Membership

Why Join the AHA?

If your field is history—no matter your specialization or profession—membership in the American Historical Association is indispensable. Among the numerous organizations that serve historians, only the AHA brings together historians from all geographical, chronological, and topical specializations and all work contexts, embracing the breadth and variety of activity in history today. More importantly, only the AHA addresses the interests of the discipline as a whole as well as the diverse needs of its individual members. No matter what other specialized organizations you belong to, membership in the AHA is still essential because it provides national leadership on issues such as academic freedom, access to archives, the centrality of history to public culture, improvements in curricula, and other vital issues. 

Advocate for the Discipline

  • Working to protect history and the rights of historians at local and national levels with the National Coalition for History, the National Humanities Alliance, and the Consortium of Social Science Associations
  • Issuing public statements to uphold academic freedom, safeguard history education, secure resources for historical study, preserve historical archives, and protect historians around the world
  • Supporting efforts to ensure broad participation by women, minorities, individuals with disabilities, independent scholars, public historians, and teachers

Promote Scholarly Discussion

  • Publishing the American Historical Review, the major journal of record for the historical discipline offering hundreds of indispensable book reviews and original scholarship from every major field of study
  • Hosting our annual meeting, the largest gathering of historians in the United States featuring panels, workshops, posters, and receptions to interest every historian
  • Publishing Perspectives on History, the newsmagazine for the historical profession, which offers articles and commentary on teaching, technology, history in the media, public history, archives, and research
  • Posting on a wide range of topics relevant to members and the history discipline on Perspectives Daily, the official blog of the AHA
  • Facilitating AHA Communities, an online forum where members can join in discussion and collaborate with other historians and educators

Advance Teaching and Learning

  • Improving history curriculum at the primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels through projects such as Tuning and Bridging Cultures
  • Providing AHA awards and grants to recognize excellence in publications, research, teaching, and mentoring
  • Offering online resources for creating lesson plans, bringing digital history into the classroom, and identifying key skills history students develop

Enhance Career Development

  • Giving employers and job seekers a place to connect on the AHA Career Center
  • Demonstrating how graduate programs in history can prepare doctoral students for a wide spectrum of career opportunities through Career Diversity for Historians, a three-year, Mellon-funded program
  • Collecting resources to help members manage their careers at any stage and in any professional area, whether searching for a job with a BA in history, launching a post-PhD job search, finding a niche in public history, getting ready for tenure review, or exploring options in the private sector