There is no dearth of claims as to the benefits of historical study. Written histories not only reflect the personal and professional interests of individual historians, they also relate to the larger priorities of the professional discipline they represent. Patterns of art education's professional development can be ascertained by an examination of the types of histories that are written. In this paper, a discussion of characteristics of professional maturity and of historical research maturity is followed by an analysis of art education historical articles published between the years 1958 and 1986 in two major journals, "Art Education" and "Studies in Art Education." From a content analysis of the texts, the articles were tabulated in six categories: overviews, person-A, reviews, program, person-B, and metahistory. Person-B is used to designate biographies that reveal a theme, make interpretations, or indicate significance; unlike person-A treatments, individuals are secondary. Metahistories examine historical research processes, assumptions and premises, or they may place written histories themselves in historical perspective. These two categories are indicators of disciplinary maturity. Findings showed increases in both categories over the time-span studied as well as increases in absolute numbers or art histories. These indications, however, need to be qualified by the continued increase of person-A biographies as well as the lack of multiple histories on given topics. References and five figures are appended. (BZ)