The Legend of Marcus Whitman and the Transformation of the American Historical Profession
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3308465 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sarah Koenig (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 87 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 99-121 |
| Publication date | 2018-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Church History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0009640718000070 |
| OpenAlex | W2805894013 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 24 |
This article explores the secularization of the American historical profession through the lens of an early twentieth-century historical controversy: the debunking of the legend that nineteenth-century missionary Marcus Whitman saved the Pacific Northwest from becoming a British possession. The Whitman controversy was a key skirmish in an ongoing, and still unresolved, debate about what constitutes right practices and ideations of history in the American academy, what counts as undue historical bias, and what place (if any) appeals to religion should have in academic historical discourse. Through the Whitman debate and other early twentieth-century historical battles, Protestant providential narratives of history were purged from academic textbooks and providential historians marginalized from the academy. Taking a cue from the evolutionary schemas of religious studies scholars, professional historians cast tales like the Whitman legend-and the providential narratives that undergirded them-as primitive myths unfit for a modernizing society. The Whitman controversy thus serves as a case study into the American historical profession's transformation at the turn of the twentieth century, a transformation that remains contested and incomplete
Art · Art history · Legend · Literature · Mythology · Narrative · Political science · Protestantism · Secularization · American History and Culture · Classics · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · History · Law · Philosophy, History, and Historiography
That Noble Dream
Roads to Rome
Formations of the Secular
The American Historical Review
Marcus Whitman, Pathfinder and Patriot
Church History in the Age of Science
Redeeming America
Dr. John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon
Essays in Historical Criticism
A History of the United States for Secondary Schools
The Secular RevolutionPower, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life
Saviors and Scientists
Manifest Destinies
The Chinook Jargon
Aboriginal Geographic Names in the State of Washington
The Thunder Bird
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |