The National Education Association (NEA) has not been a topic of choice for many educational historians. Perhaps a major reason for this it that the NEA as a site for historical work seems fraught with pitfalls. Consider first the problem of the NEA as a setting for an institutional history. The major example of this kind of work yielded a decidedly unsatisfactory result. Edgar B. Wesley's centennial history of the NEA, published in 1957, is an almost completely uncritical description and an unabashed celebration of the organization.
