Katzenmusik

I can't remember which book it was, so I can't give an exact quote...but in the acknowledgement section, a scholar said something like, "I would like to thank my six-year-old son, who has grown up with this project. Any errors or omissions in this text are entirely his responsibility."

ashiepoo's description is very accurate, in my experience. Another obvious but socially-significant aspect is the duration. When I was an MA student, two years felt like a lot of time. But now that I'm in a PhD program, the MA students seem like short-timers, barely skimming the surface of our field. They also don't get as involved in the workings of our department, because they aren't spending a huge chunk of their life attached to the place. I made good friends with the MA students who arrived in my year. Then they left, and the new batches arrived. MA students outnumber PhD students by far -- and there are just so many coming & going all the time. As years pass I feel like a wise old tree, collecting rings while MA-saplings are felled all around me.

If you can afford it, I guess, go ahead... but just be aware of the fact that elite departments like Yale tend to use unfunded one-year masters programs as cash cows. Your application will possibly be held to lower standards than PhD apps, you'll be in and out in one year (not a lot of time to immerse yourself in this world), and in the meantime your tuition dollars will be treated as income for everyone else's benefit. Plus, with degree inflation, your masters might not be enough to land a good CC teaching job in the future. The MA might not take you where you want to go. Maybe it seems worth it to have "Yale" or "Penn" on your CV, but personally I'd advise against this plan.

Some PhD programs will let MA's skip classes; others won't. But in my opinion it's best not to rush through the early stage of the program if you can help it. Coursework gives you more chances to connect with professors and get to know your fellow students. Also, if you already have some idea of what your dissertation will be about, you can use seminar papers to start chipping away at the topic.

I am obsessed with funded MA programs! I put together this list a few years back -- it might offer some leads: I'm one of those people who made a hash of undergrad and needed to redeem myself through an MA. Plus I was switching fields. I knew nothing about history and was careening between totally different continents and time periods. For my SOP, I pitched the one that made the most sense, given my past experiences. Then I got into a funded MA and everything fell into focus. Now I am at an excellent PhD program doing things I am excited about. (yay happy story) One could discern a general "19th & 20th century cultural & economic history of empire" theme in your list of interests. (Urban history & history of capitalism can fold into that easily. And intellectual & cultural history can blur into each other.) One question would be whether you'd be categorized as an Americanist or a Europeanist (or whether you can figure out a transnational space to exist in). About placement... I've found that a lot of it is up to you, to simply make the best of the opportunity once you are there. If it's a mediocre program: don't sink into the swamps of sadness! Be the one who does excellent work. Get to know the professors. Apply for every possible award or scrap of fellowship funding. Hone your craft!

You can use a TA's letter if you are desperate and just need another letter of some sort to be eligible. But it's not going to be taken quite as seriously as a letter from a professor who already has a PhD.

You are only one member of the audience. I was also writing for lurkers and others out there who may be pondering various aspects of Big Name-itude.

Everyone is different. Some Big Names are invested in history as a profession and want to influence it and keep it going by mentoring promising new scholars. This, for them, is an important part of the job. Others are on the verge of retirement and might want to ramp their advising way down. Others are just too busy with talks, books, etc. and their advisees become an afterthought. In any event, I would suggest that you not pin all your grad school plans on one particular person, even if they are your history-hero. Personally I turned down the chance to work with a Huge Name (major pioneer of my subfield) because I felt like the overall university environment would make me unhappy, and I didn't want all my scholarly hopes and dreams to be so bound up in a single relationship. What if this person abandoned me for another job (or retirement) or just didn't get along well with me? What if my scholarly interests evolved beyond this subfield -- would I be able to change course? I'm now at a university where I feel really happy and supported overall. And it looks like I will have a fairly Large but not huge Name on my committee. But I chose this person because I like them personally and felt we could have a productive relationship, not because of how it would look on my CV.

A combination of Zotero and Evernote works for me. Zotero is most useful as a bibliography generator and reading list. I use it to bookmark all secondary sources + one genus of primary source -- old books and newspapers found digitized. For archival material, images, more diverse digital sources, and all note-taking, I use Evernote. It lets you capture full web pages; file images; tag notes; attach PDFs to notes; organize the notes in "notebooks," etc. Everything is searchable, even the handwriting on photographed manuscripts! (Though this feature is not totally accurate.) Good luck!

I use a backpack. Shoulder bags just aren't great when you need to haul a laptop, books, and a water bottle around campus all day, for years. Materials make a difference in how the bag is perceived -- so, I'd recommend a canvas or leather backpack, not the swishy, reflective nylon stuff.

I assume you don't want to frame yourself as a teaching assistant but rather as a student-researcher in your field. So I'd leave off the TA job title and make up a card that looks something like this: Johnny Scientist M.S. Student in XYZ Department University of Such and Such jscientist@university.edu It's also handy to have a personal web site URL to include -- it gives people an easy way to look you up, remember who you are, and read about your work later.

Fulbright funds plenty of international students. http://foreign.fulbrightonline.org/

Not sure about international student funding. I'd bet that if they fund domestic students they'd offer similar deals to admitted internationals, but it's hard to make generalizations. Have you considered applying for a Fulbright?

A while ago I put together a list of programs that offer the possibility of funding to history MAs: Likely a lot of the same universities would offer funded MAs in other disciplines. My own MA was funded just like the PhDs in my department, with a tuition waiver and stipend. It can be done!

Interdisciplinary Studies are on "The Menu"! http://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/82-interdisciplinary-studies/

Yes -- about one third of my department's acceptances last year showed up on the Results board.

A part-time job is do-able, but any more would be too much. Grad school is crazy enough as it is. You'll want to give it your all while you are there, otherwise you might as well not even go. The exception would be part-time MA programs geared toward people with jobs (e.g. history teachers and public historians).

You might take a look at NYU -- they may have critical mass in the general areas you mention. Also, if I were you, I'd apply only to places with highly-competitive admissions. If you aren't accepted to a top program, work on your application and try again the next year.

Yes! The Appendix is my favorite history thing on the whole internet. The Public Domain Review (@PublicDomainRev) is also great.

Not long ago a PhD student transferred into my department from another department at the same university. The student in question had built a good relationship with our professors, the profs in her home department agreed that the switch made sense, and her coursework up to that point more or less counted toward our degree requirements. So the transition happened without much difficulty. As for moving to another university entirely -- that would be more difficult to accomplish, since you'll need LORs from your current profs (who might be annoyed), and in your applications it will be a challenge to avoid giving the impression that you get tired of things and quit them abruptly.

Temple University in Philadelphia is offering some tuition waivers and fellowships for MA students in the Public History program.

Also, a "monograph" is usually a book by one scholar on one topic (as opposed to an edited volume of essays). Very odd that they are referring to their CD of conference papers this way. I agree with Tybalt that you shouldn't bother with the CD and instead aim for a peer-reviewed journal.

Marx is huge for historians. Even if straight-up "Marxist history" is more a thing of the 70's, so many other philosophies/theories/histories build on Marx that it's very useful foundation to have. Next I'd say Gramsci and Foucault are both extremely influential. Their ideas pop up everywhere. Beyond that it will depend on your interests. You might consider Raymond Williams, Edward Said, Pierre Bourdieu, Benedict Anderson, Joan Scott, Clifford Geertz, Homi Bhaba, Walter Benjamin... the list goes on.

I'm well aware of that, which is why I'm almost certainly going in a non-academic direction after the PhD. I value novelty and adventure, and being welded to some random, uncongenial place for 40 years (as the almost-best-case scenario!) would kill me. (For the record, I've lived in many different kinds of places and have found things to like about them all. But the idea of not having a choice is too horrible.) Even for those who are planning to stay in academe, it's not silly to apply to PhD programs in places you like, all other things being equal. The PhD is a good chunk of your life. Might as well spend it in an environment that you think will support your happiness and sanity before you ship off to points unknown.

Environment was an important factor for me as well. The aesthetics of a place can affect one's mood, desire to be on campus, and sense of welcome vs. alienation to a huge degree, so it's not trivial!