1 February
In the early 1920s, the Department of History at Iowa was transformed. Thanks to increased funding following World War I, president Walter Jessup strengthened the faculty by making several strong appointments, one of whom was Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., who came from Ohio State University in 1919 to head the department. Schlesinger introduced several policies and reforms that have remained ingrained in the character of the department over time.
One was to professionalize the department by bringing it into closer contact with other university departments, emphasizing research and publication, organizing conferences, establishing a newsletter for graduates, and recruiting promising junior scholars. Among those recruited included Walther I. Brandt, Raymond J. Sontag, John W. Wuorinen, and Ralph Turner, all of who went on to distinguished careers in the profession beyond the University of Iowa. By 1922-1923, History was the second largest graduate department in the university, with 69 students.
Schlesinger enriched the American history curriculum by offering new courses in social and cultural history. In 1922, Schlesinger published New Viewpoints in American History, a pioneering work that applied insights of the “New History” to American History. The New History was the product of a movement dating to the end of the 19th century to professionalize the social sciences, which had an impact on conventional conceptions of history as past politics. Out of this work emerged new fields of American economic, social, cultural, and intellectual history. “American history,” explains Stow Persons, “was now seen as a foreshortened ‘recapitulation’ of European history, although Schlesinger did not use that term.” The goal was to stress the social, scientific, and intellectual progress of society rather than merely telling history through a narrative of political happenings. The New History coincided with a “new” cultural, social, and architectural vision for the University of Iowa as it transitioned from a “simple college” to a modern university (see Brcak and Sizemore, below).
The emphasis of Schlesinger’s New History on social and cultural topics reinforced efforts at great public engagement by the University and by colleagues such as Benjamin Shambaugh and his work on “Applied History” to serve a broader public. Wrote Schlesinger in his memoir: “Academically the University displayed a pleasing contrast to Ohio State. There, I had felt the lack of a considered overall aim, a tendency to drift with the tide; but Iowa, under President Jessup’s vigorous leadership, had a well-defined purpose as well as a clear-cut program. The purpose was to place the University through its Extension Service and other means immediately at the disposal of all the people.”
A notable innovation Schlesinger introduced in this regard was the creation of an annual conference of Iowa history teachers, both secondary and college. One objective of the annual conference was to convey new historical insights to high school teachers and, as Schlesinger explains in “A Letter to Teachers,” published in the Bulletin of the State University of Iowa in May 1932, “to discuss the vital problems that are confronting all members of the craft.” Another objective of the annual was to establish bonds between the department and other Iowa colleges where Schlesinger hoped to find graduate students.