Southern Historical Association
scholarly association in US
The Southern Historical Association is a professional academic organization of historians focusing on the history of the Southern United States. It was organized on November 2, 1934. Its objectives are the promotion of interest and research in Southern history, the collection and preservation of the South's historical records, and the encouragement of state and local historical societies in the South. As a secondary purpose the organization fosters the teaching and study of all areas of history in the South.
History
The association was preceded by another, with a similar name--the Southern History Association, a short-lived organization with a very academic aspect to it; it folded in 1909 after a little over a decade. A new organization devoted to the same subject matter was conceived in the 1920s by Frederick Jackson Turner, who urged his doctoral student Thomas Perkins Abernethy to build a network that could sustain an organization similar to the American Historical Association. Two developments, according to historian and later SHA president Bethany Johnson, led to the association's founding: the growing desire since the late 19th century among Southern historians to professionalize, and the Southern Renaissance, which saw the formation of many professional academic societies in the South.
Among the association founders were Thomas Perkins Abernethy, W. Darrell Overdyke of Centenary College of Louisiana, and Philip M. Hamer of the National Archives.
The Journal of Southern History
The SHA publishes The Journal of Southern History. John B. Boles was one of the editors.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Southern Historical Association” as scholarly association in US. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as scholarly association in US. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7569995. VIAF identifies the subject as 128464842. The Library of Congress control number is n87836450. Authority coordinates are 33.953, -83.373. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1934 and 1909.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Southern Historical Association”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Southern Historical Association primary sources, Southern Historical Association archive and Southern research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Southern Historical Association” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.