Cultures in Conflict: An Argument Against “Common Ground” Between Practicing Professional Historians and Academics

There is a fundamental distinction between practicing professional historians and academics, and any celebration of a “common ground” tradition masks the fundamental cultural differences between historians who practice and historians who teach. Over the past three decades, since the founding of the Society for History in the Federal Government and the National Council on Public History, practicing professional historians have struggled with definitions of public history. “Struggling with our own identify,” the author states, “many federal historians did not want to be labeled public historians, the professor's euphemism for non-academic historians.” Rather, federal historians belonged to a “cadre of professionals who practiced their specialties in the public sector.” With extensive knowledge of the federal history sector (with particular attention given to the historical office of the Department of Energy) as well as academic history departments and policies, the author argues that “professional historians [should] be defined by what they do, rather than by where they work.” The historical profession must acknowledge that federal and other professional historians “occupy their own solid ground, perhaps not adequately mapped,” and represent more than a “middle ground” between the public and the academy.