psstein

Madeira is an ICONIC choice. Unfortunately, when I was most recently at Mount Vernon, I was oppressively hungover and barely made it through his distillery and gristmill,  to say nothing of drinking his whiskey.

This is the kind of question that gets a graduate student on the outside looking in when sensitive conversations are taking place in a department. If job talks are by invitation, it's also the kind of question that sees a graduate student not knowing they're taking place.

The job talks were "open" to you as a member of the university community. Information about them was circulated via email, but I doubt very much that it was ever posted on a public-facing website.
Bear in mind that many who make it to the short list for a tenure-track position would be leaving another job, and across industries, it's generally unwise to advertise to one's existing employer that you're eager to move elsewhere, especially when actually receiving the offer is by no means guaranteed...

Privacy laws generally prevent that. I can tell you that, at Wisconsin, we're interviewing two Ivy graduates and one comparable public program graduate for our history of technology position. 

Thanks @Karou! I'm kind of in shock, to be honest. I spent an extra year in my MA program after I decided to apply to doctoral programs so I could really focus on applications, and I think that paid off.
Edited to add: Congrats to the Harvard HOS admit, whoever you are!!

I think that's fine. I would also try to solicit some feedback on your applications as well, as that may prove useful for your future applications.

I think that's fine. I would also try to solicit some feedback on your applications as well, as that may prove useful for your future applications.

I think that's fine. I would also try to solicit some feedback on your applications as well, as that may prove useful for your future applications.

This is a very intelligent move. The job market for everything is bad, but 19th and 20th century US suffer from incredible oversaturation.

A lot of Wisconsin-Madison offers went out today. 
If you were accepted and want to ask questions, please feel free to PM me.

You may want to check out job ads if you're having trouble deciding. For example, I was leaning toward a World History minor when a committee member suggested I look at ads, and I discovered 9/10 US History jobs want "US and the World" so it solidified my decision. I think a combo of interest and strategy is a respectable way to decide these things.

Not that I've heard. I spoke to someone who sat in on the meeting and all he told me was "they're going out soon." I would expect knowing this week, but it honestly seems like every program is notifying earlier than in past, save a few.

History of Science programs are trending towards integration with broader history departments. The HoS program in Wisconsin sends out acceptances with the history department, and I think Columbia's does as well.

I am going to assume that you would be getting an MA to bolster your PhD prospects for a future application cycle, as I did. Given that you say you've already received funding information (the most important aspect of choosing a school for an MA, in my opinion), I won't address that. 
You should ask questions that pertain to your thesis research and language abilities. A terminal MA student (with PhD aspirations), I believe, should strive to do at least three things: 1. Bolster your non-English language ability by either strengthening your primary non-English language or beginning work on a second non-English language 2. Gain experience giving conference presentations, preferably not at a graduate student conference, although anything is better than nothing and 3. Produce an MA thesis capable of either being mined for a publishable article or two or else leading to a PhD dissertation. 
With these priorities in mind, you can probably come up with some relevant questions. For example, what language resources are available to the students, and is there room (and funding!) in the MA timeline for you to take an extra language class or two (even if its over the summer)? Is travel funding available to MA students, both for research and conferences? In general, I think an MA student will have a tough time obtaining any sort of international funding, but a bit of cash for a regional archive shouldn't be out of the question. 
Also, most programs offer a non-thesis track history MA. Resist the temptation to go down this route; it will not serve you well when reapplying to PhD programs.

Ask about funding for the MA.

I think everyone has offered excellent advice, but I do want to add onto/ highlight @Dark Paladin's point- you're knee deep in a thesis that's likely your first in-depth experience with historical research and writing, and you haven't heard from any PhD programs, which naturally has made you doubt yourself and what you want to do. I'm not convinced that, if and when you get into a PhD program, your opinion won't change in the light of an acceptance letter. I say this because when I applied, I was trying to write a senior thesis that I found agonizingly hard, and I wanted nothing more than to be done with it. I thought somewhat seriously at one point about withdrawing all my PhD applications and re-applying to MAs. Then, because it was too late to withdraw, I wondered if I should have applied for American history instead. Once I started getting acceptances, however, both those wishes completely left me, and they have never come back. It's hard to know what is an honest change in interests and what is application nerves, but time usually helps sort out one from the other-- so certainly give it thought now, but revisit it later once you know how everything has shaken out.
Additionally, studying early modern and medieval history is a different ballgame than studying modern Europe or US. Your archives are different, your sources are different, you piece together evidence differently (as you just don't have the masses of stuff that modernists do), you ask different questions with different stakes. Do you want to address those questions? Do you find them compelling? In my case, I realized that the animating questions of US history by and large weren't the big questions I wanted to think about the most. You may find that you really are drawn to the work of early modern history, in which case, a MA may be a good place for you to make that transition. But you can have a wide variety of interests, and being interested in one thing doesn't mean you've chosen the wrong one for yourself. It means you're well rounded. 
Finally, regarding readiness for a PhD program. It's very good to be honest and self-aware (truly), but it's also hard to see yourself and your capabilities clearly when you're this close up to it, and under so much application stress. Quite honestly I'm not sure if one ever does feel ready. I can think of a number of times where my advisor suggested that I move onto the next stage of the program, or take a risk on some opportunity that presented itself, but I myself didn't feel ready. I would always protest that I needed more time: more time to study for comps, more time to take another class, more time to revise an article or clarify an argument, more time to figure out what I was trying to say. Then I would do some more Tina Belcher style groaning in the privacy of my apartment and try to do it anyways. And in each case, my advisor was right, and I was wrong. I was ready for it, and I could do it- I was just really nervous. 
Graduate school is full of moments like these where you feel on the absolute edge of what you're capable of doing. But you have to be on that edge if you want to really push yourself and grow as a scholar/ thinker/ person. So I really would try to sit on your hands for a few more weeks, even though it is incredibly difficult, and see how it all shakes out; schools won't accept students they don't think are ready, and your professors wouldn't have recommended you apply to these schools and helped you throughout the process if they didn't think you could make it. 

You should make a plan to acquire the necessary language skills sooner rather than later (not to presume you don't already have them).

For those if you who have received personal e-mails from professors/students, do reply as soon as you have your nerves together to type without "OMG!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED TO HEAR FROM YOU!!! THIS IS MY DREAM SCHOOL!!!"  Rather, just respond polite in this way
"Thank you so much for your warm note. I am delighted to have this offer in hand and I look forward to staying in touch about the upcoming visitation weekend."
As always, keep an open mind to the various options if you are so fortunate to have them to choose from.  I also will say this, if you end up with just one program and it's a funding offer, your other option is always to decline and do something else or try again next year.  I've seen it happen here although very heart-breaking on the applicant's part. 
Finally, ALL it takes is one funded acceptance for this cycle to end.

No it means that they gave out 19 acceptances and 5-10 waitlists hoping to get a cohort of 16. Universities do this routinely because they know between 60 and 75 % will accept their offer of admissions. 

Thanks @psstein - I'm still pretty stunned! My research interests tend to be at the intersection of history of technology and environmental history.

UW-Madison folks, you should hear no later than the end of the week.
 

UW-Madison folks, you should hear no later than the end of the week.
 

UW-Madison folks, you should hear no later than the end of the week.
 

UW-Madison folks, you should hear no later than the end of the week.
 

I'm going to send you a PM about placement as well. Harvard is an excellent program, but something that may prove useful for you is figuring out what your potential advisor's students' work looks like. I didn't do this when I made program decisions, which was not a good decision. Long story short, I ended up wanting to do something much more rooted in technical history of science than the person I applied to work with was interested in doing. I ended up changing advisors and fields entirely during my second semester of graduate school. I would lie if I said it didn't negatively affect my work.
I would also point out that your research interests will shift somewhat. Someone whose work aligns perfectly with yours right now may not do so in four or five years.
NYU has a bizarre notification system. I think they either accept or reject in waves. My best friend in graduate school got a rejection very late in the process.