Historians/History

Interview with James McPherson

by Don Adams

Mr. Adams is an intern at HNN.

Mr. McPherson recently retired from Princeton University, where he has been a teacher for forty years. HNN asked him to reflect on his life and career. He kindly agreed to do so. The interview was conducted by email.

What first drew you to the study of history? Are you one of those fortunate individuals who just always knew what they wanted to do, or did something specific trigger your interest in becoming a historian?

I was attracted to history by an introductory History of Western Civilization course as a freshman at Gustavus Adolphus College. The course used primary sources to get at the ideas and mindset of people in the Renaissance and early modern eras of European history, which challenged me to use my mind seriously for about the first time, and I decided I liked it. By the time of my sophomore year I decided that American history would be my field, though it wasn't until graduate school that I zeroed in on the 1830-1877 period as my era of concentration and research.

You studied at Johns Hopkins under C. Vann Woodward, one of the most influential historians of the twentieth century. How did he influence the nature or direction of your work?

Woodward inspired me to try to emulate his ability to write for both a general and scholarly audience at the same time. He also taught me to see the ironic side of history. His interest in the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction South also helped cause my work to focus on Reconstruction at a time (1958-1962) when the South--and the whole U.S.--were experiencing what Woodward called the Second Reconstruction.

What were your goals or aspirations as a young historian? Were you focused primarily on peer-reviewed work and other aspects of academia, or did you hope to become a writer of popular history? How have your goals changed over the years?

As a young historian, I concentrated mainly on writing scholarly works that would pass muster with other historians. But from the first, I think I had at least a subconscious desire to write about subjects with a broad interest and to do so in a manner that would make them accessible to interested lay readers--something that Woodward did very well, as noted above. My first book, which was essentially my doctoral dissertation, was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review. My experience over the past forty years has only strengthened that purpose of speaking and writing to dual audiences.

You were hired by Princeton straight out of graduate school, and remained there for forty years. Tell us how this came to pass, and what it has meant to be associated with such an institution for so long.

When I came to Princeton I had no idea I would remain here for my entire teaching career. But the Department and University provided a congenial and collegial atmosphere, encouraged my approach to teaching and scholarship, promoted me through the ranks, and I was never tempted seriously to go elsewhere because nowhere else was better, or as good as, Princeton.

How have you balanced the demands of teaching and research? Have you enjoyed teaching, or would you have preferred to focus exclusively on research and writing?

Teaching and research reinforce each other, give freshness to each other, and I think the balance at Princeton has been just about right--a medium teaching load of both graduate and undergraduate courses, but a generous leave policy that supports research and writing. I would not have been as good a writer of books if I had not had the experience of conveying information and ideas to students in a variety of teaching settings.

When you were first hired by Princeton, you were obviously a new and unknown historian. Since then, you have become quite well known. How has this increased visibility affected your work? How has it changed your relationship with students and colleagues?

My increased visibility has been something of a handicap, because it makes enormous demands on my time by people who contact me to speak, serve on historical advisory boards, elect me to positions that take a lot of time, ask for information and insights about the Civil War, etc. That has taken a lot of time away from research and writing. It also attracted large numbers of undergraduates to my courses, which also increased the demands on my time. There have been occasions when I have longed for the relative obscurity (in the public eye) of the early years of my career.

Among many other things, you have been president of the American Historical Association, a Jefferson Lecturer, a member of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and of course, a Pulitzer Prize winner. Such distinctions have allowed you to influence not just your particular areas of study, but the field of history itself. How have you tried to use that influence? What changes would you like to bring about?

I have tried to use my influence in the profession to advance the visibility and professional respect for public history, to encourage my colleagues to write clearer jargon-free prose for a broad readership, and to aid historic preservation.

How has the field of history changed over the course of your career? Is history written differently now than in 1962? Has its place in American culture changed?

The field of history has changed considerably since 1962. The rise of social history with its various subfields of black history, ethnic history, labor history, women's history, gender studies, etc. has enormously broadened the subject matter as well as approach to writing history. Quantitative methodologies have also had a large impact, although not as large as their practitioners thought they would have back in the 1970s. I think history has a larger place in American culture than it did forty years ago--witness the History Channel on television, the growth of the History Book Club, the best-seller status of many works of history and biography, and so on.

A number of famous historians have been found guilty of plagiarism in recent years, and there are those who suggest that the field is not policing itself adequately. Do you share their concerns? Should historians and their professional associations change their practices to better protect their integrity?

I think the profession does a fairly good job of policing plagiarism and other abuses, despite a few well-publicized exceptions which are not representative. The publicity for those exceptions is itself a form of policing that discourages others from doing the same.

What role do you think historians and historical associations should play in the debate over the teaching of history in public schools? That is to say, as politicians increasingly use their own influence and that of the federal government to determine what is taught in history classes, should professional historians challenge their efforts? Are you at all concerned about the direction of history in public schools?

Historians should use their professional standards and influence to prevent the politicization of the teaching of history in public schools. The AHA is very strong in its advocacy of professional standards in the administering of the Teaching American History grants, its advice to the NEH, and so on. I think we can and should do more of that.

Consider the following observation. Many of our Civil War monuments and museums are characterized by a notable lack of context. For example, at places such as Fredericksburg and the Spotsylvania National Military Park, you can find shrines to the military genius of Lee and Jackson, moving tributes to “all the heroes” who died on both sides, and detailed accounts of the battles fought there. What you will not find are references to slavery, sectionalism, and other components of the political and cultural divide which gave rise to the war. What does this suggest to you about contemporary society? Are our sensibilities still so fragile that we cannot yet address such matters in our memorials, or is it simply not the function of such memorials to do so?

Help is on the way to broaden the context of Civil War interpretations at battlefield parks, starting with the new visitor center and interpretive exhibits at Gettysburg. The advisory board for the Park Service and its partner the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation (on which I serve) includes several prominent historians who are helping the Park service--at Gettysburg and elsewhere--place these battles in the broader political and social context of the causes and consequences of the war. I expect major changes in the interpretation and approach at many parks in the next several years.

The South is increasingly dominant in national politics, and indeed in national culture. Do you see remnants of the old “lost cause” theory in this, or is it simply a demographic phenomenon?

The increasing domination of the South in national politics is a consequence of demographic shifts as well as a growing cultural conservatism that sometimes does embody the lost cause mentality about the Civil War, but I think that is only a minor part of the Sunbelt phenomenon.

A thorough discussion of the legacy of the Civil War could fill volumes, but are there one or two things which you think are most important about its impact on us today?

The civil rights movement and the multicultural pluralism of modern America are two legacies of the triumph of a dynamic, free-labor democratic capitalist culture over an agrarian, slave-labor, hierarchical culture in the Civil War.

You have spoken out on controversial issues outside the field of history, perhaps most notably on the topic of racial preferences. Isn’t there a risk that in so doing, you and other historians who join in political debates will undermine the public’s acceptance of your work as objective history?

I don't think there is any such thing as objective history, and most informed, thinking members of the public realize it. Our current values and attitudes influence our interpretation of the past, and that interpretation in turn informs our attitudes toward present issues, including controversial ones. The relationship between the past and present is always a two-way street. History is not something that stands still, forever and unchangingly enshrined in stone, and I think historians have a public duty to use their changing understanding of the past to inform their opinions on controversial and relevant issues in the present.

Now that you have retired from Princeton, what will you do next?

Retirement will make little difference in my routine of research, writing, and public lectures except that I will have more time and energy for these things now that I don't go regularly and relentlessly into the classroom week after week.