In 1905, the American Historical Association commissioned the first conference on the teaching of history in American elementary schools. The resultant report was titled, The Study of History in Elementary Schools: Report to the American Historical Association by the Committee of Eight (1912). It advanced a plan that increased the number of hours devoted to teaching elementary history, with a clear emphasis on U.S. history.

[Page 148]In the early 1900s, the teaching of history in U.S. primary grades remained largely unexplored. The reports of the Committee of Ten and the Committee of Seven, other American Historical Association committees, which researched secondary school history teaching, served as blueprints for this later investigation of history teaching in elementary schools.

The Committee of Eight employed novel social science methods for ...