Has the American Well Run Dry?

[JKL]

Given the over-saturation of PhD candidates in American history, 20th century in particular but also early America, is there any original research left to be conducted in the field? I asked myself this question and initially shrugged it off. But the longer I scanned at my school's library the rows of shelves of publications in American history, the thought ominously returned: What's left to be written? What's left to be contributed? If there's no original work being done, then graduate schools are nothing more than factories of regurgitation. The works of the same historians are cited until dissertations become Fredrick Jackson Turner, Charles Beard, and Bernard Bailyn reprints. Has the well of American historical research run dry? Am I alone in this concern? Tell me what you think.

[pro Augustis]

I'm from a field about as chronologically distant from American History as you can get, but I know the concern. Since people have been writing about Augustus et al for two thousand years, what could I possibly add? I can't say I have solved the problem. But when I think of the monographs that have really impressed me, that seem to offer something new, I realize that many of them are actually quite recent. The odds of there still being interesting stuff to say in 2011 but no longer seem low. 

[meo03]

I look at it this way:

 

Turner, Adams, and their ilk had the advantage of being the first generation of professional historians employing German-imported empirical methods. Their work was certainly brilliant on its own merits, but it also holds the place that it does for being at the foundation of the intellectual world in which we still live. 

Later, historians from the mid-twentieth century, whether of the progressive or consensus schools had the advantage of being both the first great critics of the first generation of American historians, but also all the advantages of America as an ascendant world power. 

What we share with these first revisionists is that in the effort to say something new, we, like them, aren't likely to uncover an incredible amount of new evidence (at least from archives in the United States).

Nevertheless, contemporary events, ideas, worldviews, economic opportunities, and morality will always contribute to the creative energy of the historian seeking to write "history as it actually happened" (or whatever revision on that old line you prefer...). That, combined with the jet-age opportunities for research that could not be imagined in the late nineteenth century leaves me unconcerned that we are running out of things to say. 

[ashiepoo72]

There are always new ways to interpret sources, even if something has already been written on a topic. Anyway, I think it would be arrogant for us to assume we have written on everything worth writing about. I'm sure the Great Man historians thought the same thing, before social and cultural history burst on the scene. More and more Americanists now are focusing on transnational history, which opens up a whole slew of new questions and archives and historiographies to be applied to previously written-on topics, and also makes them consider topics that have received little to no attention before, as is the case with my project which certainly has some secondary literature, but not much and definitely very little in English.

Maybe I'm trying to justify my existence to some extent, but I think there are more worthy interpretations to be made, especially in the field of modern history, because the 20th century ended only 16 years ago...the 21st century isn't even legal yet. Archives are still being declassified, material is being uncovered, historical actors from my period of study are by and large still living, their potential papers not even attached to archives or libraries yet. Much of the 20th century is still so close to our own memories--my grandparents were born in the 1930s, my great-grandmother was born in 1903 (and yes, she lived long enough for me to know her...nearly the entire 20th century), my step-grandmother lived in the South in the 1950s and 60s, so I have a transgenerational, cross-cultural memory of nearly the entire 20th century--that we haven't even achieved enough distance to see all the ways we can interpret events in the recent past, let alone all the stories hiding in the shadows.

I'm gonna stop there because I could go on and on and I have a final paper to write. I just wanna say that it's not always about the huge, groundbreaking interpretations or books. Meaning shouldn't only be ascribed to those. We don't know what'll be meaningful to people 100 years from now. I often wonder if Turner thought his frontier thesis would define much of US western history, and that even now it still has to be contended with by those who discredit it.

[thedig13]

I used to think this (especially about my own project--am I making any new arguments?), but the more time I've spent in grad school, the more I realize that there's plenty still to be done. Only this week, I had another (minor) breakthrough in my dissertation's intervention.

I'm now convinced that every generation of professional historians feels like the well is running dry, but every generation has also had a revolutionary breakthrough (see: social turn, cultural turn) that reveals another untouched layer of historical thinking.

Edited December 7, 2015 by thedig13

[dr. t]

If you could see the holes in the field now, why would you bother going to grad school?

[Riotbeard]

I think there are a lot of potential new directions for U.S. History research.  In addition to transnational history that was already mentioned, there is a lot of new research and interpretive avenues in the history of the environment, science, and medicine.  I think there are sub-fields in U.S. history that are heavily saturated, but there are plenty alternative questions to be asked.  Likewise, databases provide for new types of analysis and access that weren't possible even twenty years ago.  Key word searches of newspaper databases allow for you consult a breadth of possible sources not possible before.  In my own research, I have been able to show that one guy who was considered as a regional figure actually had a large national and even international following (this was intentionally vague...).

[NoirFemme]

That depends on what you mean by "American"? ^^

[Katzenmusik]

Scanning the library shelves isn't going to give you a sense of the meaningful gaps.  Of course there are a billion books on every subject you can imagine when you are first starting out.  It's depressing to consider how you can contribute to a conversation that's been going on among scholars for 100+ years. 

But the point isn't to to add another brick to the wall of history until the wall is complete.  It's to make a new and exciting argument.  To bring your own insights to bear, even on sources that have been mined again and again, to notice new things, and to draw connections that will help us make meaning of the past in this present.

It will make more sense after you've read a huge chunk of those books, spent some time in the archives they draw from, and are still left with the "but what about...?" feeling.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Katzenmusik

[mvlchicago]

Also I think the OP confuses the supply and demand of 20th century historians and jobs with whether or not research can be done. The answer to the latter is "yes, obviously there are questions to ask that Beard/Bailyn/Turner never consider." The answer to the former is a little more complicated, but unless you'd be happy building software programs or working in the finance industry, I don't think letting the market dictate your career interests is a wise decision.