The major schools of journalism in the United States established themselves during the first 25 years of the 20th century. These schools formed an important part of the broader professionalizing project within journalism. Over the next 30 years, this elite group of schools attempted to make a degree from a professional school of journalism the required credential for all aspiring journalists. They fought not only against traditional on-the-job methods of training, but also against journalism schools that did not share their vision of professional education. By the mid-1950s, these conflicts had led to a stalemate. The elite schools were unable to build a strong alliance with the industry, and there remained in place a number of alternative routes into journalism and a number of different philosophies of journalism education. Unlike other professions, in which a strong professionalizing coalition made up of practitioners and educators was able to create a system of restricted professional education, in journalism no such coalition emerged. (Sixty-one notes are included.) (RS)