Recognizing Reconstruction: The Dunning School in the American Historical Association

William A. Dunning is known for promoting a racist historical narrative of the failures of Reconstruction in the United States. His influence over the subject was enhanced by his involvement in the American Historical Association. Dunning had been involved in AHA leadership since 1900, but his influence solidified in the years leading up to his AHA presidency in 1913. Four years prior, Dunning had presented on Reconstruction at the 1909 AHA Annual Meeting alongside W. E. B. DuBois, whose “Actual Benefits of Reconstruction” would become Black Reconstruction in America (1935). DuBois’ presentation drew modest praise, including from Dunning himself. Though DuBois’ paper was published in the American Historical Review the next year, such a debate would not take place in the AHA for another three decades.

Tracing the influence of the Dunning School through the relationship between the AHA, DuBois, and Black Reconstruction in America, illuminates the period from 1910-1940, during which the Dunning School presided over the field of Reconstruction history in the AHA. When Black Reconstruction in America was published in 1935, it was ignored in the AHR. The AHR reviewed works by Marxists and Dunningites in the years immediately following the publication of Black Reconstruction, but not DuBois. Only in 1939 did the AHA become open to diversity on the subject. That year, Allan Nevins was elected to the AHA Council. Nevins wrote in 1927 that Reconstruction had improved the South. In 1940 the AHA introduced Negro history as a recognized field of study and invited DuBois to chair a session at their annual meeting. Yet, the three Dunningite decades of the AHA had a profound impact on historical education well into the twentieth century, framing the historical study of race and Reconstruction for generations of students.