Archival Research Opportunities in American Educational History

HISTORIANS of American education have begun to explore an ever increasing variety of topics. In the last few years, these scholars have turned away from biography and intellectual history in favor of studies of the status and role of teachers, the child welfare movement, the growth of educational psychology and the education of minorities; they seem less interested in the philosophy and ideas of American education and are more concerned about the motives of school reformers and the impact of schooling on American society. In order to explore these issues more fully, educational historians have appealed to archivists and manuscript curators to locate and preserve the wide variety of source materials that document the history of education. Judging from the recent accessions lists of major archival and manuscript repositories, archivists and curators have begun to respond to the needs of educational historians. In the past ten years, thousands of linear feet of records and papers documenting all facets of the American educational experience have become available for scholarly research. Yet communication between the archivist and the educational scholar has not been very good. Manuscript collections often go unnoticed and unused because researchers are ignorant of their existence or availability, and many researchers are also unaware of the recent changes that have taken place in archival operations which directly affect the use of manuscript materials in their field. Certainly one of the most visible changes has been the establishment of archival research centers devoted to particular historical topics. Perhaps the Archives of Labor History and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University is the oldest and most formidable of these. Among its collections are the records of the American Federation of Teachers' national office, many AFT locals and the private papers of a number of

Political science · Sociology · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · History