Sigaba

Don’t feed trolls. They have a unique combination of being generally attention needy and ubiquitously putative.
 

Problem here is the use of upper case. It is hard to have a relationship, it is hard to be happy, and so on. You have to deal with things that people hide from others, deal with sickness, and so on. It is not easy, it will bring you down. But you can survive to it and make through the other side

I am the person who gives the jar the final tap that allows it to open after the strong have been working at it for a while.
 

Your recommendation that I stay in my lane is both telling and ill considered. My recommendation that readers consider your other posts is not centered around Pitt, nor SW. At no time do I claim to have knowledge of either. For you to imply that I am writing from that perspective suggests that your attention to detail is lacking.
My recommendation is simply that readers consider your "guidance" within the context of your conduct on this BB. Based upon your posts, readers can decide for themselves if you're attempting to urge aspiring graduate students to look before they leap or offering guidance on how to do their due diligence or if you're grinding an ax and settling scores. 
Had you shared information on how you've diligently addressed your concerns with the program face to face with professors, staff, and administration at Pitt, which you doubtlessly have done many times, I would find your assertion that you're trying to help less controversial. 
 
 

Unfortunately, uncommunicative professors is a recurring theme, season after season. You may find field/discipline specific guidance in the SLP forum but if you're willing to dig in this forum, you may find guidance that is useful, if not exactly comforting.

FWIW, I recommend that you follow your instinct to "calm down and wait longer."

I see that some have said this would be okay to do, but I would urge you to consider finding a faculty member to write your letter. I wonder whose lab the PhD student is in? You could ask the PI of that lab to write your letter and ask if the PhD student could contribute to that letter considering they know you well. If, on the other hand, the PhD student is in the lab with the supervisor you already have a reference from, then definitely don't do this as it looks bad having two references coming from the same lab (not sure if that is the case based on what you wrote). 

FWIW, the SOPs I was most confident / least anxious about laid my progression from my work as an undergraduate to the work I thought/wanted to do as a graduate student and then as a professional academic historian. My idea for a dissertation was presented as a thumbnail -- detailed but still a thumbnail. From there, I moved on to the works I would write as my career progressed.
The purpose of each section of my better SOPs was --
[a] to show that I my work as an undergraduate demonstrated that I had been developing the skills to do work in a graduate program.
[b] to show how I fit into a department and was cognizant of a bigger picture
[c] to show how was familiar with the contours of current historiographical debates in my primary field both broadly and narrowly conceived.
[d] to show that I was abreast of ongoing historiographical debates and that I could imagine how I could move the needle decades down the line.
To the points emphasized above, my SOPs had very little jargon  (IIRC the only terms I used were "civil military relations" and "grand strategy"). I dropped exactly zero names of professors in the departments I wanted to join.  Instead, I indicated that I knew the kind of work they were doing. I emphasized that my mindset was "What can I do for the profession" (and absolutely not "what can the profession do for me"). I endeavored to show that I thought a lot about history. Throughout, I sought to demonstrate that I was a proficient and considerate writer who "took readers by the hand." 
 
 
 
 
 
Or rather, that I thought that I was.
 
 

Before investing in the guidance offered by a graduate student dissatisfied with a program, consider the benefit of taking a look at previous posts to develop context. 
IME, first and second year graduate students who spend a lot of time praising or bashing their programs are not always the most reliable sources for information about the program they're attending. 

The purpose of this post is not to invalidate the OP's experiences or feelings. The purpose of this post is to suggest that those looking to make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives should do their due diligence before accepting (or rejecting) strongly held opinions that are offered as absolute fact from an insider.

Yeah, I might have overstated the "put your specific project plan aside" line because it's SO concerning to see SoP drafts that do not foreground the questions. Have a project, sure. But make sure the plan you lay out is an enquiry into something -- some SoP drafts are borderline telling us what the author intends to find, and that's a mistake. Tell profs what you want to ASK not what you plan to illustrate. 

Don't start your SoP this way -- decenter yourself. I do not know how many times ppl have to stress that an SoP is about demonstrating that you can ask robust, interesting, historical questions. Do that. Start with the questions. Do NOT begin with a bunch of vague stuff about how you identify, what you might be interested in working on, even what your senior thesis was -- professors are not going to read "I am open to a variety of topics" and think "well that's the kind of exciting work I want to be involved with". Sorry to be blunt but it needs to be said. In order to get into a program you need to write a very clear, very strong SoP. It might help to just write down (in very clear, plain English, without any frills) exactly what it is that you are hoping to ask in grad school (in coursework, research, and maybe, eventually your dissertation). A quasi-prospectus is not going to impress professors -- your project will change (and needs to) and that's the point of coursework and early years spent in conversations with profs. 

**If you DM me I will send you my SoP from 2017. I'm not sure you've seen enough examples and that might help. 

Is the degree relevant to your career goals in the military? If yes, sure. If no, then I wouldn't. The purpose of the SOP is to explain why you want this degree/why you want to attend that program, what you offer the program, and what your future goals are and how this degree will help you achieve those goals. 

@Strider_2931 
Both @HardyBoy and @gsc are suggesting what may be turns away from your ideas. Yet, you may have an opportunity to position your research as exceptionally relevant to understanding the background of contemporaneous debates over public health (COVID-19), women's health (sexual violence against women), climate science, and medical sciences.

My exposure to the works of social historians studying modern Germany have made me very skeptical of teleological approaches to the past. And I don't believe that history has "lessons." However, as the profession remains plagued by questions about relevance, you could play a role in helping to understand how the midwest got to where it is now on issues related to health and science generally.
Just $0.02 from a person who has to wait an extra hour this morning before drinking coffee.

AdComms are usually diverse in terms of fields so, even though I probably do not share your field, I can say this with confidence: the wording, to me, is off not in terms of grammar but in terms of how you portray the idea of modernity historically. As I would say to my graduate students, countries are not assimilated into nothing. It's not that there is a "Western world order" and countries are either "in" or "out" depending on how well they do (per your words). Further, the assumption that "Western world order" = modernity apparently underpins your project without a clear layout of how these two are connected and/or why this assumption is valid. For instance, I can contest your claim that the separation of religious institutions and state necessarily signify a valid form of assessing modernity in any country (here is not the place to do that). 
I would urge you to de-escalate the grandiose claims and replace them with clear arguments you will be able to defend in a project. For example: "In X country, the governing elites of the early 19th century assumed that Western values such as the separation of church and state would facilitate the modernization of the infrastructure network, education, and economic institutions. Yet, not all political authorities agreed on Y. For instance, [person] argued..." and so on. Like this, you are not making claims that you cannot defend in a SOP (maybe in your dissertation) nor that anyone would be expecting in a SOP. 
This brings me to my second point. The SOP is not a prospectus. You need to show that you are here to learn, that in the first two years that you take coursework, you will collaborate in conversations, you will incorporate comments, and you will expand your academic horizon. In other words, you will not be more likely admitted because you can pinpoint archives than if you show you can ask interesting, doable, historical questions.
 

Exceptions to this rule of thumb will include books that are described as "works that one ignores at one's peril." Or "essential reading." Or works that generate significant scholarly debate. Sometimes "the standard work on..."
Pay attention to how your professors roll through reading lists/bibliographies. Make eye contact. Pay attention to the body language. More often than not, non verbal cues are being given as to the level of effort one should give to reading it. (The most helpful verbal cue is any mention of a book being used as a "reference." That descriptor means that one is only expected to read every word of it if it's directly in one's historiographical wheel house. And even then, lots of skimming will be in order._
Notice how they can summarize 800+ page books in two sentences, if not one. Did they read every word and every footnote? Even if they did or didn't, the challenge you face is learning how to get what you need from a work with the least amount of effort and then move on to the next work.
(Four additional tactics. First, find articles by a historian that were published before a major work. Often--but not always--articles serve as blueprints for ongoing projects. Second, read book reviews written by the historian whose work you're reading. This can sometimes help you kill two birds with one stone. Third, start making a habit of reading all relevant short book reviews in the top journals in your field. Fourth, if you come across a book that really moves you, give yourself permission to read it at a more leisurely pace -- even if doing so sets you back a bit with your other reading and/or leads to some longer nights.)
A caveat. The tactics presented in this thread (and others in this forum) entail risk. Eventually, you will get something wrong and/or someone will want to pull your card and play stump the band. Under such circumstances, know what to say and how to say it. Phrases like I think I missed that point or I will have to circle back to that argument will work well enough. Under no circumstances should you fib. If you get feed back like "sometimes [insert name] seems under prepared" then it is probably time to switch up your reading tactics and to work much harder.

You've gotten a lot of good advice and questions here, but to jump in: I think you may be missing a very valuable opportunity to talk about race here. To my ear, "development of healthy populations" strongly connotes either civilizing mission (as Sigaba already suggested), or defining some kind of healthy white heartland as a counterweight to the "sick," diseased, nonwhite South (and new sites of American imperialism, like the Philippines).
My own program is only accepting students for 2021-22 who work on race in some capacity, and I suspect others will follow, either explicitly or not. If you want to make your work seem relevant, urgent, and worth funding, I would find a way to ensure that it speaks to this particular moment—in which a national conversation about racial justice and a massive public health crisis have become entangled (and to say nothing of the ways in which current election discourse is rife with depictions of a white American heartland....)
On a slightly more nitpicky note, the actors in your research questions are abstract entities: journals, writings, publications, sites. Give us actual people doing actual things: doctors, sanitarians, nurses, social workers, missionaries, and so on.
 

I think that among the challenges you face is that you'll be competing for an extraordinarily limited number of positions with applicants who have fine tuned their visions of their personal professional development since they were in high school.
As things stand, it is very difficult for me understand how your research will move the needle in broader historiographical debates among Americanists who specialize in the time periods you identify. How will a study of the discourse over public health at the transnational, national and local levels help us to understand better how the midwest became the midwest?
In the grand scheme of things, are you suggesting that "section" still mattered as a category of historical analysis into the early twentieth century more/less than historians have argued recently? Are you seeking to point out that historians of the progressive era have overlooked key sources of the movement? Are you suggesting that the discourse over public health in the midwest is evidence of a project to "civilize" the interior of America much the same as missionaries sought to "civilize" a growing American empire? 
From my perspective, I think that readers of your SOP would benefit if you were to define your terms and boundaries more precisely. (I most strongly suggest that you reconsider how many things you seek to compare to each other. For now, two or three are plenty. Taking a whack at multiple regions may be a project better served by your third or fourth book.)
I think that you should not refer to cultural history until you have a better sense of what is cultural history and why it remains both relevant to current professional practices but also dangerous. 
I very respectfully disagree with @OHSP. I think that you should have a serviceable definition of yourself as an Americanist, and that definition should tie in neatly (if also provisionally) with your research interests and career goals. (Think in terms of what undergraduate and graduate courses you would teach.) This POV is based upon my blind guess that this will go down as the most competitive application season in decades -- a "buyers' market" in which departments will be able to set the bar almost as high as they like.

I think that among the challenges you face is that you'll be competing for an extraordinarily limited number of positions with applicants who have fine tuned their visions of their personal professional development since they were in high school.
As things stand, it is very difficult for me understand how your research will move the needle in broader historiographical debates among Americanists who specialize in the time periods you identify. How will a study of the discourse over public health at the transnational, national and local levels help us to understand better how the midwest became the midwest?
In the grand scheme of things, are you suggesting that "section" still mattered as a category of historical analysis into the early twentieth century more/less than historians have argued recently? Are you seeking to point out that historians of the progressive era have overlooked key sources of the movement? Are you suggesting that the discourse over public health in the midwest is evidence of a project to "civilize" the interior of America much the same as missionaries sought to "civilize" a growing American empire? 
From my perspective, I think that readers of your SOP would benefit if you were to define your terms and boundaries more precisely. (I most strongly suggest that you reconsider how many things you seek to compare to each other. For now, two or three are plenty. Taking a whack at multiple regions may be a project better served by your third or fourth book.)
I think that you should not refer to cultural history until you have a better sense of what is cultural history and why it remains both relevant to current professional practices but also dangerous. 
I very respectfully disagree with @OHSP. I think that you should have a serviceable definition of yourself as an Americanist, and that definition should tie in neatly (if also provisionally) with your research interests and career goals. (Think in terms of what undergraduate and graduate courses you would teach.) This POV is based upon my blind guess that this will go down as the most competitive application season in decades -- a "buyers' market" in which departments will be able to set the bar almost as high as they like.

"Why should trees die?" a professor often asked.

"Why should trees die?" a professor often asked.

The quality of a research question depends on how well you motivate it historiographically. So, here's a question you'll get a lot in grad school: why should anyone care about how public health discourse represented the Midwest?

It's still a little unclear to me why you would apply with four different projects (which will require four different SOPs). I would highly recommend working on one solid SOP that emphasizes your research questions--this is an opportunity to show profs that you can ask incisive and interesting questions. What are your research questions, out of interest? I don't think it's necessarily that important to "position yourself" -- for sure show that you are engaged with your field and you understand how your project relates to the concerns of the field, but the cultural/religious/economic/etc labels don't matter as much as your ability to show you have a well thought out project. From what you've written above it's not clear to me what you want to do in grad school for the next 5-7 years, so you want to avoid writing like this in your SOP. I'd advise beginning with the two-three pressing questions that are driving your project--and those should a) indicate to profs in your field that you know what's happening in current debates; b) indicate to profs in and beyond your field that you know what a research question looks like; c) be compelling and interesting (and you sort of need to think about how you are going to make your SOP questions more compelling and interesting than the questions that other applicants are going to pose). 

@MarineBluePsy I agree that telling well meaning self described allies to buzz off is an appealing option.  And at the same time, moments like the one we're in don't come often.

(FWIW, I'm continually refining a number of responses that I can deploy depending upon the sincerity and intellectual skills of the person asking. Most of the responses center around urging the person to do a better job of listening, of learning the dimensions of the issues, and of figuring out ways to contribute to solutions that help people of color in the short, intermediate, and long terms.)

How would you explain to faculty members at each school your range of interests as an Americanist?

After replying to the professor, take some time to absorb what the person wrote and how you can draw confidence from the appraisal.

Rather than asking yourself "Am I good enough?" (a question kicked around the GradCafe often), can you ask yourself "How good can I be?"

There are plenty of examples online but I would advise against it. As long as you answer the question from the prompt, it is all that matters. You should use the statement of purpose to show a part of yourself. Getting too much input from others, may skew your choices.