In 1947 the Truman Commission on Higher Education accentuated the importance of adult education in its report entitled "Higher Education for American Democracy". In 1970 a new US "Handbook of Adult Education" signifying the move to a more professionalised field of study and practice was published. The intervening years encapsulate a time of profound cultural changes marked by scientific and technological advances intertwined with Cold War adjustments and a pervasive politics of fear. In this period North American adult education became immersed in the discourse of democracy endorsing capitalism as it advanced middle-class economic and cultural values. In an analysis of the positions of dominant players in North American adult education (1947-1970), this article explores what emerged as a growing divide between the field's historical location as social education and its new location as an emerging professionalised modern practice steeped in instrumentalism. It considers what the field's historically diffuse nature meant to those in a growing professoriate as they deliberated whether adult education was a movement or a profession. The article also examines the cultural location of North American adult education and its evolving formation in academe as the educational enterprise reacted to the mushrooming of science and technology, the commodification of knowledge, and the cultural and political fear of communism. It reviews suggestions that mainstream adult educators had for enhancing the field of study and practice into the future. After turning to history to consider the nature of adult education, it ends by taking up a key question: Is adult education in crisis in the present? Here it takes up the significance of social policymaking as it discusses characteristics of critically progressive education.