From the Editor | Phillip Guerty | Looking Back Looking Forward | Vol 20 No 5 | October 2006

From the Editor

Looking Back Looking Forward

Phillip Guerty

I recently discovered that the very first OAH Magazine of History, which appeared in April 1985, was also about the 1960s. Like the current issue, it had a range of articles to help secondary educators explore the Sixties including articles on the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and women's liberation. It also had teaching resource columns that suggested using film and music in the classroom and lesson plans focused on the NOW Bill of Rights for 1969 and President Eisenhower’s press conference in April 1954 on events in Southeast Asia. Revisiting this theme allows for a quick look at not only the changes in scholarship about the Sixties since the mid-1980s, but also how OAH has changed to better meet the needs of history educators.

Guest editor Michael Kazin has compiled an impressive range of articles that reveal the complexities of the 1960s and demonstrate that the social and political movements that characterized the decade reached as far back as the early twentieth century. The articles also explore how the Sixties were as important to the political right as to the left—something that the 1985 version of the Magazine did not fully examine. As Rick Perlstein argues, "Americans organized in the 1960s to move their society to the 'right' just as others were simultaneously organizing to the 'left.'" Also in comparison to 1985, the current OAH Magazine demonstrates the sensitivity of scholars to placing Sixties reform movements in a global context. Kevin Gaines, for instance, does a masterful job of showing that the civil rights movement in the U.S. was linked to African colonial independence.

This complexity is also explored in the teaching resources section. Chris Stone and Stephanie Rossi both demonstrate that music can be a wonderful way to get students to engage broad historical themes. Stone focuses on Sly and the Family Stone and black politics, noting that the band's music serves as "a soundtrack for the era’s frustrations, traumas, and tragedies." Rossi looks at popular music, in general, from the Beach Boys to Bob Dylan. Stephen Muncher and Carrie E. Chobanian discuss the difficulties they recently encountered when trying to overcome the infl uence of simplified pop culture images of the Sixties on their students. They observe that images of "long haired males, photos of students holding flowers, psychedelic art" and peace signs often serve as the basis for student knowledge of the Sixties instead of themes of changing gender roles, the rise of environmentalism, and racial justice.

The primary source document from the Gilder Lehrman Collection connects perfectly with the Sixties theme. On April 4, 1968—the day he was assassinated—Martin Luther King Jr. led a nonviolent march of African American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. The marchers carried placards inscribed "I AM A Man." As Cecelia M. Hartsell notes in her introduction, the document represents the belief that the "natural right of all men" included the right to receive equitable wages. For Hartsell, "Martin Luther King's participation in the Memphis march represented a new phase of the Civil Rights movement—one that had moved past sit-ins to a recognition of the importance of economic equality as part and parcel of full citizenship."

OAH's collaboration with the Gilder Lehrman Institute is one important way that the Magazine has been changed over the years in order to better aid teachers. Another is the relationship that has developed between OAH and the Advanced Placement program of the College Board. Since January 2005, the "America on the World Stage" series has offered engaging articles that place U.S. History in an international context. For the current issue, Daniel T. Rodgers examines the global context of reform movements from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. At the same time that the nation-state was forming, Rodgers notes, reform movements such as those to eliminate slavery or to improve factory conditions cut across national borders.

In 1985, OAH Executive Secretary Joan Hoff-Wilson noted that publishing the OAH Magazine of History represented a new phase in the organization’s commitment to the needs of secondary history and social studies teachers. Since that time the Magazine has allowed OAH to include more and more teachers in its membership. In 1993, for instance, history educators made up 6 percent of the membership. Ten years later, this fi gure rose to 11 percent. Currently, it is at 19 percent.

In 1985, the Magazine had 382 subscribers, now it has over 6,000. It is clear from this change that the Magazine no longer represents simply an outreach to secondary teachers, but is a vital part of the organizations efforts and operations. With this in mind, I encourage teachers to submit teaching resource columns to the upcoming issues of the Magazine. These can include traditional lesson plans or even articles that discuss a classroom teaching experience. Forthcoming issues include Lincoln and the Constitution, Reinterpreting the 1920s, Military History, and Lincoln and Race. Contact us by email for deadlines and style guidelines. In the near future, we plan to survey MOH subscribers to determine which past topics and teaching resources they found most useful and which topics they would like to see the OAH Magazine in the future.

Since 2001, OAH has also been very involved with the Teaching American History Grant Program, an initiative championed by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) to improve the quality of instruction in American history as distinct from general social studies education. OAH has provided distinguished lecturers for TAH workshops around the country and sponsored a TAH symposium at its 2006 Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. At the 2007 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, OAH will host another TAH symposium. For more details, visit: <http://www.oah.org/2007>. The Magazine too has been an integral part of many TAH programs and I encourage TAH grant project directors and participants to share their experiences with our readers.

OAH's commitment to teaching is also embodied in the Tachau Teacher of the Year Award. Annually, the OAH is privileged to present an outstanding teacher with an award that memorializes the career of Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau, who taught at the University of Louisville and made path-breaking efforts to build bridges between teachers at the university and precollegiate levels. We invite all readers to nominate candidates for this prestigious award for precollegiate teaching. The award carries a stipend of $1,000, a one-year membership to OAH, and a year’s subscription to the OAH Magazine of History. Eligible candidates may excel in one or more of six different areas of history teaching. For more details, including a list of criteria and instructions for submitting an application, visit <http://www.oah.org/activities/awards/tachau>.