Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: Taking issue with Carl Becker's essay, "Everyman His Own Historian"
At the AHA annual meeting in 1931, Carl Becker got a standing ovation for his presidential address, “Everyman His Own Historian.” It remains the most quoted speech in the AHA archive, and it is well worth reading today.1 But it is also a period piece marking the distance between Becker’s world and our own.
It begins with a seemingly simple argument: “the essence of history is the memory of things said and done,” and since the memory of things said and done is “essential to the performance of the simplest acts of daily life,” history is not some esoteric science. It is an extension of social memory. To illustrate his argument, Becker told a story about a character he called Mr. Everyman.
Mr. Everyman is a dutiful, if somewhat colorless, figure who works in an office, enjoys playing golf, and on a certain day wakes up with a nagging sense that there is something he has forgotten. So, says Becker, he “does what any historian would do; he does a bit of historical research in the sources.” In his vest pocket he finds a note reminding him to pay a man named Smith for 20 tons of coal delivered a few months before. Even though he hadn’t actually seen the coal delivered, the note in his pocket produces a picture in his mind of Smith’s wagons “driving up to his house and of the precious coal sliding dustily through the cellar window.” Armed with this knowledge of the past, he leaves work at four o’clock that afternoon and walks to Smith’s office to pay for the coal.
But when he gets to Smith’s office, he discovers that his morning’s research was faulty. On the day he ordered the coal, Smith didn’t have the kind that he wanted so passed the job onto Brown. He hastens to Brown’s office. Seeing the evidence in Brown’s ledger, he writes out a check for $1017.20. After returning from the Country Club that evening, he digs more deeply into his own records and finds the original invoice from Brown. Secure in his knowledge of the past, he goes to bed with a picture in his mind of Brown’s wagons pulling up to his cellar window.
“Mr. Everyman would be astonished to learn that he is an historian,” Becker said, “yet it is obvious, isn’t it, that he has performed all the essential operations involved in historical research.” He consulted memory, and when memory failed, he turned to written records, and when the records proved contradictory, he persisted until he arrived at what was, in his view, a more correct picture of the past, a picture that allowed him to act in the present.
That Mr. Everyman stored coal in his cellar and paid bills in person marks part of the distance between Becker’s world and our own. But on closer examination there is something even stranger about Becker’s story. My engineer husband reinforced my sense that 20 tons was an awful lot of coal, the equivalent today of 3,600 gallons of heating oil, enough to heat a four-bedroom house in New England four times over. Pouring through Mr. Everyman’s cellar window, it would have filled a space roughly 10’ by 10’ by 10.’ Mr. Everyman either had a very large house or a very inefficient furnace. That he could write out a check for $1,017.20 (near the median yearly salary in 1931), suggests that he was anything but an everyman.
So what was Becker up to? If his main character had been the coal deliveryman, the furnace repairman, or the woman next door, would he still have been able to argue that in the course of daily life such a person “performed all the essential operations involved in historical research”? In fact, there is a rift right down the middle of the essay between the story of Mr. Everyman and Becker’s expansive assertions about history. One astonishing paragraph begins by turning Mr. Everyman into Mr. Everybody. By the end, Becker has pulled off his stiff collar and picked up a drum....
Read entire article at AHA's magazine: Perspectives on History
It begins with a seemingly simple argument: “the essence of history is the memory of things said and done,” and since the memory of things said and done is “essential to the performance of the simplest acts of daily life,” history is not some esoteric science. It is an extension of social memory. To illustrate his argument, Becker told a story about a character he called Mr. Everyman.
Mr. Everyman is a dutiful, if somewhat colorless, figure who works in an office, enjoys playing golf, and on a certain day wakes up with a nagging sense that there is something he has forgotten. So, says Becker, he “does what any historian would do; he does a bit of historical research in the sources.” In his vest pocket he finds a note reminding him to pay a man named Smith for 20 tons of coal delivered a few months before. Even though he hadn’t actually seen the coal delivered, the note in his pocket produces a picture in his mind of Smith’s wagons “driving up to his house and of the precious coal sliding dustily through the cellar window.” Armed with this knowledge of the past, he leaves work at four o’clock that afternoon and walks to Smith’s office to pay for the coal.
But when he gets to Smith’s office, he discovers that his morning’s research was faulty. On the day he ordered the coal, Smith didn’t have the kind that he wanted so passed the job onto Brown. He hastens to Brown’s office. Seeing the evidence in Brown’s ledger, he writes out a check for $1017.20. After returning from the Country Club that evening, he digs more deeply into his own records and finds the original invoice from Brown. Secure in his knowledge of the past, he goes to bed with a picture in his mind of Brown’s wagons pulling up to his cellar window.
“Mr. Everyman would be astonished to learn that he is an historian,” Becker said, “yet it is obvious, isn’t it, that he has performed all the essential operations involved in historical research.” He consulted memory, and when memory failed, he turned to written records, and when the records proved contradictory, he persisted until he arrived at what was, in his view, a more correct picture of the past, a picture that allowed him to act in the present.
That Mr. Everyman stored coal in his cellar and paid bills in person marks part of the distance between Becker’s world and our own. But on closer examination there is something even stranger about Becker’s story. My engineer husband reinforced my sense that 20 tons was an awful lot of coal, the equivalent today of 3,600 gallons of heating oil, enough to heat a four-bedroom house in New England four times over. Pouring through Mr. Everyman’s cellar window, it would have filled a space roughly 10’ by 10’ by 10.’ Mr. Everyman either had a very large house or a very inefficient furnace. That he could write out a check for $1,017.20 (near the median yearly salary in 1931), suggests that he was anything but an everyman.
So what was Becker up to? If his main character had been the coal deliveryman, the furnace repairman, or the woman next door, would he still have been able to argue that in the course of daily life such a person “performed all the essential operations involved in historical research”? In fact, there is a rift right down the middle of the essay between the story of Mr. Everyman and Becker’s expansive assertions about history. One astonishing paragraph begins by turning Mr. Everyman into Mr. Everybody. By the end, Becker has pulled off his stiff collar and picked up a drum....