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Writing about the past, thinking about the future: National Museum of American History

Writing about the past, thinking about the future: National Museum of American History

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My article on the history and philosophy of collecting at the National Museum of American History has been published in the Federal History Journal. The issue is freely available, here, and my essay is here. It’s a good issue: I especially recommend the article by Margo Anderson, “Public Management of Big Data: Historical Lessons from the 1940s.” My essay was inspired by the 50th anniversary of the NMAH. I used to work there, and a former colleague asked me to write something. The director was…

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Should you get a Ph.D to work in a history museum? – Part 3: How might we make it useful?

Should you get a Ph.D to work in a history museum? – Part 3: How might we make it useful?

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Part 3: How might we make it useful? How might we fix the Ph.D. so that it is more useful for work in museums, or alt-acc work more generally?  What models are there? Before getting into this, though, it’s best to take notice of the ongoing conversation on new uses for the history degree. Anthony Grafton and Jim Grossman of the AHA put it best: “No More Plan B.” He describes the expectations history departments set in vivid language: Yet…

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Should you get a Ph.D to work in a history museum? – Part 2: Is it useful for the job?

Should you get a Ph.D to work in a history museum? – Part 2: Is it useful for the job?

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Most curatorial jobs do not require a Ph.D., but is it useful? Does it make one a better curator? The doctoral degree is not designed to train curators. Ph.D. programs in the humanities are, for the most part, designed to train professors at research universities. This may have made sense at one time, but it doesn’t anymore; only roughly one-third of history Ph.Ds. who go on to teach in tenure-track history programs, the sort that demands research output. There’s an…

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Should you get a Ph.D to work in a history museum? – Part 1

Should you get a Ph.D to work in a history museum? – Part 1

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Should you get an MA or Ph.D to work in a history museum? I talk to many students interested in museum work. They ask about what training they should get for this. My story is pretty straight now. For better or worse, an MA seems to be necessary to get ahead in the museum world. Whether it’s an MA in museum studies, a related field like public history or public humanities or curatorial studies, or a straight MA in history…

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