for...

     (1922–1923)
  • Eugene C. Barker
    Eugene C. Barker
    Eugene Campbell Barker was a distinguished professor of Texas history at the University of Texas at Austin. He was the first living person to have a UT campus building, the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, named in his honor. The structure is part of the Center for American History and was...

     (1923–1924)
  • Frank Heywood Hodder
    Frank Heywood Hodder
    Frank Heywood Hodder was an American historian and a professor first at Cornell University and later at the University of Kansas.- Expertise :...

     (1924–1925)
  • James A. Woodburn (1925–1926)
  • Otto L. Schmidt (1926–1927)
  • Joseph Schafer (1927–1928)
  • Charles W. Ramsdell (1928–1929)
  • Homer C. Hockett (1929–1930)
  • Louise P. Kellogg (1930–1931)
  • Beverley W. Bond, Jr. (1931–1932)
  • John D. Hicks (1932–1933)
  • Jonas Viles (1933–1934)
  • Lester B. Shippee (1934–1935)
  • Louis Pelzer (1935–1936)
  • Edward E. Dale (1936–1937)
  • Clarence E. Carter (1937–1938)
  • William O. Lynch (1938–1939)
  • James G. Randall
    James G. Randall
    James G. Randall was an American historian, specializing on Abraham Lincoln and the era of the American Civil War. He taught at the University of Illinois, , where David Herbert Donald was one of his students and continued his traditions. Born in Indiana, he took a B.A. degree from Butler College...

     (1939–1940)
  • Carl F. Wittke (1940–1941)

  • Arthur C. Cole (1941–1942)
  • Charles H. Ambler (1942–1943)
  • Theodore C. Blegen
    Theodore C. Blegen
    Theodore Christian Blegen was an American historian and author. Theodore Blegen was the author of numerous historic reference books, papers and articles written over a five decade period...

     (1943–1944)
  • William C. Binkley (1944–1946)
  • Herbert A. Kellar (1946–1947)
  • Ralph P. Bieber (1947–1948)
  • Dwight L. Dumond (1948–1949)
  • Carl C. Rister (1949–1950)
  • Elmer Ellis
    Elmer Ellis
    Elmer Ellis was an American educator and fourteenth president of the University of Missouri and first president of the University of Missouri System. He was instrumental in the expansion of the university to include the University of Missouri–Kansas City and University of Missouri–St. Louis...

     (1950–1951)
  • Merle E. Curti
    Merle Curti
    Merle Curti was a leading American historian. He taught a large number of PhD students at the University of Wisconsin, and was a leader in developing the fields of social history and intellectual history. As a "Progressive" historian he was deeply committed to democracy, and to the Turnerian...

     (1951–1952)
  • James L. Sellers (1952–1953)
  • Fred A. Shannon (1953–1954)
  • Walter P. Webb
    Walter Prescott Webb
    Walter Prescott Webb was a 20th century U.S. historian and author noted for his groundbreaking historical work on the American West. As president of the Texas State Historical Association, he launched the project that produced the Handbook of Texas...

     (1954–1955)
  • Edward C. Kirkland (1955–1956)
  • Thomas D. Clark
    Thomas D. Clark
    Thomas Dionysius Clark was perhaps Kentucky's most notable historian. Clark saved from destruction a large portion of Kentucky's printed history, which later become a core body of documents in the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives...

     (1956–1957)
  • Wendell H. Stephenson (1957–1958)
  • William T. Hutchinson (1958–1959)
  • Frederick Merk (1959–1960)
  • Fletcher M. Green (1960–1961)
  • Paul W. Gates (1961–1962)
  • Ray Allen Billington
    Ray Allen Billington
    Ray Allen Billington was an American historian. He was born in Bay City, Michigan and died in San Marino, California.-Life:...

     (1962–1963)
  • Avery O. Craven (1963–1964)
  • John W. Caughey (1964–1965)
  • George E. Mowry (1965–1966)
  • Thomas C. Cochran
    Thomas C. Cochran (historian)
    Thomas Childs Cochran was an American economic historian and a pioneer in that field.Born in Manhattan, he received his bachelor's and master's degrees from New York University before obtaining his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at N.Y.U...

     (1966–1967)
  • Thomas A. Bailey
    Thomas A. Bailey
    Thomas Andrew Bailey was a professor of history at his alma mater, Stanford University, and authored many historical monographs on diplomatic history, including the widely-used American history textbook, The American Pageant...

     (1967–1968)
  • C. Vann Woodward
    C. Vann Woodward
    Comer Vann Woodward was a preeminent American historian focusing primarily on the American South and race relations. He was considered, along with Richard Hofstadter and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to be one of the most influential historians of the postwar era, 1940s-1970s, both by scholars and by...

     (1968–1969)
  • Merrill Jensen
    Merrill Jensen
    Merrill Monroe Jensen was an American historian whose research and writing focused on the ratification of the United States Constitution. His historical interpretations are generally considered to be of the "Progressive School" of American history, the most famous exponent of which was Charles A....

     (1969–1970)
  • David M. Potter
    David M. Potter
    David M. Potter was an American historian of the South. He was born in Augusta, Georgia, and graduated from Emory University in 1932. At Yale he worked with Ulrich Bonnell Phillips. His earned his Ph.D. in 1940 and published Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis in 1942...

     (1970–1971)
  • Edmund S. Morgan (1971–1972)
  • T. Harry Williams
    T. Harry Williams
    Thomas Harry Williams was an award-winning historian at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge whose career began in 1941 and extended for thirty-eight years until his death at the age of seventy...

     (1972–1973)
  • John Higham
    John Higham (historian)
    John William Higham was an American historian, scholar of American culture and specialist on issues of ethnicity.-Life and career:...

     (1973–1974)
  • John Hope Franklin
    John Hope Franklin
    John Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and...

     (1974–1975)
  • Frank Freidel
    Frank Freidel
    Frank Freidel was the first major biographer of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and one of the first scholars to work in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers at Hyde Park, New York...

     (1975–1976)
  • Richard W. Leopold
    Richard W. Leopold
    Richard William Leopold was a prominent diplomatic historian at Northwestern University.-Early life and education:...

     (1976–1977)

  • Kenneth M. Stampp
    Kenneth M. Stampp
    Kenneth Milton Stampp , Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley , was a celebrated historian of slavery, the American Civil War, and Reconstruction...

     (1977–1978)
  • Eugene D. Genovese
    Eugene D. Genovese
    Eugene Dominic Genovese is an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He has been noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and slaves in the South. His work Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made won the...

     (1978–1979)
  • Carl N. Degler
    Carl N. Degler
    Carl Neumann Degler is an American historian. Degler is a past president of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association and the Southern Historical Association...

     (1979–1980)
  • William A. Williams (1980–1981)
  • Gerda Lerner
    Gerda Lerner
    Gerda Lerner is a historian, author and teacher. She is a professor emerita of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University...

     (1981–1982)
  • Allan G. Bogue (1982–1983)
  • Anne Firor Scott (1983–1984)
  • Arthur S. Link
    Arthur S. Link
    Arthur S. Link was a leading American historian and a scholarly authority on Woodrow Wilson.-Biography:Born in New Market, Virginia, to a German Lutheran family, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a B.A. in 1941 and a Ph.D. in 1945...

     (1984–1985)
  • William E. Leuchtenburg (1985–1986)
  • Leon F. Litwack
    Leon F. Litwack
    Leon F. Litwack is an American historian and Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of California Berkeley, where he received the Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2007...

     (1986–1987)
  • Stanley N. Katz (1987–1988)
  • David Brion Davis
    David Brion Davis
    David Brion Davis is an American historian and authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world. He is the Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University and founder and Director Emeritus of Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. He is a...

     (1988–1989)
  • Louis R. Harlan
    Louis R. Harlan
    Louis Rudolph Harlan was an American historian and academic whose two-volume biography of African-American educator and social leader Booker T...

     (1989–1990)
  • Mary Frances Berry
    Mary Frances Berry
    Mary Frances Berry is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and the former chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. She is also the former board chair of Pacifica Radio...

     (1990–1991)
  • Joyce Appleby
    Joyce Appleby
    Joyce Oldham Appleby is an American historian. She is Professor Emerita of History at University of California, Los Angeles Joyce Oldham Appleby (born April 9, 1929) is an American historian. She is Professor Emerita of History at University of California, Los Angeles Joyce Oldham Appleby (born...

     (1991–1992)
  • Lawrence W. Levine
    Lawrence W. Levine
    Lawrence William Levine was an American historian. He was born in Manhattan and died in Berkeley, California.-Life:...

     (1992–1993)
  • Eric Foner
    Eric Foner
    Eric Foner is an American historian. On the faculty of the Department of History at Columbia University since 1982, he writes extensively on political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, Reconstruction, and historiography...

     (1993–1994)
  • Gary B. Nash
    Gary B. Nash
    Gary Baring Nash is an American historian.Nash was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended Princeton University . He served in the U.S. Navy from 1955-58 on the John W. Weeks , where he was antisubmarine officer and then gunnery officer...

     (1994–1995)
  • Michael Kammen
    Michael Kammen
    Michael Kammen is a professor of American cultural history in the Department of History at Cornell University. He was born in 1936 in Rochester, New York, grew up in the Washington, DC area, and was educated at the George Washington University and Harvard University . He has taught at Cornell...

     (1995–1996)
  • Linda K. Kerber
    Linda K. Kerber
    Linda K. Kerber is an American historian. At the University of Iowa she is the May Brodbeck Professor in Liberal Arts & Sciences, and also Lecturer in the College of Law. She served as the president of the American Studies Association in 1988, the Organization of American Historians in 1996-97, and...

     (1996–1997)
  • George M. Fredrickson
    George M. Fredrickson
    George M. Fredrickson was the Edgar E. Robinson Professor of U.S. History at Stanford University from 1984 until the time of his retirement in 2002...

     (1997–1998)
  • William H. Chafe (1998–1999)
  • David Montgomery (1999–2000)
  • Kenneth T. Jackson
    Kenneth T. Jackson
    Kenneth Terry Jackson is a professor of history and social sciences at Columbia University. A frequent television guest, he is best known as an urban historian and a preeminent authority on New York City, where he lives on the Upper West Side....

     (2000–2001)
  • Darlene Clark Hine (2001–2002)
  • Ira Berlin
    Ira Berlin
    Ira Berlin is an American historian, a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, and a past President of the Organization of American Historians. Berlin is the author of such books as Many Thousands Gone and Generations of Captivity.-Biography:Berlin received his Ph.D....

     (2002–2003)
  • Jacquelyn Dowd Hall
    Jacquelyn Dowd Hall
    Jacquelyn Dowd Hall is an American historian, and Julia Cherry Spruill Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.-Life:She graduated from Columbia University with an MA and Ph.D...

     (2003–2004)
  • James O. Horton (2004–2005)
  • Vicki Ruiz (2005–2006)
  • Richard White
    Richard White (historian)
    Richard White is an American historian, a past President of the Organization of American Historians, and the author of influential books on the American West, Native American history, and environmental history...

     (2006–2007)
  • Nell Irvin Painter
    Nell Irvin Painter
    Nell Irvin Painter is an American historian notable for her works on southern history of the nineteenth century. She is retired from Princeton University, and served as president of the Organization of American Historians. She also served as president of the Southern Historical...

     (2007–2008)
  • Pete Daniel (2008–2009)
  • Elaine Tyler May (2009–2010)
  • David A. Hollinger
    David Hollinger
    David Hollinger is the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. His specialty is in American intellectual history. His source book, The American Intellectual Tradition, is amongst the most widely used textbooks in college undergraduate courses focusing on...

     (2010–2011)
  • Alice Kessler-Harris
    Alice Kessler-Harris
    Alice Kessler-Harris is the R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of American History at Columbia University, in New York City. She specializes in the history of American labor and the comparative and interdisciplinary exploration of women and gender....

     (2011-2012)


List of Major Awards and Prizes Made by the OAH

  • Willi Paul Adams Award
  • Erik Barnouw Award
    Erik Barnouw Award
    The Erik Barnouw Award—also known as the OAH Erik Barnouw Award—is named after the late Erik Barnouw, a Columbia University historian and professor who was a specialist in mass media...

  • Ray Allen Billington Prize
    Ray Allen Billington Prize
    The Ray Allen Billington Prize is given biennially by the Organization of American Historians for the best book about American frontier history. The “American frontier” includes all of North and South America. It includes all pioneer experiences from 1492 forward. It also includes comparisons...

  • Binkley-Stephenson Award
  • Avery O. Craven Award
    Avery O. Craven Award
    The Avery O. Craven Award, first given in 1985, is awarded annually by the Organization of American Historians for the most original history book on the coming of the American Civil War, the Civil War years , or the Era of Reconstruction , with the exception of works of purely military history....

  • Merle Curti Award
    Merle Curti Award
    The Merle Curti Award is awarded annually by the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American social and/or American intellectual history. A committee of 5 members of the Organization of American Historians chooses the winners from published monographs submitted by the author...

  • Friend of History Award
    Friend of History Award
    The Friend of History Award is an award given by the Organization of American Historians. It "recognizes an individual, who is not a professional historian, or an institution or organization for outstanding support for the pursuit of historical research, for the public presentation of history, or...

  • Ellis W. Hawley Prize
    Ellis W. Hawley Prize
    The Ellis W. Hawley Prize is an annual book award by the Organization of American Historians for the best historical study of the political economy, politics, or institutions of the United States, in its domestic or international affairs, from the American Civil War to the present. The prize honors...

  • Darlene Clark Hine Award
  • Richard W. Leopold Prize
    Richard W. Leopold Prize
    The Richard W. Leopold Prize is awarded biennially by the Organization of American Historians . Professor Leopold was President of the OAH in 1976-1977....

  • Lerner-Scott Dissertation Prize
  • Lawrence W. Levine Prize
  • Liberty Legacy Foundation Award
    Liberty Legacy Foundation Award
    The Liberty Legacy Foundation Award is an annual book award given by the Organization of American Historians . The award goes to the best book written by a professional historian on the fights for civil rights in the United States anytime from 1776 to the present. Dr...

  • James A. Rawley Prize
    James A. Rawley Prize
    The James A. Rawley Prize is an annual book award made by the Organization of American Historians . The award goes to the best book dealing with the history of race relations in the United States. The prize is given in memory of Professor James A. Rawley, Carl Adolph Happold Professor of History...

  • Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award
  • Frederick Jackson Turner Award
    Frederick Jackson Turner Award
    The Frederick Jackson Turner Award, is given each year by the Organization of American Historians for an author's first book on American history.It was started in 1959, by Mississippi Valley Historical Association, as the Prize Studies Award....


External links

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