Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 138.

I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and we are recording this on January 9th, 2024, in Austin, Texas.

If you are new to the podcast, we are telling the history of the lands

now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without intentional presentism.

Sidebars our term for an episode off the timeline, which I do occasionally when I come

across something interesting or recognition

of a holiday, that kind of stuff. In this case, I'm rolling out some hot takes on the annual

meeting in the American Historical Association, which I attended in San Francisco this past weekend.

That, in turn, stimulated thoughts in my easily distracted brain about the

teaching and purpose of history, of which I must unburden myself. So the first part of this

episode is an overview of the AHA annual meeting in general terms. And then I'll roll out some cranky observations.

So it's also an editorial of sorts.

Do not fear substantive history will return in short order.

The American Historical Association, the AHA to the cognoscenti, loom large in my childhood.

Not many people could say that, I suppose. Most of you know that my father was an academic

historian, professor of history at the University of Iowa when I was growing up. Until the early

1990s, the AHA held its annual meeting between Christmas and New Year's,

presumably because historians don't typically have a lot of extra money lying around,

and both convention facilities and the hotels that cater to them are incredibly cheap that week.

Now, as it happens, my birthday falls during that period. So when my father

was still getting established professionally, he usually missed my birthday to go off to the AHA.

This is not a complaint or some weird childhood hang-up. I have those, but this isn't one of them.

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