Facing up to Janus

The so-called “new social history,” which in the 1970s intended to reconstruct the past from the bottom up, made it possible for my cohort of graduate students to put a human face on race, ethnicity, class, gender, and age. At the same time, gerontology's gatekeepers were receptive to joining artists and experts in the humanities in their explorations of aging—if the latter were willing to advance the theoretical dimensions and empirical rules of that scientific field of inquiry. Over the course of a generation, important advances have occurred. Historical research has made a difference, broadening gerontological research. That said, there remains much to learn about the meanings and experiences of growing old(er) over time, and few younger historians in tenure lines are poised to promote historical gerontology.