This page includes links to and brief descriptions of major (scholarly) professional associations and journals in the fields in which our students can focus their graduate studies. We recommend visiting the online resources offered by these associations and journals to determine if they are possible venues in which you might present or publish your research. You can follow professional associations on social media to learn about conferences, fellowships, and other opportunities relevant to their members, and sign up to receive the tables of contents of journals in your field via email each time a new volume is published.
Professional Associations
American Historical Association
Est. 1884. The largest professional historians’ association in the US. The AHA welcomes and supports members in all history-related fields of work. It also advocates for history education and the application of historical thinking in public life.
Special rates for student membership: Yes.
Organization of American Historians
Est. 1907. The largest professional society focusing on American history. The OAH supports and advocates for excellence in the teaching and practice of American history. It also promotes open discussion of historical questions and equitable treatment for all historians.
Special rates for student membership: Yes.
Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Est. 1915. The association behind the creation of Black History Month, the ASALH seeks to promote the research, preservation, and sharing of knowledge about African-American history and culture. It seeks to bridge the gap between academia and the world in creating and spreading such knowledge.
Special rates for student membership: Yes.
American Jewish Historical Society
Est. 1892. The maintainers of the oldest ethnic cultural archive in the US, the AJHS seeks to promote awareness and appreciation of American Jewish history and heritage.
Donation-based membership.
Coordinating Council for Women in History
Focused on female historians, the CCWH seeks to bring attention to the status of women in the historical profession and to promote research and study of women’s history.
Special rates for student membership: Yes.
Midwestern History Association
Est. 2013. Founded relatively recently by a group of historians wishing to correct the overlooking of Midwestern history in the greater historical community, the MHA seeks to promote the study of and academic discourse surrounding the history of the Midwest.
Currently, membership is free.
The principal membership organization for people committed to the value of oral history. OHA engages with policy makers, educators, and others to help foster best practices and encourage support for oral history and oral historians. With an international membership, OHA serves a broad and diverse audience including teachers, students, community historians, archivists, librarians, and filmmakers.
Special rate for student membership: Yes
National Council for History Education
The National Council for History Education provides professional and intellectual leadership to foster an engaged community committed to the teaching, learning, and appreciation of diverse histories.
Special rates for student membership: Yes
Est. 1982. The WHA seeks to forward the study of world history, describing its mission as “promot[ing] activities which will increase historical awareness, understanding among and between peoples, and global consciousness.”
Special rates for student membership: Yes.
Labor and Working-Class History Association
Est. 1999. The LAWCHA seeks to promote awareness and study of labor and working-class history, with an intentionally wide definition of what labor and working-class history constitute.
Special rates for student membership: Yes.
Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender History
Est. 1979. An early promoter of “the study of homosexuality in the past and present,” under its original name The Committee on Lesbian and Gay History, the CLGBTH changed its name to the current form in 2009 and seeks to promote awareness and study of queer history in all its forms.
Special rates for student membership: Yes.
National Coalition of Independent Scholars
Est. 1989. The NCIS seeks to forward the academic pursuits of scholars unaffiliated with official institutions, providing information, advice, and assistance with grants, research library access, and opportunities to create and promote their work.
Special rates for student membership: No.
Est. 1967. Seeking to help educators improve the learning experience in the history classroom, the SHE describes its purpose as “to support faculty devoted to the importance of history education in universities, community colleges, and pre-collegiate schools.”
Special rates for student membership: Yes.
Journals
History Today (magazine): accepts articles of various lengths on a wide variety of historical subjects.
Journal of Contemporary History: is a quarterly peer-reviewed international journal publishing articles and book reviews on twentieth-century history (post-1930), covering a broad range of historical approaches including social, economic, political, diplomatic, intellectual and cultural.
Journal of American History: the leading scholarly publication in the field of American history and is well known as the major resource for the study, investigation, and teaching of America’s past.
Journal of Contemporary History: is a quarterly peer-reviewed international journal publishing articles and book reviews on twentieth-century history (post-1930), covering a broad range of historical approaches including social, economic, political, diplomatic, intellectual and cultural.
The Information Warrior Journal: is a peer-reviewed journal created for and by students in Wayne State University’s School of Information Science. This journal focuses on topics related to Information Science, but will accept cross-discipline submissions (from WSU students) if the work falls under its purview (including work relating to archives).
The Journal of Hellenic Studies: contains articles on a wide variety of Hellenic topics including Greek language, literature, history and art and archaeology in the Ancient, Byzantine and Modern periods, as well as reviews of recent books of importance to Greek studies.
Labor History: showcases the work of labor historians, industrial relations scholars, labor economists, political scientists, sociologists, social movement theorists, business scholars and all others who write about labor issues. This journal has open access publication opportunities.
Journal of Family History: Focus on historical based studies on family, kinship, and demography. The journal encompasses work from a variety of perspectives, including gender, sexuality, race, class, and culture.
American Jewish History: focus on every aspect of the American Jewish experience.
Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History: The journal provides a forum for both younger and established scholars engaged in research at the cutting edge of contemporary Holocaust studies. This journal offers open access publication opportunities.
Cold War History: focus on results of recent research on the origins and development of the Cold War and its impact on nations, alliances and regions at various levels of statecraft, as well as in areas such as the military and intelligence, the economy, and social and intellectual developments. This journal offers open access publication opportunities.
The Journal of Conflict Resolution: an interdisciplinary journal of scientific theory and research on human conflict. The journal focuses on international conflict but is open to topics relevant to intergroup conflict.
American Journal of Legal History: publishes scholarship on all facets and periods of American legal history. The journal is particularly interested in contributions of a comparative, international or transnational nature. Open access publication options available.
The Northern Mariner: focus on the study of maritime affairs and the inland waterways of the nations that touch the seas of the northern hemisphere. The journal’s content spans the fields of naval, political, diplomatic, social, cultural, gender, Indigenous, economic, and environmental history.
The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television: an international and interdisciplinary journal concerned with the history of the audio-visual mass media from c.1900 to the present. It explores the institutional and ideological contexts of film, radio and television, analyses the evidence produced by the mass media for historians and social scientists, and considers the impact of mass communications on political, social and cultural history.
Journal of Military History: publishes articles on the military history of all eras and geographical areas.
Journal of Policy History: An interdisciplinary journal concerned with the application of historical perspectives to public policy studies. While seeking to inform scholars interested in policy history, the journal also seeks to inform policy makers through a historical approach to public policy.
Historical Social Research: publishes work based on formal methods to history covers quantitative and computer-assisted qualitative social research, historical sociology and social science history, cliometrical research, and historical informational science. Open access after six months.
The History Teacher: publishes articles on reports on promising new classroom techniques, educational programs, curricula, and methods of evaluating instructional effectiveness; analyses of important interpretations, leading historians, historiographical problems, and recent trends in specific fields of historical research; critical review essays on audiovisual materials, textbooks, and other secondary works suitable for classroom use.
Journal of Urban History: articles that are concerned about the history of cities and urban societies in all periods of human history and in all geographical areas of the world.
The Journal of the History of Sexuality: illuminates the history of sexuality in all its expressions, recognizing various differences of class, culture, gender, race, and sexual orientation spanning geographic and temporal boundaries.
American Historical Association Publications & Directories:
Perspectives on History: articles and commentary on teaching, computers and software, history in the media, museum exhibitions, and archives and research.
American Historical Review: Scholarship from every major field of historical study.
Organization of American Historians:
The American Historian: includes a broad variety of needs and interests of OAH members, including primary and secondary teaching, professional development, research, recent scholarship, public history, digital history, and contemporary debates about the past.
Process: A Blog for American History: features posts about teaching, public history, careers in history, the newest scholarship on U.S. history, and more.
OAH Insights: information about issues affecting the history community, current happening around the profession, and updates from the OAH, its committees, and partners.
Institute of Historical Research (UK):
Historical Research: the flagship publication of the Institute of Historical Research, is a leading generalist history journal, covering the global history of the early middle ages to the twenty-first century.
New Historical Perspectives: an Open Access books series commissioned by the Royal Historical Society and published as an imprint of the IHR by the University of London Press. The series enables early career researchers to publish monographs or edited collections in print and Open Access formats, without any author charges.