Records document the CSSH during Sylvia Thrupp's tenure as editor, and date from 1956 to 1974. The bulk of the material consists of correspondence between journal contributors (scholars, editors, publishers) and the CSSH staff as well as administrative records covering 1956 to 1980. Records include correspondence
CSSH was founded by Sylvia Lettice Thrupp in October 1958. An early press release for CSSH stated that "the purpose of the journal is to serve as a clearing house for substantive work on problems common to any two or more of the disciplines dealing with man's life in society." Initially referred to as The Journal of Historical Comparisons, Thrupp founded the journal at the University of Chicago, where she served as a professor. From 1961 to 1977, Thrupp held the Alice Freeman Palmer Chair at the University of Michigan. Though she brought the journal with her to Michigan, CSSH remained an independently run organization. Its operations were initially funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation and through small donations from a handful of American universities.
In 1955, Thrupp sent out an informational circular to anthropologists, historians, art historians, sociologists, economists, and political scientists from around the world. Thrupp hoped to measure interest in the publication while soliciting advice and articles from her colleagues. Support for a journal was not universally embraced by her fellow academics. Historians in particular worried that the scholarship in their field was already too scattershot and that cross-disciplinary studies would produce articles by "sloppy thinkers." (See Box 1 Original circular Responces, James Ackerman) One responder warned that, "historians who stress the subject as a social science seldom write anything of importance, or produce anything with the artistic merit." (See Box 1 Original circular Responces, Carl Bindenbaugh) Others voiced excitement for the project but offered guarded enthusiasm that CSSH could produce three whole volumes a year with a consistently high level of scholarship.
CSSH's first issue appeared in October 1958 and was published by the Dutch publisher Mouton Publishers. Between grants, subscriptions, and exchanging advertising with other journals, CSSH flourished under Thrupp's leadership. In 1968, CSSH left Mouton and started a relationship with Cambridge University Press, the journal's current publisher.
Part of CSSH's mission was to support studies rooted in independent research. They did not accept articles that were published elsewhere even in different translations or versions. Along with scholarly articles, CSSH published short book reviews in the "Notes" section, and often published full academic discussions with arguments about articles and the author's reply.
The CSSHBook Series, edited by Raymond Grew, are collections of previously published articles compiled around one topic. These articles are revised and are supplemented by newly commissioned essays. Individual volumes are designed with specific audiences in mind, with potential for classroom use a primary consideration. In addition to the book series, Thrupp created indexes that codified articles by topic (rubrics) to draw attention away from geography, era, and discipline.
While Thrupp was the editor of CSSH, she worked closely with Daphne Grew and later Patricia Shoup as manuscript editors. Other important members of the editorial committee during this period include Raymond Grew, GE von Grunebaum, Everett C. Hughes, Edward A. Kracke, Jr., Max Rheinstein, Edward Shils, Sol Tax, Eric Wolf, and Aram Yengoyan. By 1975 they had 27 academic editors from around the world drawn from a dozen disciplines.
