Wayne J. Urban is Regents' Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Professor of History at Georgia Scace University. He is a past president of the History of Education Society and the American Educational Studies Association, as well as former vice president of Division F (History and Historiography) of the American Educational Research Association

• Preface -- Chapter 1 Professionalism in Process: The Reform of the National Education Association, 1917-30 -- Professionalism Foreshadowed -- The Challenge of Teacher Unionism -- A Remodeled Structure and a Major Fault Line -- The Expansion of the NEA Central Office -- The NEA Research Division and Its Audiences -- Profession or "Professions" -- Chapter 2 Professionalism and Educational Equity: The National Education Association in the 1930s -- The Great Depression -- Fiscal Equity and New Leadership -- Rivalry with the AFT -- Equity for Women and Minority Teachers Women and Equity on the NEA Staff: Charl Williams -- The 1920s and the 1930s -- Chapter 3 War and Professionalism: The National Education Association, 1940-49 -- Another Emergency, Another Opportunity, and Another Commission -- The Continuing Pursuit of Teacher Welfare Association Finance in a Time of Crisis -- Building Local Associations -- Women Teachers and Black Teachers -- Women on the NEA Staff: Mobility and Its Limits -- Chapter 4 An Exaggerated Sense of Accomplishment: The National Education Association in the 1950s -- The NEA and the Federal Government -- Teacher Welfare: Old and (a Few) New Approaches -- Problems with Local and State Associations -- Trouble at the Top -- The NEA and the Woman Teacher in the 1950s -- The Specter of Unionization -- NEA Response to Criticism -- Chapter 5 The Making of a Teachers' Union: The National Education Association, 1960-73 -- Turmoil in the NEA in the I 960s -- Constitutional Reform and Its Consequences The NEA and Political Action -- Changes in the Relations of Loc,ll and State Associations -- Militancy and the NEA Staff -- Gender, Militancy, and the NEA -- Chapter 6 Desegregating the National Education Association, 1954-78 -- Desegregation of the NEA: Beginnings -- Desegregation at the National Level -- Early State Mergers -- NEA Criteria for Mergers -- The NEA and Desegregation in the 1970s -- Organizational Consequences of Mergers -- Chapter 7 Back to Professionalism: The National Education Association in the Past Twenty-Five Years -- The 1970s and the 1980s: An Overview -- Unionization and the NEA Research Division -- Collective Bargaining -- Political Action and the AFT -- The NEA, the AFT, and Educational Reform -- Merger with the AFT -- The New Unionism and the Old -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index.