Abstract:This article analyzes the use of archives and manuscripts in 214 scholarly articles on social history published between 1981 and 1985. More broadly, it addresses the ongoing debates over the triangle of relationships among appraisal, current use, and historical scholarship. The study's findings show that most social historians continue to rely regularly on archives in their research. Patterns of use vary significantly according to time period, research orientation, and subject. Social historians use collections in older historical societies and collections of personal papers extensively, but rarely draw on state and local public archives. The numerical distribution by time period of the types of series used and their relative importance in articles may help predict future patterns of archival use.

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Approximately thirty years ago, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) embarked on an effort to standardize and possibly accredit archival education at the graduate level. American archivists and manuscripts curators have traditionally had extensive graduate training in history. In terms of what archival education should be, however, there was simply no consensus on basic matters. Moreover, such consensus was essential to any national education program. Miller's paper examined the various options through 1983 and concluded that in the end, the Society lacked both the will and the resources to accredit graduate programs. Using Camus's Myth of Sisyphus as a metaphor for the Society of American Archivists' efforts to standardize the educational process, Miller suggested that the Society examine alternative means of formalizing graduate-level education. While not suggesting any particular changes, Miller urged the Society to consider the existence of other possibilities.

The British response to the mass unemployment of the 1930s was in striking contrast to that of the other major industrialized countries. Only in Britain was a policy of accepting the apparent logic of capitalism, and waiting out the slump, successfully maintained in a reasonably stable, democratic setting. In an article on ‘The New Deal, National Socialism and the Great Depression’, John A. Garraty wrote that ‘in both Roosevelt's America and Hitler's Germany economic objectives were subordinated whenever necessary to political aims’. In neither country was there ‘any consistently held theory about either the causes of the depression or how to end it’ Britain under the National government represents almost precisely the opposite case. First, the government's policy of minimal direct intervention to relieve unemployment was directed towards achieving its central objective of ensuring that the depression would cause no fundamental changes in existing economic and social relationships. Immediate political considerations were subordinated to this overriding goal, Secondly, the government's approach, though not all of its particular actions, was based on a rational, comprehensive and widely accepted theoretical foundation.

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