There have been several periods during which the professionalization of American teachers has been investigated historically--the 1960s produced studies on the education and the miseducation of teachers; the 1970s gave sociological historical scholarship on class, bureaucracy and schools and the professionalization of teaching; the 1980s provided a "sadder" side of teacher professionalization; the 1990s focused on an historical, contemporary and future view of the basic preparation needs of beginning teachers seeking initial licensure; and the 2000s brought an attempt to bridge the gap between educational history and current policy considerations in professional teacher education. However, aside from a few chapters in the "Handbook of Research on Educational Administration" (Murphy and Louis 1999) published through the auspices of the American Educational Research Association there is a virtual absence of historical scholarship on the professionalization of educational administrators. The primary purpose of this study is, thus, to begin eliminating this gap in the literature by launching a preliminary investigation into the professionalization project in educational administration during the period that begins just after the end of World War II, in 1947, and continues through 1990. The conceptual framework that guides the study views this process through the theoretical lens of the sociology of the professions while giving a special emphasis to the influential role that was played by elements of institutional theory on that project. A second major purpose of the study is to extract several lessons from the research on the professionalization project in educational administration that the Organization of Educational Historians may apply to its own improvement.