The Two Sides of the Desk: The Archivist and the Historian, 1909-1935

Abstract

Archivists have traditionally looked upon historians as their peers, their colleagues, and their clients. But neither historians nor archivists have carefully examined the long history of this relationship. This paper will study their often troubled relationship from the beginning of the Conference of Archivists in 1909, held under the auspices of the American Historical Association, to 1935, when archivists decided they needed an independent association of their own. Although it is generally recognized that the period was an important era in the process of the differentiation of archivists from historians, it is not so well known that this gradual differentiation of functions was not particularly amicable. Indeed, it illustrates graphically the conflict so often found when an emerging profession attempts to distinguish itself from an older one.

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