ABSTRACT
A survey of the demand for history since the late nineteenth century should help to correct an oversimplified, unhistorical view of relations between historians and the general culture. These relations involve other kinds of historians as well as professionals. In spite of the relative decline of the gentlemen-historians after the turn of the century, America has never lacked good amateur scholars. Academic historians had good reason to feel thrown upon their own resources: the decline of their status as professors coincided with a vast indifference to their work as authors. The cultural revolution that called forth the popular demand for history and biography also produced its suppliers. Literary ambitions, sometimes linked with political interests, inspired the postwar amateur historians. In view of this unreceptive atmosphere, criticism of the professional historians for failing to speak to a general audience misses the mark.
