As part of We the People, an initiative to foster the study of American history and culture, NEH held a forum in April 2004, on historical approaches to America's founding.

The Forum program

The forum, on the subject of American history, culture and ideas during the colonial and founding period, was intended to be an informal opportunity for scholars to communicate directly with NEH about the “state of the field” in multiple discipline areas. NEH staff saw this kind of dialogue as an opportunity to better to understand the research agenda and concerns of the humanities community.

NEH invited leading scholars to attend the Forum, some of whom were to present brief talks, most of whom would participate in discussions sparked by the speakers’ remarks.

The program consisted of short panel presentations on the “state of the field” in three areas: (1) social and economic history, (2) political history and ideas, and (3) literature, religion, and culture. Speakers were asked to discuss the current state of the field, identify major issues or gaps in the research, and suggest a direction for the future. Each panel was followed by open dialogue among all participants.

Forum speakers included Pauline Meier, Jack P. Greene, Farley Grubb, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Don Higginbotham, Paul Rahe, Michael Zuckert, Jon Butler, Emory Elliott, and Sally Promey. Follow this link to the Forum’s agenda.

Teaching the Nation’s History

In her keynote speech, professor Pauline Maier of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology outlined some of the issues facing historians of the colonial and founding period in American history. Read an article, adopted from her remarks, which appeared in the July/August 2004 edition of Humanities magazine.