For the 2014 meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory in Indianapolis, I was asked to organize a roundtable celebrating sixty years of publication of this journal. Participants were asked to select a favorite article from the journal’s archive, and to discuss its significance. Participants were selected mostly from senior members of the society, many of whom had been involved in governance or editorial roles, and who constitute an “institutional memory” of sorts. Nancy Lurie, a pioneer in our field, was invited, but was not well enough to travel. Raymond DeMallie, who selected Wilcomb E. Washburn’s 1961 article, “Ethnohistory: History ‘In the Round,’” delivered a typically eloquent presentation, but was unable to complete a written version.
The flagship journal, Ethnohistory, published its first issue in 1954. It began with programmatic statements about our emerging discipline, as well as substantive research that expanded our knowledge of indigenous people and their...
