ABSTRACT
In 1931 Carl Becker delivered his famous speech “Everyman His Own Historian” to members of the American Historical Association. Introducing his audience of professional historians to “Mr. Everyman,” who used his knowledge (memory) of what was said and done in the past to handle daily affairs like paying bills, Becker argued that “in a very real sense it is impossible to divorce history from life.” Becker’s statement signified that professional academic historians had to take into account the existence of ordinary individuals in order to make “living history” that spoke to all people and society. He asserted, “otherwise he [Mr. Everyman] will leave us to our own devices . . . to cultivate a species of dry professional arrogance growing out of the thin soil of antiquarian research.”
