Historical representations of the National Society for the Study of Education's Committee on Curriculum-Making typically recount that the purpose of the committee was to assemble representatives from competing curriculum camps to achieve consensus on curriculum principles, depict the committee's work as important, cast doubt on the consensus the committee achieved, overlook the principles proposed by the committee and ignore its call for deliberation. A historical reconstruction of the committee's work in the USA during the 1920s reveals that the purpose of the committee changed from reviewing research to prescribing techniques and finally to proposing general curriculum principles, with the aim of fostering deliberation among curriculum workers. A review of the US curriculum literature reveals that, after some initial attention, the Twenty-Sixth Yearbook fell into relative obscurity, but was rediscovered in the 1960s. A new analysis of the committee members' supplementary statements argues that the committee indeed achieved consensus on foundational curriculum principles. As a historical document, the yearbook represents the coalescence of curriculum development as a professional field in the USA during in the 1920s. As a repository of professional knowledge, the General Statement remains pertinent to curriculum reform in the twenty-first century.