"The History Teacher" originated in a movement to reform history education that grew up among historians in both schools and universities in the 1960s. The call went out to raise the intellectual level of history teaching by having students analyze primary sources in open-ended discussions and thereby, "become their own historians." Teaching with open-ended discussion, "inquiry" methods, became a social cause for a highly motivated group of teachers and professors. As major new sources of funding arose in a time of prosperity, leaders of the movement worked with sympathetic officials of the U.S. Office of Education (USOE) to develop conferences and in-service projects, from which the school-university partnerships widespread today first emerged. Leadership sprang from contrasting levels of educational institutions, and certain officers of the American Historical Association (AHA) lent support to the cause. This essay discusses a major goal that developed in the movement: to establish a journal on history education designed to answer the needs of instructors in both schools and colleges. (Contains 100 notes.)