psstein

How much money are each offering? Which is more of a livable wage? Which offers better opportunities to fund travel to your archive?

After a multitude of rejections, I received word that I was accepted off the waitlist for Duke and have accepted their offer! Super excited!!

Wait until you apply for jobs and you never hear back 😑

Congratulations! Getting in there is a huge accomplishment! 
I would just caution you to consider if you can live off of $16k a year, especially with inflation being what it is. Cost of living in Ohio is less than other places in the US, but that's still probably not enough unless they give you teaching funding. Just think about how you would be making less than minimum wage.
Also, NO ONE finishes in four years, so you're going to figure out how to make ends meet for years 5, 6, and possibly 7.
I don't want to rain on your parade, but money wasn't stressed enough or discussed enough when I went to acceptance days. I got a very good deal, but it's still not enough to cover everything anymore.

Academic history is shrinking. The number of TT positions is in terminal decline. Departments are either not replacing retiring faculty or outright consolidating.
Pretending otherwise is not a good idea. 
And despite my grim demeanor, I'm not some type of ogre. I would love for academic history (and the humanities more generally) to have its star rising.

See if you can defer from school 1 for a year, and then use the time to reapply to school 2.

Also, getting into Yale means having to live in New Haven ? Really, rejection is the better option.

ND is one of the few schools wealthy enough to have a medieval studies center, but there aren't generally that many medievalists in any specific subdiscipline at any one school. It's not something that should worry you about ND, but it is something that should worry you when it comes to the state of academic employment. If you can tolerate South Bend for 7 years, though, you're probably pretty immune to suffering.

Funding is the most important criteria; you can't write a dissertation if you can't get to your archive. If you think school 2 is ok in that regard, there's your answer.

Though I agree that there are multiple other career paths for history graduate degree holders, I would argue two things:
1) Most people going to graduate school in history want to become TT faculty.
2) Many, if not most of the "alt-ac" jobs history PhDs hold are jobs that you can hold with a PhD, vs. a job that requires a PhD.
I'm fairly hostile to much of the "alt-ac" shift, because I think it's largely a series of comforting lies faculty and admins tell themselves to justify having graduate students, especially in programs with poor placement records.

In the past, I've mentioned that there's an "expiration date" for PhDs. This came to my attention today:
 
 

Second this, don't read into it. There are a million reasons why someone might remember your application, it might be because it was good, it might be because it reminded them of someone else. You don't have enough information right now to assume one thing or the other. Also improve your WS if you can, this is a crucial document. 

But, I do know of someone who completed the residency requirement of two years and then relocated. 
I had initially thought I would do the same but I realized it would have really shortchanged my PhD experience.
Also, this is advisor dependent... mine would never have signed off on something like this.
EDIT: I'm in religion... not history

Ah, the "Graph of Doom (tm)". No, for a lot of reasons, chief among which is that it is built on the assumed truth that the only thing one can do with a PhD in history is become a professor. 

FYI: https://www.historians.org/ahajobsreport2022

Yes, I've heard this. One of the faculty members in my grad program refused to take grad students due to the nature of his sub-field.
I would also counsel that, if you're having such trouble finding qualified advisors, there may be a very good reason (i.e., it's a dying field where there are truly zero jobs, like Byzantine History).

Good post and one that really bears repeating. Leaving with the MA was one of the best decisions I've ever made.  And for the record, I see the "alt-ac" thing as a crock. With a few exceptions, "alt-ac" jobs are jobs you can hold with a PhD, not jobs requiring a PhD. I'm sorry, but your dissertation on discourses on bodily fluids in the 18th century or the literary culture of immigrants in the early 20th century isn't a key element of becoming an insurance adjuster or a grants manager. These are jobs you can hold with the PhD.
By the way, if I sound angry about this, it's because I am. American graduate education is rotten from the core. The "alt-ac" push is, in part, a way to justify the cost (financial and opportunity) of students who complete a PhD and cannot find permanent academic employment.
If it's at all possible, mods, please, sticky this thread. Every prospective graduate student needs to read this post.
 

Thanks for the advice, @AP.
 
So... it's August now. It seems like this forum is a lot less active than it was in previous years, but there's still plenty of time until the cycle picks up. How is application writing going for everyone?
On my end, I had the pleasure of talking to a POI a little bit ago who gave me some much-needed advice on narrowing my research interests. I suspect I'm going to need to continue revising that heavily over the next few weeks at least, if not longer. I think my personal statement is in better shape. I have a ~25-page writing sample in mind (the introduction and part of a chapter of my thesis), but that needs revision, too.

@sciencehistorian, I know I'm late to the game, but in general, you want to avoid history of science/medicine programs that aren't well connected to their larger history programs. The overwhelming majority of academic historians of science/medicine will teach something like 20th century US, with history of medicine on the side.

Time spent in archives is almost universally necessary for a good dissertation. Where those archives are is field dependent. Make sure you have access to funding to get there. 

Is it possible? Yes, it is. If you want to use the PhD for anything beyond a vanity project, it's not advisable.

Is it possible? Yes, it is. If you want to use the PhD for anything beyond a vanity project, it's not advisable.

Is it possible? Yes, it is. If you want to use the PhD for anything beyond a vanity project, it's not advisable.

Even these jobs are not easily gotten anymore.

I'll give my usual advice:
1) Don't go anywhere without full funding and an adequate (read: livable) stipend. Taking on debt for a degree with an uncertain at best outcome is not a good idea.
2) The best way to identify programs is to do the following: look at the books that interested you in gender history. Research the author and find where s/he received his PhD and when. Look at the citations and research the authors of frequently cited works. Once you have this information, try to find placement histories of these scholars' PhD students.