Their Vocation Is Making History

Philip Cantelon’s first job as a historian-for-hire came in the chaotic aftermath of the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.

The Department of Energy wanted a historic perspective on how it dealt with the accident. Just three weeks after the crisis, Cantelon scooped maps, briefing notes, lunch receipts and other documents off the DOE “war room” table and began to write.

Within a year, the government had its book, and Cantelon had a new vocation.

He found the nonacademic work so bracing he started History Associates Inc. in 1981. Today, the company employs more than 30 people to write corporate and government histories, do historical research for litigation and organize archives.

“If I’d stayed teaching, I would have been comfortable, but I wouldn’t have done anything out of the ordinary in the profession. Here I have,” said Cantelon, whose clients have included MCI, Texas Instruments, Roadway Services, the Bank of New York, the departments of Justice and Treasury, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Navy and the Air Force.

Cantelon, 57, and his company are part of an industry that somewhat defensively defines itself by what it is not: academic.

History Associates and about 1,600 other individuals and institutions are members of the Indianapolis-based National Council on Public History, which tries to promote history to a larger, more diverse audience than the one found in classrooms, said David Vanderstel, the executive director.

“Public history is a huge umbrella term for many kinds of historical work done outside universities: museums, archives, national parks, consultants,” Vanderstel said. “Many historians are not finding employment in traditional academic fields.”

Unemployment drove Cantelon, who has a doctorate in history from Indiana University, into the business. When he got the call about doing the Three Mile Island book, he had just returned from two years as a Fulbright professor in Japan and was looking for work. He had previously spent nearly a decade as an associate professor of history at Williams College.

The pay at History Associates is comparable to a university. An assistant professor in history makes about $33,000 to $35,000 a year; a full professor makes from $65,000 to $105,000. History Associates has 32 employees, including 10 with doctorates.

Commissioned history can be as objective as academic history, said David Sicilia, assistant professor of business and economic history at the University of Maryland. History-for-hire used to be merely celebratory, but that has changed, he said.

“There are clients who want, not just a kind of puff piece, but something analytical based on primary research,” Sicilia said. “These books many times are published by highly regarded academic publishers. . . . It’s difficult to make a case that just because you got paid to do the book it is uncritical or slanted.”

Indeed, Cantelon’s book, “Crisis Contained: The Department of Energy at Three Mile Island,” was first published by the government, but then picked up by Southern Illinois University Press.

The average book takes a team of three people about 30 months. A celebratory history with a lot of illustrations takes 12 to 15 months.

Cantelon said his clients want legitimate history so they can learn from events and understand how to do better. “We’re hired, but not bought,” he said.