A TROUBLING HISTORY?

When Harvard's History Department offered Yale Ph.D. graduate Eric Arnesen an assistant professorship in the spring of 1987, the scholar says he was flooded with mail advising him not to accept the post.

The letters, many written by people he did not know, warned him of the dismal prospects for a junior Americanist, especially one interested in social history, at Harvard, Arnesen says. Nevertheless, he accepted the offer and arrived to a History Department reeling from public criticism over two recent tenure decisions.

"The department's reputation preceded it," Arnesen says.

Currently, Arnesen finds himself in the very predicament he had been warned of years ago. After four years of teaching a variety of courses, ranging from survey courses to courses in his specialities of African-American and labor histories, Arnesen was denied a promotion to associate professor without tenure last spring.

Arnesen and several scholars at Harvard and other universities view his rejection as symptomatic of the department's long-standing failure to promote junior faculty and its disdain for scholars pursuing non-traditional fields of social and cultural history.

Arnesen's departure will weaken the already thin ranks of Americanists, a problem many in the department and undergraduate concentrators are impatient for the department to remedy.

Arnesen points to the steadily declining numbers of Harvard undergraduates who choose to concentrate in history as further evidence of student dissatisfaction with the department.

The number of concentrators has fallen from 488 in 1986 to 330 in 1990. In addition, 48 students enrolled in junior tutorials last fall, a decrease of almost 50 percent from the previous year, according to a departmental memo tutorial coordinator Dennis Skiotis sent to Department Chair Thomas N. Bisson obtained by The Crimson.

Junior tutorials are only required for history concentrators planning to write a thesis. But enrollment in sophomore tutorials, which are required for all history concentrators, showed slight gains from last year.

The decline in junior tutorial enrollment, Arnesen says, "speaks volumes" about the fact that students are staying away from history because they are wary of the current dearth of senior American historians.

Some students interviewed earlier this month say the lack of professors affected their decisions not to concentrate in history.

"If the department had been better, I would have studied American history during my four years," says James R. Haney '94, a social studies concentrator.

Currently, there are six senior Americanists: Winthrop Professor History Stephan Thernstrom, Phillips Professor and Adams University Professor Bernard Bailyn, Professor of History William E. Gienapp, Professor of History Akira Iriye, Warren Professor of American History Ernest R. May and Trumbull Professor of American History Donald Fleming.

But Bisson, who is Lea professor of medieval history, says that though the department is "very mindful of the decline in enrollment," he maintains that "the American history department is not in crisis."

"Our only area of coverage that is less than ideal is that of 20th century political history," Bisson says.

The department has just concluded a national search to fill a junior post in American history. After reviewing more than 200 applications, the department extended an offer to Ronald W. Yanowsky, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Berkeley and an expert in late 19th and early 20th century social and cultural history.

And the department has made strides in strengthening its European and Asian wings. The department recently lured to Harvard five senior scholars, including David Blackbourne in modern German history, Chris Jones in ancient history, William Kirby in Chinese history, Mark A. Kishlansky in British history and Michael McCormick in medieval history.

And James Hankins, the department's senior tutor and an expert in the Renaissance, was recently promoted to a full professor of history.

Bisson says he has made tenuring more junior faculty members a goal of his chairship.

The situation for junior faculty members has also somewhat improved, according to Arnesen. Among the gains that junior professors have achieved is the right to sit on committees reviewing applications for junior posts.

But Arnesen and several other department members say there are still gains that need to be made.

"The department has recently made new appointments, but all things considered, it's moving at a glacial pace," says Arnesen.

But Fleming says the department cannot capitulate to pressure and make hasty appointments.

"You can't appoint someone who will disappoint students when he gets here," Fleming says.

Yet, little has changed in the department's American wing, according to some department members. The department still lacks a senior scholar in modern American history.

Brian Balough, a junior scholar in 20th century American history, left to accept a lifetime appointment at the University of Virginia. Arnesen himself will leave this spring for a tenure-tracked position at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Bisson says the decision not to offer Arnesen tenure was based on reservations expressed by some members of the department about Arnesen's work, including his newly published book, Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class and Politics 1863-1923, which won the James H. Dunning Prize.

The prize is awarded to a young scholar for outstanding writing in his or her first or second work.

Recently, the department lost two prominent American scholars to retirement, Warren Professor of History emeritus David H. Donald and Loeb University Professor emeritus Oscar Handlin. In addition, there has been talk that Bailyn plans to retire in two years.

And in 1987, the department denied two popular junior professors tenure. Then Dunwalke Associate Professor of History Alan Brinkley, whose course, "America since 1945: `The American Century'" regularly drew close to 1000 students to Sanders Theatre, was denied a promotion in a vote that sharply divided the department.

The department also denied tenure to 20th century Americanist A. Bradford Lee, then associate professor of history.

So, one area that remains unstaffed is 20th century American political history. For 10 years, Harvard has lacked a senior scholar in that field, since Warren Professor of American History Frank B. Freidel Jr., an expert on the New Deal, left for the University of Washington. And course offerings in that field have been sparse since Brinkley's departure.

Department officials say that it is the lack of qualified scholars that has made appointments in American history, especially 20th century political history, difficult.

"We are finding it difficult to find people who meet criteria of excellence," Bisson says.

"For the moment, we're holding the 20th century [political historian] search in abeyance," says Bisson. "We're looking hard. We're not the only major department that's looking for scholars."

Thernstrom says that other major universities such as Yale University and Berkeley lack a senior scholar in 20th century American political history.

The department is also hoping to conclude searches for a senior scholar in American history and a junior professor in history and history and literature this spring, according to Gienapp.

Contributing to the department's paralysis is an ideological battle being waged in Robinson over the direction of the American wing, say some department members.

An Americanist in the department attributes the slowness of making both junior and senior appointments to resistance among certain department members to hire scholars who specialize in fields of social and cultural history.

"[They have] trouble agreeing on candidates," he says. "There were lots of good candidates but [they were] probably not working in a field that the history department approved of."

Outside scholars say that some of the most significant work currently being done in history centers around fields in social and cultural history, including women's, labor and African-American histories.

"There is no question that the great concentration of able young people are in various area of what we might call social history--so that I think to snub those fields is to miss out on a lot of the best people to get a kind of teaching and research that gets people thinking about connection between social and political," says David Montgomery, a Yale labor historian.

And Nelson N. Lichtenstein, a professor of 20th century American history at the University of Virginia, says that Harvard's lack of senior scholars in social and cultural history "become[s] a bit of a joke" in the academic community.

Bisson acknowledges that the department is slow to promote some fields of social history.

"We are very conservative in those regards. Perhaps too conservative," says Bisson.

Fleming says, however, that he disapproves of separating historical inquiry into specific areas. "It is fragmentation that I don't myself approve of," he says.

"I hate to see women pushed off into separate categories" because women's history is a part of the greater historical picture, he says.

The charge that Harvard is hostile to the new fields of study is "peculiar" and "unfounded," says Thernstrom, who is a social historian. Harvard has been a pioneer in the field, he says, citing the works of Handlin and Bailyn.

"I certainly don't think there is a commitment to look for traditional historians," Thernstrom says.

"It is precisely that the department is looking for absolutely first rate minds," Thernstrom says, adding "I have no doubt that next appointments will include people in those fields."

Thernstrom adds the department cannot cover all areas in American history, saying the department has never had more than 10 tenured professors in American history.

Because funds are limited, the department must focus on recruiting scholars with broad interests, he says.

Bisson adds that the History Department has only two to three additional faculty positions remaining for the next five years. "That means with so few [open positions] there's a certain reluctance" to promote scholars whose scholarship is limited to specific areas of history.

"Our view has been let's pick the best. People with knowledge broad enough to teach different things," says Thernstrom.

But Arnesen says this emphasis on scholars pursuing traditional fields has "made the department safe for conservatism" at the expense of progress.

"In a very, very conservative department of Americanists, it's hard to imagine how new work that is at odds with that conservative vision will get a fair hearing," he says.

"No one who is liberal has managed to make it through the sacred gates of tenure in decades," says Arnesen.