How History Has Changed

A while ago I ran across a 43-year old issue of the “American Historical Review” (AHR), the most important scholarly journal for historians in the US. Dated October, 1970, this compilation of the best, and most famous, American historians offers a revealing glimpse at the structure of the history profession, and more generally at the whole American academy.

The title page lists some of the most prestigious historians of the time, who served as the Editor and on the Board of Editors. They were all white men, 10 of them. A few women are also listed on the title page, all assistants in the editorial process.

The AHR’s purpose is to publish the best research articles and review the best books about any historical subject. Six articles were published in that issue, all written by men. 117 books were reviewed: among the authors were 119 men and 11 women, about half of whom were co-authors with their husbands. Each issue of the AHR also carried advertisements by publishers for their latest books. I examined about one-quarter of them closely: books by 80 male authors and 6 female authors were displayed.

In 1970 women rarely appeared as historians. They showed up even more rarely as subjects for historians: of the 117 books reviewed, only one had a woman’s name in the title, and none of the titles included the words “women”, “gender”, or “family”. Men’s names appeared in about one-third of the titles. Other significant historical subjects were also absent: although there were many books about war, no books about slavery or Native Americans were reviewed and only one book concerned race, a volume about South Africa. The only book about an African American was an early biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been murdered two years before.

This 400-page volume is not just a snapshot of the American historical profession near the end of the civil rights era, but also a study of what history was. History as written about, taught in universities and schools, and understood by the public was the study of great men, writings about war and politics and diplomacy, analyses of male thinkers and doers by other men. Except for books about other parts of the world, history was white.

Since 1970, much has changed. The unquestioned dominance of white men in America is long gone, in our national life as a whole and in the history profession in particular. After over 100 years of male Presidents of the American Historical Association, the primary organization for historians which publishes the AHR, the first woman was elected in 1987. Since 1996, half of the Presidents have been female. The most recent issue of the AHR was produced by a very different group of historians: the Editor is male, but the Board of Editors has 7 men and 6 women. Three of 5 articles were written by women, one about family in colonial America. Most books being reviewed are written by men, but the ratio is 2:1 instead of 10:1. Advertisements for books show a similar ratio.

Those data show that complete equality between men and women in the history profession is approaching, but has not been achieved. The proportion of women among those who earned a PhD in history has increased gradually and steadily from about 25% in the late 1970s to 45% in 2010. Once they went on the job market, however, women appear to have had equal success with men. About half of each gender had a job lined up when they received their degree. Women were as likely as men to land jobs at 4-year institutions. Promotions from assistant to associate to full professor, and the job security of tenure, were equally likely for men and women.

Historians are more diverse than ever before. The dominance of the sons of well-established families of northern and western European background has given way to greater ethnic variety: many more historians are the first in their families to have attended college, come from families who immigrated to the US from all over the world, are openly homosexual. The proportion of history PhD’s earned by minorities has risen from under 10% in the 1980s to 19% in 2010.

Just as historians are different, so is history itself. There are still many books about politics, war, and great men, but also many about great women or which analyze gender, both female and male. Native Americans and African Americans, and the racial issues behind their unequal treatment by white America, are no longer uncommon subjects.

These remarkable shifts in my profession are one example of the larger processes which have transformed American society over the past few decades. The data point to further movement in the future toward even more equality, in gender, in race and ethnicity, in sexual orientation. Perhaps paradoxically, the more equality within the history profession, the more our history of inequality will be discussed and written about. Both changes make some old white men uncomfortable. But they’ll have to learn to live with them.

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, December 10, 2013

Thanksgiving in the Kitchen

On Thanksgiving morning, five of us bumped into each other in our kitchen, as we prepared an elaborate dinner. Janet, my mother-in-law, made creamed onions, a casserole combining several jars of onions, cubes of bread, a cream sauce, and some cheese. I had never seen that dish before it was served to me at the first Christmas after our marriage. It is a traditional dish in my wife’s family, which has evolved over many decades. “Know your onions” used to mean that we should understand the differences among local varieties of onion. But interstate commerce, made possible by big capital and better methods of preservation, has standardized onions across America, as it has potatoes, apples, and most fruits and vegetables. Our daily foods have changed in ways we can no longer grasp.

When Janet married into a family which had generations of connection with Wisconsin, she began to scout that the offerings of antiques and foods along the journey from northern Illinois to northwestern Wisconsin. For years, she, and now her daughters’ families, have bought cheese at one store in Tomah, an intersection in the center of the state, which specializes in fine aged cheddar. I love the onions, but the younger generation is less interested, and that tradition is likely to disappear.

My son Sam and daughter-in-law Katie brought squashes and wild rice for a vegetarian “salad” (they couldn’t agree on what to call it). They haven’t eaten meat for years. So they developed together a daily menu of foods I had never known and rarely eat except with them. Among the many traits they share are an appreciation for good raw foods prepared by hand and the willingness to spend time every day shopping and making dinner. Some of these dishes are so good, I have looked at Katie’s food blog to copy the recipe.

Many people, vegetarian or not, feel they can’t spare the time that such attention to healthy, tasty food requires. But Katie and Sam also have busy professional lives, often climb rocks and mountains, and generally do just as much as anyone else. Although they may not think about it this way, I would say they have swapped television for eating. According to Nielson, Americans average over 35 hours a week of TV, more than 5 hours a day. Instead they entertain each other in the kitchen and have learned much more about food than if they had been watching the Food Network.

My wife Liz made the turkey. It was probably the first turkey she made this year. She only cooks big birds on the biggest family holidays, and never orders turkey in a restaurant. The lengthy prelude that a turkey requires is as much a family ritual as the final presentation of the platter of fragrant meat, the moment when preparation ends and eating begins. Turkey is a symbol of the celebration of family and family history, made possible by national holidays, repeated every year through our mutual desire to be together. We are hardly a “traditional family”, in the mythological sense often given to that phrase, but we are bound by our traditions.

My contribution to the Thanksgiving meal was a cranberry bread, mostly according to the recipe printed on the bag of cranberries. Liz’s sister Pat makes a cranberry bread at family gatherings that I can’t get enough of. I connect cranberries with Maine, where I spent 27 years, and with Sam, who remains the only person I know who likes raw cranberry juice and is proud of it. Katie suggested that I don’t chop the cranberries, as the recipe suggests, with the result of bursts of cranberry scattered through the bread.

No family gathering brings everyone together. Someone we all remember has died, everyone is connected to more than one family, distances are no longer manageable without expense and planning. But I thought of Pat while I made the bread. Sharing recipes is like sharing love: it makes everyone happy today and in the future.

I did make another contribution to this holiday’s events. Although my own family paid little attention to Jewish holidays, like Passover and Hanukkah, Liz and I incorporated Jewish holidays into our new family’s invented practices. She probably had never seen a latke before she met me, and maybe never heard the word. On Friday, Liz made plate after plate of potato pancakes, onto which we all spooned apple sauce that had just come off the stove. The food processor eliminates the hardest task; latkes are no harder to make than hash browns. The only difference lies in the histories of the families who make them.

Family foods change gradually with each generation. Cooking and talking, bumping into one another constantly, checking each other’s dishes, cleaning up and making a mess again – it brings us all together with a common purpose and a shared understanding of who our family is, what we believe in, and what we want to eat.

For that I am thankful.

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, December 3, 2013

The Disadvantage of Being White

In my lifetime the shift toward equality has been remarkable. Until the late 1960s the preferential treatment of whites and men was so normal that questioning it made headlines. That form of white male privilege is gone. Quite a few white men are so upset at the loss of that privilege that they now complain about discrimination.

On the online debate forum Debate.org, you can read dozens of white male complaints about discrimination against them. A study by Harvard and Tufts sociologists in 2011 quantifies this white certainty that they are now the underprivileged. White and black men and women were asked to rate the amount of discrimination against both ethnic groups. They all agreed that through the 1960s, there was significant discrimination against blacks and virtually none against whites. But then opinions diverge. Whites believe that discrimination against blacks has now nearly disappeared, while discrimination against themselves has greatly increased, well past the amount against blacks. The researchers summarized: “Whites believe...the pendulum has now swung beyond equality in the direction of anti-white discrimination.”

White feelings of discrimination are more common among the working class, according to a 2012 survey: about 60% of white working-class Americans said that discrimination against whites is as great as discrimination against blacks and other minorities, while 39% of college-educated whites believe that.

Those feelings are much more likely among conservatives, older Americans and people in the South.

Such beliefs are comforting to whites, especially men, who are dissatisfied with their lives. It’s all because of discrimination against them! Racist whites were delighted about the results of that study. On the neo-Nazi website Stormfront, one responder had a great idea, expressed in a typically racist manner: “Someone should make a youtube video with White and Black equally qualified job applicants (or even make the White person more qualified to be even more realistic) and drop some hint that one applicant is a Negro. I guarantee that the Black job applicant will be getting a call back while the White applicant is plain out of luck.”

Well, someone has done that, or something like it. In response to job ads in newspapers, the National Bureau of Economic Research sent out 5000 resumes with names that sounded black or white, like Lakisha and Jamal, or Emily and Greg. Although the resumes were the same in every other respect, “white” names received 50% more callbacks than “black” names. That racist result was true across a variety of industries, including employers who advertise “equal opportunity”. Having a “white” name was equivalent to eight more years of experience for a “black” applicant.

A similar study this year of possible racism was done by sending a white and a minority tester of the same age and gender posing as a possible home renter or buyer. Across 8000 tests in 28 cities across the US, blacks were shown 11% fewer rentals and 17% fewer homes than whites. Whites were likely to be offered lower rents, or quoted lower prices. This was a significant improvement over the first time this study was done in 1977, but still far from equality, much less anti-white discrimination.

Some people wondered whether the election of Barack Obama meant an era of racial equality had finally arrived. We know better now.            Suppose Hillary is elected President in 2016. Would that mean that women’s equality has been achieved? I know some white men who would probably go further – they would say that being a woman is an advantage, that another nail has been put into the coffin of white men, now always at a disadvantage.

Too much attention is paid to the few women and the few African Americans who manage to reach high positions. What counts is the next election, the next promotion, the next hire. Will a woman have an equal chance? Will an African American have any chance?

Would Hillary’s election mean that a woman, Republican or Democrat, has an equal chance as a man in the next election? Of course not.

All the complaints about affirmative action and the whining by white men that they now suffer from discrimination imply one thing – that less qualified women and minorities are being unfairly put in front. But it’s very hard to find any such examples. Much more likely is that less qualified white men get the nod. Hence the slow pace toward equality of opportunity.

We have not reached equality, much less some fantasy world where having been the object of discrimination forever gives one extra power. We have reached a point far enough away from unquestioned white male privilege that the reduction in that advantage is being felt. None of the complainers can cite a single study that shows any real privilege for minorities or for women. But that won’t stop the whining.

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, November 26, 2013