5 Must-Have Experiences for History Graduate Students

If you enrolled in graduate school today, what courses would you take? What experiences would you make sure you had before you graduated?

For the last few weeks I have been reflecting on theses questions.

A prospective graduate student asked me to lunch to learn more about my grad school experiences. He wanted advice about how to apply, what courses he should take, and what experiences he should have while in graduate school.

I gave him advice about what I would do if I enrolled in graduate school today. The advice amounted to five different courses or experiences.

In this post you will learn about the what I think are the five must-have experiences for a history graduate student today.

Disclaimer

I would like to note that I had a fantastic graduate school experience.

I enrolled in a funded program that was focused on collaboration. I also worked with an advisor who took the time to teach me how to write, teach, research, and apply for funding.

My advice does not stem from any deficiencies in my program, but from how technology and the economy have changed over the last decade.

5 Must-Have Courses & Experiences

In my opinion, these are 5 experiences that history graduate students should strive to have while in graduate school.

1. Keep an Open Mind to Non-Academic History Careers

I wish I had kept an open mind to non-academic history careers while in graduate school.

As a grad student, I thought I wanted to be a professor and I had rather strong feelings about an academic career path.

I had entered graduate school with a bit of public history experience; I spent five summers working as an interpretive ranger for the National Park Service in Boston. I respected the work of public historians, but I had decided I wanted to do more research and writing than many public historians get the opportunity to do.

I attended talks by the public historians my department occasionally brought in, but during each talk I told myself that I wanted to research and write more. I wanted to be like my advisor, someone who conducts serious scholarly work and then volunteers his time to bring that work to public history institutions.

The funny part about my young, naive view: By the end of my fourth year I began having doubts about working as an academic.

In fact, my extracurricular activities suggested that I might be better suited to a career in public history. My frequent presence in the archives led me to volunteer at a couple of the historical societies and museums where I researched.

Even with my volunteer work and doubts, I clung to the idea of an academic career.

My close mindedness prevented me from seeking internships and volunteer opportunities that could have helped me land a public history job.

When I finally admitted that I did not want to be a traditional academic (ca. 2011/2012), I had missed my opportunity to prepare for the public history job market.

The public history job market is just as competitive as the academic job market and, despite what many professors had told me, most public history institutions do not want to hire traditionally-trained historians.

What type of historian do they want?

My experience has been that public history institutions want candidates with experience in creating digital exhibits, some background in nonprofit management and donor cultivation, and experience, or at least knowledge, of how to apply for institutional grants. The ability to do traditional historical work, i.e. research, writing, analysis, and interpretation, is a bonus.

This realization leads me to recommend the next two graduate school experiences.

2. Find an Internship in Non-Profit Development

Graduate students have a lot of work, but I wish I had found a way to intern in the business or development office of a nonprofit.

An internship in a nonprofit development office would have allowed me to enhance and develop skills in donor cultivation, customer service, accounting, and applying for institutional grants. These are transferrable skills that would allow anyone who had them to compete for jobs with nonprofit organizations as well as for positions within in big corporations or small businesses. These skills would also come in handy for any historian who wants to start their own business.

3. Take a Digital Humanities Course or Seek an Internship with a DH Project

Digital humanities is the way of the future.

DH projects vary from helping scholars make sense of large amounts of data to websites that make history more accessible to non-specialized audiences.

Digital humanists perform important work.

Experience in DH helps historians become better and more well-rounded scholars. In my experience, digital humanists have a knack for looking at data and the ways scholars can contextualize it in ways that differ from non-digital humanists.

Additionally, many DH projects lend themselves well to acquiring new and transferrable skills in computers and technology; skills historians can use to apply for different types of academic and non-academic work.

4. Develop Social Media Skills

Today, I blog, tweet, and hold conversations on Google+. However, I did not develop a fluency in social media until after graduate school.

If I enrolled in graduate school today, I would devote a bit of time to developing social media skills.

Why?

3 Reasons:

1. Social media makes scholars more productive.

Historians who blog tend to write more than scholars who don’t blog.

Blogging also helps scholars think through and develop their ideas. The act also helps them develop a regular writing practice.

Many of us take thinking and writing for granted, but they are skills that get better and sharper the more we do them.

If I were to enroll in graduate school today, I would look into forming or joining a group blog like The Junto. Group blogs provide all of the benefits of blogging, but spread out the work of blog maintenance.

2. Social media makes scholars more collaborative.

Whether you blog about an idea for your dissertation or tweet a question about a source, other scholars will find you and help you develop your ideas or find the source you seek.

Of course, being a social and collaborative process, you will get as much out of social media as you put into it. The more you converse with and help other scholars with their questions or ideas, the more you will benefit from scholars commenting on your work.

3. Social media will help you build your platform.

Being an active blogger, Facebook poster, or tweeter will help raise your profile among others who share your interests.

Social media can help you position yourself as a thought leader in your field or subfield.

Opportunities come to thought leaders by way of jobs, interview requests (which will enhance and raise your profile more), speaking opportunities, and possibly even book deals.

At the very least, social media can help you develop a following that will help you get a book contract; followings mean that you can market your books to hundreds, if not thousands, of potential book buyers.

5. Attend More Conferences

Conferences provide opportunities to network with other scholars and to learn about new scholarship.

Conferences can be expensive, but they provide invaluable networking opportunities.  Attending a conference may help you find an outside member for your dissertation committee, a potential reference for a job, grant, or internship opportunity, or a possible project collaborator.

Conclusion

The job market has changed a lot in the ten years since I enrolled in graduate school. My Five Must-Have Experiences are based on my graduate school and post-graduate school experiences.

What Do You Think?

If you were to enroll in graduate school today, what courses would you look to take or experiences would you look to have?

If you are enrolled in graduate school today, what course are you looking to take and what experiences would you like to have?

Representing and Resisting Violence: African Americans, North African "Pirates," & Violence in the Early Republic, SHEAR 2014

Welcome to part 1 of my recap of the 2014 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic conference. The conference took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between July 17 and July 20.

“Representing and Resisting Violence: African Americans, North African “Pirates,” and Violence in the Early Republic”

Chair: James Brewer Stewart (Macalaster College)

Panelists:

Kathleen Kennedy (Missouri State University), “Trauma and Narratives of Slavery”

Kelly A. Ryan (Indiana University Southeast), “Seeking Justice: African American Resistance to Violence in the Northeast, 1780-1830”

Jason Zeledon (University of California-Santa Barbara), “American Manhood and the Barbary Pirates: Gender, Sodomy, and Women’s Rights during the Algerian Captivity Crisis”

Comment: Nikki Taylor (Texas Southern University, Houston)

Panel Summary

"Trauma and Narratives of Slavery"

Kathleen Kennedy explored how historians can use the narratives of slave men to explore the psychological trauma of slavery.

Kennedy began her paper with the story of Henry Bibb, a former slave who discussed being the father of slaves. Bibb fathered a daughter and swears that it will be the only child he ever fathers into slavery.

For Bibb the word “father” was “obnoxious.” Early American men defined their masculinity by their ability to provide for and protect their wives and children. Slave husbands and fathers could not protect their families because they had no rights over them; they had to watch while overseers and masters abused their wives and children.

Kennedy contends that historians can use statements of grief by slave fathers to better understand slave grief and the violence of slavery. However, Kennedy warns that African-American writers did not always bear all in their narratives.

Former slaves like Henry “Box” Brown understood that their readers had expectations for what a slave narrative should read like. Readers expected to read about some of the blood and torture of slavery, but they did not want to read about the mental traumas that slavery inflicted. Therefore, writers like Brown could not represent the pain that they suffered as fathers—the pain of having to watch their wives and children beaten, raped, or sold.

Historians must also read slave narratives with an eye to what they do not say. Grief is the act of remembering while trauma is the act of forgetting. Trauma represents an inability to articulate true feelings, which is an endemic problem in all slave narratives.

Gender also played a role in how slaves experienced slavery and its traumas. Kennedy illustrated this point by examining the narratives of Harriet Jacobs and her brother James. Harriet discussed how she was not allowed to attend the funeral of her father Elijah. She remembered him as a man who taught her dignity. On the other hand, James describes Elijah as a man, but not a man. Elijah Jacobs had no authority. James Jacobs’ narrative also shows how enslaved men struggled with their conceptions of manhood.

Kennedy opted to skip over how enslaved people thought of their white fathers in order to use her last few minutes to discuss how enslaved men saw their role as fathers. Kennedy has found that slave men often talked about their decision not to become fathers or how they lived as fathers without authority; fatherhood brought slave men great joy, but this joy was tempered with great anxiety.

Former slave writers spoke about their children because they wanted their audience to know that they loved them. Today, the notion of parental love seems obvious, but in the 1840s and 1850s, these former slaves needed to make that point clear: To love is to be human.

Kennedy concluded her paper with a problem: Historians need to figure out whether slave men were really men. She suggested that we need to look for something other then progressive narratives because the trauma of slavery continued into the former slaves’ freedom. Freedom was not a happy ending, there was no happy ending to slavery. She suggests accounting as a way that historians might be able to better account for the trauma and grief.

"Seeking Justice: African American Resistance to Violence in the Northeast, 1780-1830"

Kelly A. Ryan: African Americans used the judiciary to advocate for their safety and security and to lay claim to, promote, and defend their rights as citizens.

Ryan contends that her investigation reveals another aspect of the burgeoning civil rights movement that emerged after the Civil War.

Ryan acknowledged the difficulties of investigating African American use of the judicial system. Many crimes went unreported and it can be hard for historians to identify race in legal records. With that said, Ryan has found many cases where African Americans brought suit against white defendants or cases where white plaintiffs brought suits against other whites for the injustices they perpetrated against African Americans.

African Americans wanted to bear witness in court. The act of testifying gave blacks a sense of their citizenship rights and as such they wanted to appear as respectable witnesses, especially against whites. Ryan reminded the audience that African-American witnesses faced ramifications for their testimony. White defendants or their friends might retaliate against black witnesses and their families.

Ryan found that whites played an important role in African-American court cases, especially in lawsuits brought to the court by African-American defendants. In many cases, the indictment records kept only white testimony. In some places blacks could not bring suits in their own names, so whites had to bring them to court on their behalf. This made it important for African Americans to identify white allies; African Americans were fully aware of the world they lived in and the reality of its discriminations.

"American Manhood and the Barbary Pirates: Gender, Sodomy, and Women's Rights during the Algerian Captivity Crisis"

Jason Zeledon contends that the legacy of the Barbary Conflict extends well beyond the various military skirmishes. The conflict shaped the way Americans saw themselves and North Africa.

Zeledon’s paper focused on 2 key ways that the Barbary Conflicts shaped American identity:

First, the conflict shaped and hindered the women’s rights movement in the United States.

Second, literature about the Barbary states shaped the United States’ diplomatic response to the conflict.

American literature about the Barbary states and captivity narratives portrayed Algerian men as sexually adventurous, men who preferred having sex with other men. This meant that American sailors not only faced hard, manual labor, but sexual abuse and exploitation if captured by the pirates.

The American view of Algerian men as “sexually adventurous” also led Americans to believe that the pirates could be defeated easily because Algerian men were lazy and inferior to American men.

American literature about the Barbary Conflict also hindered the American women’s rights movement.

American narratives about Algerians described Algerian men as cruel and abusive toward Algerian women. Algerian men never allowed their women to eat with them because they felt them inferior. They also believed that women lacked souls.

When American men read these narratives they praised their treatment of their American wives and daughters. Therefore, American men saw no need to help women promote their rights; compared to Algerian women, American women had a lot of rights and freedom.

Panel Comment

Nikki Taylor offered the official comment for the papers. She stated that the 3 papers raised many points that historians need to consider.

Kathleen Kennedy’s work shows us that we often try to define black manhood in terms of white manhood. White manhood does not adequately define or explain black manhood during the period of slavery. Taylor would like to see historians expand their definitions of manhood so we can more accurately describe the masculinity of African American slave men .

Kelly A. Ryan’s work illuminates the new study of African-American criminality. Taylor would like Ryan and other historians who work in this new field to answer several questions: 1. What triggered anti-black collisions where whites attacked blacks? 2. To what extent did African Americans experience success in their use of the justice system? 3. Who were the white witnesses? Why did they stand up for their black neighbors? Were they really black allies? And did they lose some of their whiteness by standing up for blacks?

Jason Zeledon raises excellent points about how early Americans perceived Algerian men and women. However, Taylor wants Zeledon to think more about the gendered natures of Barbary Warfare rhetoric. Specifically, Taylor asked Zeledon to consider how stereotypes are constructed and to do more to illustrate his thesis about women’s rights.

What Do You Think?

What do you think are the most interesting points raised by these papers?

How Historians Can Re-purpose Conference Papers & Lectures

Historians spend a lot of time writing conference papers and lectures. Often we use this content to serve a singular purpose and then we forget about it.

But what if you could turn your conference papers and lectures into something more? Something that helps you promote your work and generate more interest in it?

In this post you will learn how you can repurpose your conference papers and lectures into video and audio content that will build your platform and help you reach a wider audience.

How to Reach a Wider Audience

A great time slot on a conference program may allow as many as 50-100 people to hear your paper. Often attendance will be less than that.

You may experience similar attendance for one of your public talks or lectures.

But what if you could repurpose and reuse the material in your conference papers and lectures to reach a wider audience with minimal work, would you do it?

Technology has made it possible for you to make all of the content you produce accessible to a wider audience.

You could transform your conference papers and lectures into blog posts, feature articles for online and print newspapers and magazines, podcast episodes, or educational videos. All of these mediums will help you spread word about your work to a wider audience.

In particular, videos and podcasts make up some of the most shared media on the internet. These media types will help you attract an audience who loves history, but doesn't necessarily have time to read or the ability to attend a conference.

Creating Video Content

Using software like Screenflow or SlideShare and a lavalier microphone, you could record your conference papers or lectures as you give them.

You could also use these tools to record your work from the comfort of your home or office.

Software like Screenflow captures whatever you show on your computer screen.

A lavalier microphone clipped to your blouse or lapel will capture your voice as you deliver your paper or lecture. You can use this audio recording as a podcast episode and/or add it to your Screenflow or SlideShare file to create a narrated slide show presentation.

Uploading this audio and video content to your website will make it accessible to all of your followers, students, colleagues, potential publishers, and other people interested in your work.

You can also link this content to your web-based CV or resume to draw attention to your capabilities as both a scholar and a public speaker, a great resource for those interested in hiring a speaker.

Example

Below you will find a video recording of “Memory, Community, Loyalty: Albany, New York, 1763-1776,” the paper I presented at the 2014 Conference on New York State History. I recorded the video using Screenflow and a [simpleazon-link asin="B00BHN05H2" locale="us"]Rode Smartlav Lavalier Microphone[/simpleazon-link].

I have posted the video of my paper with 3 goals in mind:

1. To provide people who did not attend my panel with the opportunity to hear my paper.

2. To spread the reach of my work.

YouTube is a powerful search engine. By uploading and tagging my video with relevant search terms, I hope to increase awareness about my research using the power of Google and YouTube search.

When people search for Albany, New York, the American Revolution, the French and Indian War, the British Empire, the British Army, or the fur trade, perhaps Google and YouTube will present my video as an option.

3. To enhance my online CV.

I have linked the title of my conference paper to this video so that anyone who peruses my online CV can view my presentation.

Conclusion

Historians spend a lot of time creating conference papers and lectures. By repurposing this content into audio and visual presentations we will increase the likelihood that interested persons will find out about us and benefit from our research.

What Do You Think

Do you repurpose your conference papers and lectures? If so, how? 

"Memory, Community, Loyalty: Albany, New York, 1763-1776”

New Resource: History Seminar List

Do you attend a history seminar? For the last four years, I have been a regular attendee of the Boston Early American History Seminar. It meets at the Massachusetts Historical Society on the first Tuesday of each month between October and May (January excepted).

I enjoy the Boston Early American Seminar because it allows me to meet and converse with other scholars and enthusiasts interested in the history of early America. Each seminar encourages me to consider new ideas and keeps me abreast of the latest scholarship. These opportunities to think and network help me overcome some of the hurdles I face as an independent scholar.

As an independent scholar, I do not have a department of colleagues to turn to when I wish to discuss my research, get stuck, or need a recommendation for a research fellowship. The social time before and after the seminar provides me with chances to extend my network of colleagues, scholars with whom I can talk about my work and ask for a recommendation. Additionally, my regular attendance demonstrates to my academic colleagues that I am someone who takes my scholarship seriously and that I am their peer.

New Resource: History Seminar List

The Boston Early American History Seminar has played an important role in my intellectual and professional development. I believe that all historians who have access to a seminar should attend one. To this end I have created a new resource for historians: The History Seminar List.

The History Seminar List fills a gap in the internet. I have yet to find a website that lists all of the available history seminars. I have seeded the list with the seminars that I either knew about or found via Google Search. I know that it is incomplete, but I hope that you will help me fill it in by submitting your favorite seminar or any other history seminars that you know about.

Please help me spread the word about the History Seminar List so we can populate it with as many seminars as possible and help our colleagues find a history seminar near them.

History Seminar Resource List Submission Form

History Seminar Resource List

Getting Access: Dutch-American History

Welcome to Getting Access, a series devoted to helping you obtain the digital records you need. Do you study the history of colonial America or New York State?

Do you have an interest in learning about Dutch contributions to American history?

If so, did you know that you can gain access to back issues of de Halve Maen for $10/year? Or that the New Netherland Institute provides free, online access to numerous research materials?

In this post you will learn about digital options for primary- and secondary-source records that pertain to Dutch-American history.

de Halve Maen

Since 1922, The Holland Society of New York has printed a quarterly journal called de Halve Maen.

The publication draws readers' attentions to new research concerning the Dutch settlement of North America and Dutch contributions to American history.

Essays range in topics from agriculture to material culture. They also include articles about Dutch genealogy.

Cost of Access: $10/year for Individuals/$45/year for Institutions

What’s Included with Access?

Your membership includes access to all issues printed between 1923 and 2002.

You will have the ability to keyword search back issues.

You will also have access to: • The Holland Society’s membership records • Digital copies of Van Laer’s New York Historical Manuscripts (Volumes 1-4) • Stokes Iconography of Manhattan Island (Volumes 2-4) • "Liber A" of the Collegiate Church Archives, a folio-manuscript book written by Domine Henricus Selijns, minister of the Reformed Dutch Church in New York (1682-1701).

The records contained in "Liber A" provide a documentary history of the Dutch Reformed Church of New York City during Selijns’ ministry. The volume offered by the Holland Society offers the text in both Dutch and English.

New Netherland Institute Online Publications

The New Netherland Institute offers digitized translations and transcriptions of primary-source documents that relate to the history of New Netherland.

The records come from the collections of the New York State Library and New York State Archives. The Institute has also posted documents owned by the New York Public Library and the Scheepvaart Museum in Amsterdam.

Cost of Access: Free

Which Records Are Online?

• Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1638-1660
• Minutes of the Council of New Netherland, 1652-1654
• Correspondence of Petrus Stuyvesant, Director-General of New Netherland, 1647-1658
• Curaçao Papers, 1640-1665
• Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer
• Correspondence of Maria van Rensselaer
• Court Minutes of Rensselaerswijck
• Memorandum Book of Antony de Hooges
• New Netherland Papers of Hans Bontemantel
• Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts
• Petrus Stuyvesant’s 1665 Certification of Land Grants to Manumitted Slaves
• Guide to 17^th-century Dutch Coins, Weights, and Measures

Conclusion

The de Halve Maen and New Netherland Institute databases stand as invaluable resources for any historian or genealogist who wishes to research Dutch-American history.

You will find that the records of the New Netherland Institute focus on the history of New Netherland while those of the Holland Society cover New Netherland and its legacy.

Finally, you should know that New York History has finally added its back issues to J-Stor.

What Do You Think?

What is your favorite web-based archive or database? What information does it contain?