THE LAST PROGRESSIVE HISTORIAN: WARREN SUSMAN AND AMERICAN CULTURAL HISTORY

Abstract

Colleagues hailed the Rutgers University historian Warren Susman as a pioneer in the field of cultural history and popular culture when he died in 1985 at the age of fifty-eight. Although well known, Susman had published just a handful of essays, a collection of which was published only the year before his death. Despite his reputation, this work was not widely reviewed and when it was, not uniformly positively. This essay explores the disjunction between his work and his reputation and, through an analysis of archival sources, including Susman's newly available personal papers, argues that Susman's importance lies less in his contributions to the field of cultural history than in his understanding of the relationship between historical work and the critical intellectual heritage of progressivism. The essay traces Susman's early professional career and historical work, including his unpublished doctoral study of expatriate intellectuals and his critical engagement with the legacy of the Progressive historians, and his mid-career efforts to join with other left scholars in establishing a new socialist party. Susman's career allows for the analysis and better understanding of the progressive tradition in historical scholarship, the changes in intellectual and cultural history in the 1960s, and the way historians have understood their role in social reform.