Socialhistory is a way of looking at how a society organizes itself and how this organization changes over time.
Nevertheless the goal serves as a constant reminder to historians that aspects of history cannot be considered in isolation and that socialhistory is an integrative study concerned with building towards a global picture of society.
Socialhistory began as the garbage collector of the discipline.
Although the advocates of socialhistory might differ in their methodological or ideological commitments, they agreed on the need to displace "traditional" narratives of the American past—ones that privileged high politics, diplomacy, or intellectual life—and to replace them with "new" histories that emphasized social and economic processes and phenomena.
While social science historians preferred to make their claims on the basis of "objective" sources—city directories, wills, estate inventories—historians of the marginalized and of social movements also continued to rely on "subjective" sources—letters, diaries, and newspapers—for evidence of consciousness or culture.
Though not all social historians were Marxists, the revival of interest in modes of Marxist analysis, and the return of interpretations, which emphasized conflict instead of consensus, were among the most important changes that were wrought in the profession.
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