A Social History of the Social Science History Association during Its Early Years

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-581
Author(s):  
Lynn Hollen Lees
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social History ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Early Years ◽  
University Of Pennsylvania ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

Social historians formed an important part of the Social Science History Association from its early days, and they widened its intellectual space beyond initial emphases on political history and quantitative methods. Lee Benson and other faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Charles and Louise Tilly, were particularly influential in attracting a broad mix of scholars to the group. The openness of the association and its interdisciplinarity appealed to younger scholars, and those interested in the “new urban history” were early recruits. A growing number of women, many of whom were social historians, participated in the first conventions and newly organized networks.

Early American Historiography and Social Science History

1982 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Scott Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
American History ◽  
Association Network ◽  
Science History ◽  
Early American History ◽  
Early American ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Time Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Despite the emergence of social science history, the profession remains organized around the study of periods in the history of societies. Departments of history still structure their curricula mainly along national and temporal lines, and the same principle of socialization thereby defines most academic positions (Darnton, 1980). To judge by the sessions of the annual meetings of the Social Science History Association (SSHA), those sympathetic with that orientation focus on topics, approaches, and methodologies. Only one association network, that for the study of Asia, mentions a locale in its title, and none specifies a particular time period. This article will examine the findings and implications of social science history for one well-established national/period field, that of early American history.

The Social Science History Association at 40: A Savory Chop Suey

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-563
Author(s):  
Susan Boslego Carter
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Multidisciplinary Research ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Geographic Regions ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Academic Rewards

Multidisciplinary conversations are tough. Language, habits of thinking, and styles of presentation and criticism differ profoundly across disciplines. Academic rewards to multidisciplinary research are unpredictable. Yet year after year, for 40 years running now, the Social Science History Association (SSHA) has hosted increasingly large, multidisciplinary conferences that attract scholars from a diverse set of academic fields and geographic regions. By fostering debate in an atmosphere of civility, respect, and inclusiveness, the SSHA has become a premiere venue for introducing the latest in social scientific topics, methods, and data. Here I salute the founders and guardians of the culture responsible for this impressive achievement with a multidisciplinary foray into the history of America's chop suey craze of the early twentieth century. Like the remarkable history of the SSHA, the history of chop suey illustrates the importance of civility, respect, and democratic inclusiveness in fostering innovation. It is a story that celebrates the rewards to institutions that promote such virtues.

Social History and Historical Sociology: Contrasts and Complementarities

1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theda Skocpol
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of

Over the ten years of its existence, the Social Science History Association has been a meeting place for groups in rebellion against the dominant orthodoxies of their disciplines. Thus it is fitting that an SSHA panel should assess the accomplishments and relationship of “social history” and “historical sociology,” two movements that have grown up as critiques of formerly dominant orientations in (respectively) the disciplines of history and sociology.

Towards a Social History of Experience: Postmodern Predicaments in Theory and Interdisciplinarity

1989 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 427-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konrad H. Jarausch
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Theoretical Orientation ◽  
Science History ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Broad Agreement ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Duringthe last generation the writing of social history has taken an ironic turn. In the 1960s and much of the 1970s, it literally exploded across the scholarly landscape as the most dynamic and innovative form of historiography. Many competing conceptions including the FrenchAnnalesschool, the American quantitative social science history (QUASSH), the British Marxist history of society, and the emerging GermanGesellschaftsgeschichtecombined to overthrow the Rankean paradigm. These diverse programs, nevertheless, showed broad agreement in exploring the mute masses, expanding the scope of inquiry to new topics such as family and education, seeking a theoretical orientation, experimenting with fresh methods such as quantification or oral history, and supporting some form of progressive politics. This agenda was even reflected in T-shirt slogans such as “history from the bottom up,” showing a fat behind, or “bottoms-up history,” depicting raised beer steins. For many of the participants, there was an exciting sense of fresh departures and of camaraderie in an effort at once intellectually daring and politically committed.

Introduction to Roundtable

1998 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Turbin
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social History ◽  
Political History ◽  
Graduate Course ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Challenges

Like many other social science historians, since the late 1980s I have reflected on how postmodernist thinkers like Foucault and Derrida are useful for historians. In 1995 I taught a graduate course on the history of social history, and I looked back on the origins of the field through the eyes of my students who were intrigued with postmodernism. I realized that time has crept up on me. I barely noticed that this field that we developed over the years is no longer young but has come of age and is now part of the accepted canon, one of many subdisciplines. Indeed, my students thought of social science history in much the same way that social science historians viewed traditional political history, a field whose assumptions and perspectives should be critically analyzed, challenged, and revised. These students helped me to see postmodernist criticisms in a new light, not as a sharp break from social science history but rather as emerging at least in part from long-term developments within the field itself. The contributors to the debate on these pages see postmodernism in this way. In various ways, they contend that these challenges, poststructuralist and otherwise, can help us to see within social science history contradictions and tensions that result in both strengths and weaknesses. We can learn from postmodernism without accepting it uncritically; we can reevaluate materialist social history in light of new challenges without rejecting social science history's benefits.

Reputed Changes in Social Scientists' Sympathies Regarding the Nature-Nurture Controversy: An Exploratory Comparison

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Evolutionary Genetic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Social Behavior

Probably the most enduring question throughout the history of the social sciences pertains to how much human social behavior is a product of evolutionary, genetic, nonsocial, “natural” sorts of variables as opposed to learned sociocultural, environmental, “nurturing” variables (Hammond, 1983). Regardless of where individual social scientists themselves happen to have settled on this issue, many have offered an opinion about the prevailing position of social scientists generally on this question at various points in social science history. The present study compares these opinions, especially as they pertain to the twentieth century.

Social Networks and Social Science History

1995 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Cotts Watkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Executive Director ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Program Chair ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

The title of this presidential address reflects the happy conjunction of my particular interest in social networks and the network structure of the Social Science History Association. My talk will be brief, because I want to reserve most of this “presidential picnic” for the panel that the program chair, Donna Gabaccia, organized. Last year's president, Eric Monkkonen (1994: 166), in his history of the institution of the SSHA, called our meetings “a venue for scholars from different disciplines to learn to talk to one another.” That we have this annual opportunity for conversations is due to the work of our networks that organize the sessions that attract us to the meetings; to program chairs—this year, Donna—who create a program from these sessions; and to our executive director, Erik Austin, whose ability and diligence keeps the organization going from year to year.

Life Cycles in Social Science History

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-489
Author(s):  
Andrew Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Science History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of

When one is asked to speak on the past, present, and future of social science history, one is less overwhelmed by the size of the task than confused by its indexicality. Whose definition of social science history? Which past? Or, put another way, whose past? Indeed, which and whose present? Moreover, should the task be taken as one of description, prescription, or analysis? Many of us might agree on, say, a descriptive analysis of the past of the Social Science History Association. But about the past of social science history as a general rather than purely associational phenomenon, we might differ considerably. The problem of description versus prescription only increases this obscurity.

New nurses, new spaces: a preview of the AACN History Study

1992 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
JE Lynaugh ◽  
J Fairman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Care ◽  
Social History ◽  
University Of Pennsylvania ◽  
Critical Care Nursing ◽  
New Nurses ◽  
Reciprocal Relationships ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

This article previews selected findings of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses History Project that is being conducted under the auspices of the Center for the Study of the History of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. Using methods of social history research, we reviewed pertinent literature, studied documents of institutions and organizations, and interviewed a broad array of participants. Analysis of this evidence resulted in a history of the evolution of nursing and hospital care for patients with life-threatening illnesses during the 40-year period since 1950. We explored the effects of changing public and professional ideas about the nature of critical illness, the effects of technology, and the historical dimensions of critical care nursing. Special attention was given to the events and circumstances that led to the development of AACN and the reciprocal relationships between AACN and the care of critically ill people.

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