Albert Bushnell Hart and history education, 1854-1907

Albert Bushnell Hart was an important member of America's first generation of professional historians. Very little, however, has ever been written about his life and contributions. The reason for this is easily explained. Hart, who taught history at Harvard from 1883 till 1914, suffered the historian's cruelest irony: his accomplishments were numerous and notable, but his papers were sold and scattered soon after his death in 1943.;Thirty years later thirty-eight "boxes" of Hart's papers were recovered and donated to Harvard, creating an opportunity for research which simply did not exist at an earlier date. This new wealth of source material supports the position that Hart was a leading figure during a critical period in the development of history education in the United States.;When Hart began his career, the study of history was a pursuit dominated by patrician amateurs and an academic discipline whose place in the curriculum was accorded only minor importance. Few people had been trained to teach history and many schools and colleges ignored the subject completely.;This situation changed significantly during the years Hart taught at Harvard. Leadership in the field passed to a new generation of professional scholars and the amount of time spent by students studying history at all levels of education increased dramatically.;Hart contributed greatly to this process of expansion and professionalization. He was an acknowledged scholar who wrote and edited a long list of books and articles about history and history education; he was a prominent professional who was actively involved in national, regional, and local historical and educational associations; and he was an educational activist who did much to assist the advancement of history at all levels of education.;Hart epitomized a time in the development of the history profession when a commitment to research was united with a commitment to teaching. And an investigation of his life offers a valuable perspective which may be probed constructively by those who are seriously concerned with the current state of history education.