Year: 1961
Type: article
Abstract: We are the proud practitioners -despite my recent apostasy, I still so number myself -of one of the most exciting, exacting and worthwhile of the learned professions.Exciting because we specialize in horizons unlimited.There is never enough money, never enough staff to do what must be done.Anyone connected with a historical society in any responsible capacity at any level is therefore driven to all sorts of mind-stretching mental gymnastics -extemporizing, inventing, recruiting, enlisting, persuading -to develop means of attracting the volunteers and the extra cash essential to doing a few more of the things that cry out for doing within the integrated framework of the established, accepted purposes of the progressive society.Exacting because, whether one operates alone or as head of a staff of a hundred or more, the job requires what none of us are -the proverbial paragon of all virtues: academic competence and a knowledge of the material and methods of historical scholarship; administrative capacity, including the ability to deal successfully with reluctant donors of cash or kind and the talent to work effectively with staff of varying backgrounds, ages and competences; an intuitive or cultivated sense of public or community relations in the broadest sense; at least a basic technical know-how in all the multiple fields of historical society activity; the well-rooted conviction essential to winning others to support of your program; and finally, a family of rare tolerance and endurance.1 'Wortbwbi1e, as some of you have heard me say before, because of the vital way in which localized history supplements the values of national history.The latter may give us background to the present situation; per-
Source: Iowa Journal of History
Author: Clifford L Lord
Language: Polish
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4413628119