SOURCE: "Everyman His Own Historian: Carl Becker as Historiographer," in The History Teacher, Vol. 19, No. 1, November, 1985, pp. 101-9.

In the following essay, Klein discusses Becker's skepticism with respect to the possibility of arriving at an objective view of historical events.

Fifty-three years ago, Carl Becker delivered his presidential address, titled "Everyman His Own Historian," at the Minneapolis meeting of the American Historical Association. It received a standing ovation and created shock waves in the historical profession that have not yet subsided. Becker was pleased with the approval he received from his colleagues. W. Stull Holt, then at Johns Hopkins, hailed the address as grand and glorious treason and a well deserved sacrilege against the goddess of scientific history; Ferdinand Schevill of the University of Chicago was delighted that Becker had exploded the "hokum of scientific method and historical truth"; Frederick Jackson Turner, who received a published version, called...