The year 1924 was the founding of the Linguistic Society of America, the year when linguistics in America was beginning to become professionalized and no longer the domain of philologists or amateur students of language. From an initial consideration of 17th century missionary study of indigenous languages, Toward a History of American Linguistics goes on to focus mainly on the ideas of scholars who dominated linguistic thinking post-1924. Beginning with the anthropological linguistics tradition associated primarily with the names of Franz Boas, Edward Sapir and their students and concluding...