Chiqui74

Yes, private, and even public, archives and libraries often require credentials for research. It's not gatekeeping, it's making sure that the documents live to tell the tale. Even when doing PhD dissertation research, some institutions require an interview with archivists and other sorts of applications. Others still don't allow access to anyone bar a handful of people.

Before you try to go the PhD route, ask yourself what it is you want out the PhD. The academic job market has been abysmal for years and currently non existent. The state of academia and higher ed is a complete disaster and chances are almost zero anything will change in the next few years. It's almost certain that you will not get a tenure track job, so if that is your goal, I urge you to reconsider and NOT do a PhD. If that is NOT your goal, then why do a PhD? If you just want to learn things, you can do that without going through the arduous and often demoralizing process of getting a PhD only to end up less qualified for non-academic jobs than you were before going in. If you are independently wealthy and just want to do a PhD for fun, I question your definition of fun, but go right ahead.
Museum curators have their own career path and a PhD in History is NOT the best way to go about it. Plus, they have their own job market issues. If you want to be a curator, look into Public History programs with a museum specialization, or into a Museum Studies program.
Also, absolutely do not attend a PhD program that does not cover your tuition AND gives you a stipend.

The short answer is no.
If a history PhD was applying for a political science job, maybe, but not for history jobs. The historical profession, like political science, I imagine, has its own set of skills that are pretty standard across institutions. They are core competencies of the work we do, and data analysis is not one of them. To be sure, the rise of digital humanities is making data and stats more a part of certain types of historical research, but it's absolutely not an expectation for non-digital history jobs.

I wasn't aware that being honest about what is happening in doctoral programs in the middle of a global pandemic, which is turning higher ed upside down, is gatekeeping. I find it highly irresponsible for current graduate students to tell prospective students to apply without laying out what they will probably face in programs that are in difficult positions to offer proper mentorship, research support, financial resources, and general advice. I have mentored first years in different programs since I was in my second year, and I am honest and frank with the incoming first years right now about how little advice I can give because I did not begin my program in this context. Pretending that being a doctoral student is solely about a life of the mind, or a few years to explore a dream, is the sole province of the privileged. 
Also, I am not and will never be in the position to gatekeep academia, so throwing that accusation at me is astonishing. 

I am a black woman who is also first-gen and working class.
I should think that my background gives me qualifications for understanding the way doctoral programs are designed to not only keep people like me out and/or marginalized, but create a false reality that will leave you assed out if you don't go through the program with open eyes for your own future.

Coming out of lurk mode to give my two cents: this topic was my specialty--a conversation I fought tooth and nail to have at my university--until I circumstances placed me in a position to realize that the bureaucracy of doctoral programs is not equipped to help PhD students navigate this new reality. As another poster astutely mentioned: the guaranteed salary and health insurance for 5-6 years is a convincing argument for riding out the storm in the doctoral program, but you are also stunting your career growth.
You can get certificates in DH or archives out the wazoo, or do an internship for a few months--but if you aren't building any credible, progressive skills for a resume, you are merely treading water. Also, since many doctoral students come fresh out of undergraduate or 1-2 years after undergrad, they are emerging from a PhD program at 29/30 without any real world work experience. The private, govt, and academic sectors are hammered by the pandemic. Who is going to make it past the application stage: a 30 year old PhD with no job experience or a 30 year old with direct job experience (bc remember, most people applying for specific jobs went to school to major in that field)?
But again, doctoral programs are not built to address this. Your coursework, your writing assignments, your dissertation, your conference presentations, your TA assignments, and so on are geared towards preparing you for a TT job. You aren't supposed to get a job. Graduate fellowships geared towards some type of vocational training (e.g. editorial assistant at a university press) are few and far between. Your advisors' only assistance is to bring in alums or other PhD "alt acs" to discuss their experiences--they cannot and often will not help you be legible inside and outside of the academy.
It is, IMO, the height of conceit to say you're pursuing the PhD to research and write and read for 5-6 years. The only people who say that are those who have a tiny kernel of belief that they'll be the one to beat the odds and get the TT job at the end of the journey. 
I don't think you shouldn't go for the PhD--my opinion right now is that those whose first dream is to be a professor need to be the last people applying to PhD programs. 

I have never personally regretted having gotten my PhD in history; it enabled me to have so many experiences I would never have had otherwise, to live abroad, to make wonderful friends, live the life of the mind, etc. I'd be a very different person if I had stayed in the job I worked in before applying to PhD programs; the experience of the PhD helped me grow so much and I would never take it back.
But, I want to second a lot of what the OP said.
There really are so few jobs. When I was first applying to PhD programs in 2011 I knew that the job market was bad, but like OP said, I didn't really understand how bad and how much worse it was going to get. Everyone should look at this:
 
It could well be that there will be far fewer jobs in the next few years than there have been this last decade.
In recent years history has lost more majors than any other discipline. See here https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/11/27/new-analysis-history-major-data-says-field-new-low-can-it-be-saved Admins seeing fewer majors and lower enrollments require fewer history classes, which means they need fewer history profs, so retirees are not replaced and job adverts are rare.
The situation is worse than a "bad" job market. There have been more than 1,000 History PhDs awarded per year every year for the last decade even though the number of TT jobs for assistant professors is far, far lower. The numbers are just horrible. In popular fields (American and European) you do literally compete against hundreds of other people - including frequently, nearly all of your professional friends unless they are significantly older or younger than you. The experience of applying for these jobs is extremely time-consuming, brutally stressful and heartbreaking.
When I was applying I had this idea that I would come to the end of my PhD and there would be this sort of, referendum moment - either I would get a job or I would not and if I did not, I would move on and do something else with my life. But this is not how it works in reality. One of my advisors told me it often takes people three years on the market to get a job, if they do at all, and frequently in those three years they have to hustle to find temporary positions year to year, whether its extending their PhD, a postdoc, a VAP, adjuncting, "self-funding" (if you're rich), or one of those paper positions where you get affiliation but no salary (again, if you're rich). The reality is that in the final years of this process you often have to continuously make decisions about how much you are willing to sacrifice in pursuit of the dream of a TT job. You may have to weigh whether it's better to work on more publications or take a side job, if you should take an onerous adjucting teaching load that may leave you no time for research or writing good job applications, if it is worth it to uproot your life and move (at your own expense) across the country for a one year position (a bigger challenge for anyone with a partner or spouse). Living with not knowing what you will be doing the next year, and having to weigh these decisions can be very stressful. And, you may feel when you begin a PhD that you would be willing to move anywhere, take any job, do anything, sacrifice anything, in pursuit of the dream, but you cannot necessarily anticipate how those sacrifices will feel when you are older (especially if you have a partner or children).
I want to echo what the OP said about how a PhD comes as a enormous cost, even if it's fully funded, because the true cost is time. Yes, if you get into a good program you may be making a guaranteed 30k (though, to be honest, in many cases less) with health insurance for five to seven years. There is something to that, yes. But being a grad student freezes you at entry level, both financially and socially (as you are always in a junior, subordinate position in the career) for somewhere between 5-10 years. Your salary will likely not increase over your time in the PhD, or if it does, it will do so only minimally. Often, it will not keep up with inflation or rising cost of living, especially if your program is in an expensive city so you will actually be able to live less well in your final PhD years than at the beginning. What seems to you like a generous, comfortable salary when you are 22 or 24 may feel frustratingly or embarrassingly low when you are 30 and your friends from college are starting to make good salaries, get married, have children, and buy houses. You will still be making the same money you made when you entered your PhD.
You need to consider the opportunity cost. The true cost is everything else you could have been doing and earning during the time you were getting your PhD if you weren't doing the PhD. In all that time you spent being a grad student and making what is a 22-years-olds entry-level wage you lose all the time you could have been investing into another career path, in which you could have been moving up, getting raises and promotions, saving for retirement and getting that sweet compounding interest. If you do go on to get a TT job, your time spent in your fully-funded PhD will have been an investment, but if in the end you transition into another field you may be starting over at square one and you will have lost the opportunity for all those other gains forever. 
There are enormous benefits to getting a PhD in history. The work of a history grad student is fun, intellectually stimulating, fulfilling, and prestigious. You usually get a flexible schedule, meet interesting amazing people, travel, etc. But you pay an enormous price - financially in lost time and opportunity, and too often with damage to your mental health. Things worked out very well for me personally and I don't regret my PhD at all. But I know for sure that even though I thought I knew all about how the job market was bad, I did not really understand what the true costs would be when I signed up for this path.
 
 
 
 

Years ago I frequented Gradcafe while applying for a PhD in history. Not all of the advice I received here was good, but much of it was. Partly as a result of that advice, I was admitted to a good PhD program where I had excellent mentors, made some dear friends, and learned a great deal about the craft of writing history. Everyone battles depression at some point while doing a PhD, but on the whole I remember my PhD with fondness. So hear I am with my PhD in hand, ready to pay it forward. This is the best advice I can give you: don't do a PhD in history. Don't do it.
I know that you have heard about how bad the job market is, but "bad" is misleading. It suggests that it is highly competitive, in a slump, leaving some good people behind, or something like that. The reality is that the historical profession is dying. There are no jobs and there won't be any for a long time. By that I don't mean that there are few jobs. I mean that there are none. My field is a large one. Every big history department in America has at least one scholar in my area. And this year there is not a single job that I'm eligible to apply for. If you complete a PhD, you need to realize that there is a good chance that you'll be in the same boat. And if there are two or three jobs when you finish, you'll be competing against hundreds of other scholars desperate for work. Many of your competitors will be 5-7 years out of their own PhDs, have books with good presses, and years of teaching experience. Even if you show enormous promise, why would risk-averse departments hire you instead of someone who has been doing the job well for years?
I attended a top-five PhD program (overall and in my field). I wrote an award-winning dissertation. I graduated with multiple good publications. I received excellent course evaluations for the courses I TA'ed and taught as instructor of record. My mentors wrote fulsome letters of recommendation. I produced polished job application materials. I did a postdoc at another top-five university. I am a friendly person who interviews well. None of those things altered the brute fact that there were no jobs. My profile isn't that of a superstar, but it is the profile of someone who did everything you're supposed to do. 
I'm not bitter about my experience. I have an academic adjacent job that is in some ways better than a tenure-track job. I don't really regret doing a PhD, but I am keenly aware that it came at an enormous cost. If you're on this board, you've heard the rule now that you should never pay for a graduate degree in history. That's true, but the real cost of doing a PhD is time. Everyone pays for their PhD. Even if you are among the vanishingly small number of prospective historians who get a tenure-track job, it will probably take seven years of a PhD work and then several years of struggling in temporary employment. That's probably a decade of your life receiving highly specialized training for a job that doesn't really exist anymore. You will pour most of your youth into a discipline that almost certainly won't have a place for you. 
What should you do? If you are thinking about applying for a PhD in history, don't. If you can't imagine doing something else, work on strengthening your imagination. There are lots of ways to engage in the life of the mind outside of the university. If you are in the first few years of a PhD program, I would recommend getting an M.A. and getting out. If you are close to the end of your program, it might make sense to hang on and finish. But you should write a good-enough dissertation and spend most of your time figuring out how to build a path toward a non-academic future.
Again, I'm not angry or bitter. I had a good experience in my PhD experience and will continue to publish some. But the historical profession is dying. History enrollments have fallen more than enrollments in any other discipline. Administrators are cutting lines or even eliminating departments. It probably won't get better for a generation, if ever. 

Before you try to go the PhD route, ask yourself what it is you want out the PhD. The academic job market has been abysmal for years and currently non existent. The state of academia and higher ed is a complete disaster and chances are almost zero anything will change in the next few years. It's almost certain that you will not get a tenure track job, so if that is your goal, I urge you to reconsider and NOT do a PhD. If that is NOT your goal, then why do a PhD? If you just want to learn things, you can do that without going through the arduous and often demoralizing process of getting a PhD only to end up less qualified for non-academic jobs than you were before going in. If you are independently wealthy and just want to do a PhD for fun, I question your definition of fun, but go right ahead.
Museum curators have their own career path and a PhD in History is NOT the best way to go about it. Plus, they have their own job market issues. If you want to be a curator, look into Public History programs with a museum specialization, or into a Museum Studies program.
Also, absolutely do not attend a PhD program that does not cover your tuition AND gives you a stipend.

"Because I hate myself." That usually shuts people up

All valid points.  That said, I can't ignore my kid, I can't disengage myself from my family and spend all my time doing school work, or any other kind of work.  That does not mean I am not dedicated to my discipline or that I need to question my motivation.  As for life after the PhD, I understand how it works.  I understand there is no set schedule, no 9 to 5, but I will come to that when I come that.  I also have a lot to say about the American work culture, but that's an issue for another day. 

There is no University of Southern Florida; it's University of South Florida. Based on that alone, I suggest you research the programs better.

I get questions like the third one all the time! I get questions about the War of 1812, various other wars, ancient history.. And when I can't answer it I get "but I thought you knew history." I do! Just a very, very minuscule portion of it on a topic you probably don't care about. 
Oh and then I get this one from my boyfriend: "Why would you choose to go to school for even more years? you nerd."  

He/she has to be trolling us.  There's just no other explanation.

I'm just going to bump this since it isn't a sticky.

We don't actually know who these people are, that's how anonymity works. I'm open about my identity because frankly, I find the politics of negotiating departments tedious and a poison pill (do I really want to be tenure track in a department that hates either my views or how I express them?) I know other people who, after a few messages, are also open about who they are. These are exceptional. The majority of posters on this forum come here expecting us to have answers for all their problems or to vent about their anxieties and frustrations with the system, after which they go on their ways. This is fine. People find anonymity helpful for easing their concerns that potential advisors and colleagues would judge them for personal or social perspectives. (This also says nothing about the people who don't have accounts and lurk for whatever intel they can find.)
However, lackluster anonymity also has its drawbacks, namely in one's credibility. When five-post people create threads with titles like "RECENT AHA RESULTS WE ARE ALL DOOMED," many times they do so as though it wasn't a discussion that has happened about twelve times in the past year. Newsflash: It has. And many of the threads that I respond to with these types of comments are the threads that offer nothing new.
What number of posts tells us in a nutshell is how much an account belongs to this community. If someone with one hundred posts makes a similar thread here, it is likely because they are aware of the discussions that have happened in the past and have something new to offer. This system is irrelevant to the position of the person offline (which is one of the glories of anonymity.) Prof. Plum, if I recall correctly, has something like 1k+ posts and a very high reputation from the quality of those posts. If someone with the account "FULLPROFESSORATCOOLSCHOOL" and three posts wants to offer something, I don't actually care until they've done the work of being part of this forum or they're willing to show their hand (Which field? What school?). This is how Internet communities function. This is even how most offline communities function.

This isn't trying to create some community of elite posters. It's just asking you to put in some modicum of effort prior to asking us for a discussion. 

I earned my BS in 2012, after slowly taking classes for......oh, about 10 years. I was an "older" student when I started, and definitely older when I finished, lol. But now I'm "4ever 29", so who's counting?!  As someone else also said, my 2 daughters have been witness to my college years and all of the studying, papers, deadlines, and frustration and then finally my graduation in 2012.  Getting my BS was more of a bucket list thing for me, however if I use my degree in the professional world one day, that would be awesome. I've been a stay at home mom for 13+ years (one is 18 and a college freshman, one is 12 and in 7th grade) and I wouldn't trade it for the world! I decided to apply for grad programs, mainly, for 2 reasons - it's another bucket list thing and it's nice to have the military pay for most of it!
My oldest attends NMSU in Las Cruces, NM so, of course after applying for the MCJ program, I joked that maybe we'd have a class together. I expected the eye roll or the "omg mom!!", but she said "maybe we can graduate together!". She was serious! 

I actually think that would make for a fascinating panel mvlchicago.

I don't resent undergraduates, their tution money pays for my tuition and stipend, I just don't have any interaction with them.  I am not in a field where we work in labs and have undergrads working, for example.  There are no cross-listed classes (grad and undergrad together with different requirements for each), etc.  Most of the graduate classes (seminars) are taught in the department, not in regular classrooms.  That will change when it comes time to teach, and that interaction will, obviously, be different than if we were just hanging out. We essentially inhabit different worlds so yes, there is a divide.  But there should be, IMO.  Graduate students and undergraduate students are in different phases of their lives and their careers, graduate school is nothing like college and there experience is completely different, etc.  Plus, there is always the chance that a graduate student will become a TA or instructor to undergraduates so there's that need for separation too to avoid problems down the line.

I had never heard of this but I have reservations.  Also, most PhD programs only allow you transfer a certain number of credits so it's not like you could leave one program after 5 years and pick right where you left off somewhere else; you'd have to pretty much start from scratch.  That just doesn't make sense. 

I'm just going to bump this since it isn't a sticky.

I don't resent undergraduates, their tution money pays for my tuition and stipend, I just don't have any interaction with them.  I am not in a field where we work in labs and have undergrads working, for example.  There are no cross-listed classes (grad and undergrad together with different requirements for each), etc.  Most of the graduate classes (seminars) are taught in the department, not in regular classrooms.  That will change when it comes time to teach, and that interaction will, obviously, be different than if we were just hanging out. We essentially inhabit different worlds so yes, there is a divide.  But there should be, IMO.  Graduate students and undergraduate students are in different phases of their lives and their careers, graduate school is nothing like college and there experience is completely different, etc.  Plus, there is always the chance that a graduate student will become a TA or instructor to undergraduates so there's that need for separation too to avoid problems down the line.

I echo what @Demeter and @rising_star have said. In addition, I think there is another divide caused in private universities, because of finances.

To clarify, I attend a private university where the endowment is HUGE (in the billions). I came from a very poor public university for my undergrad (the tuition is ~$4,000 a year versus over $50,000 a year). A lot of graduate students I meet are like me. We are not from super rich families and we did not attend super fancy, private universities for undergrad. We came to our current graduate institution ,because of the research and also 99% of graduate students are fully funded (awesome!). However, the undergraduates are from rich families. Not all, but a lot of them are well off. I see a lot of undergrads that I feel I should punch them in the face, because they walk around like they are God's gift to Earth. There are more than a few self-entitled shit heads. I taught a full class one semester and I was advised heavily not to be too harsh (whereas in my undergrad when I TAed, I could be very strict and even kick students out) or else piss off some random donors' child. D:
I'm not at Princeton, but I have a couple friends who are and it sounds like they are in a similar boat. This divide of economic culture causes graduate students to be "stand-offish" toward the undergraduates.

I don't resent people in other programs. I like them when I can learn about their work, because learning new things is fun. I just don't have a lot to do with them. In grad school, I was busy doing my own research. I heard once that we learn more and more about less and less, and I think that is kind of seen in how easy it is not to interact with people outside our disciplines. It was sometimes to our detriment, because transdisciplinary research does a lot. 
I don't resent undergraduates. I just don't have a ton of interaction with them. When I did, it was in a professional context, so those boundaries had to be minded. I think in some ways, that also contributed to a divide that I felt was very real. Even without being a TA or RA, there was a hierarchy that had to be minded and professionalism was key. It wasn't a bad thing. I liked the UG students I got to know. It's just that we were doing two totally different things, and there wasn't much to talk about or interact around.
But I don't think these two differences I mention are the same thing, exactly. 
Grad school is a totally different ballgame, a totally new way of working and being and doing academics. It's not really comparable to UG work in my mind. I think this sense of divide is a common experience. It was generally 'easier' to interact with other grad students rather than undergrad students in my department because there was some common ground between us. With the undergrads, not so much. 
For some people, this can spill out into daily living if they live in a heavily UG area, or if they live in apartments more populated by graduate students. I wouldn't want to put up with things in daily living now that are common in dorms. I shop at a grocery store. I go to the dry cleaners. I tried to go home at night and forget about work. My life, while situated around work on campus, isn't centered on it like it was in UG. It's just that my job was school. It wasn't my life in the same way that being at college was, if that makes sense. So that may contribute to a feeling of division or a sense of differences in daily life. 
I think, broadly, that it's important to understand that there may be a different culture in the graduate program you enter than you may have experienced at undergrad. These two groups can exist rather independently, and I think that this divide is pretty common. It's not bad, it's not dislike, at least for me. Part of it is a commitment to professionalism, part of it is having little common ground in what you're doing and experiencing, and part of may be one's way of living or stage of living. It may be all those things or none of those things. 
I have more to say, but for now I need to think about the best way to say what I mean. 
Good luck to you as you explore programs! 

My child played a huge role when I decided to pursue a PhD. I thought I'd get the MA and teach high school, but I fell in love with research and postsecondary education and knew I wouldn't be happy doing anything else (after trying other things, so it wasn't an abstract decision). I don't want my daughter to settle in a job that makes her miserable but pays her well, so I'd be the worst kind of hypocrite to do so myself. Might as well pursue what I'm passionate about for 5-7 years and get paid to do it--even if I fail at getting a TT job, I still will have completed something meaningful to me that I hope my daughter can appreciate. No careers are certain, some are just more uncertain. I'll find a job somewhere, maybe not where I want doing what I want, but I wouldn't even have a shot if I didn't take this path. 
You really need to think about what will make you happy, if you'll regret never attempting to pursue a PhD. I don't know about you, but I don't want many regrets weighing me down when it's all said and done. Go in with eyes wide open when it comes to the job market for your field and the struggles ahead, and if you still think a PhD is for you, I say go for it.