So I finally found out what I see myself specializing into... could it be called industrial history

[grapefruit]

Hello there,

a few weeks ago I posted another thread about the difficulties of finding a specialization into the ocean of generic history and a wide range of interests. What a struggle it was!

Yet, at last I can say that I finally reached a good compromise between my own interests and what's truly feasible given my language skills and study career so far. I've always been fascinated by the airline industry since I started my Uni career and during the final months of my studies I took a couple of classes that I loved: economical history and history of industry.

I am currently writing a paper focusing on one of the main airports of my home country (Italy), and the combination of factors causing its stunned growth; politics, lobbies, nimby groups, planning mistakes and so on. If you're familiar with Montreal Mirabel Airport's happenings you can easily think of the practical applications of writing about this subject. As you can see the potential is immense and I see myself writing about this for months. It's all I've been reading about as a hobby within the last years after all.

Now I have a couple of questions for you since I'm a bit confused/worried about the feasibility of this as a long-term project, considering my future goal of applying to graduate school off-seas.

I can't really draw the line between the faculties of History and Economics when talking of industrial history, nor I can find professors specialized into the field when searching internet database and so on. Is it such a small niche or is it actually a part of Economics? I'm supposed to contact a Professor that I expect to be familiar with this area at some point, where exactly should I look?

Another big factor is that US and UK universities are simply way off my budget, and for personal reasons I'd rather apply to any place in Canada or a similar culture.

Any good advice is very welcome.

[StrangeLight]

1) you should be applying to schools that offer you full funding, rather than asking you to pay for the MA/PhD, so american schools will be within your budget. they (almost) all provide full funding to the students they admit. do not leave them out. canada is (generally speaking, with a few small yet important exceptions) a wonderful place to get an MA and a terrible place to get a PhD. please also apply to american schools in addition to canadian ones.

2) what you're describing does not sound like "industrial history," which i would read as either the history of industrialization or the history of labour in industrialized settings. it sounds like you're talking about "business history." you may have more success searching for programs that specialize in "business history." the university of miami comes to mind. someone there specializes in business history (prof. miller?) and the school's library houses the pan am airlines archive.

3) in general, many programs do not specialize in business history or economic history. it is considered to be out of fashion. that's why you're not finding a lot of schools that work on it. in order for your project to not appear outdated, i think you'll need to make a case in your statement of purpose that the overall field of history should return to considerations of business or economic history because of X, Y, and Z.

[simone von c]

Strangelight, why do you say that Canada is a terrible place to get a PhD?

[StrangeLight]

that's what my undergraduate professors at my canadian R1 school with a PhD program told me.

you won't get a job with a PhD in history from a canadian university, UNLESS: 1) you're doing medieval history at U of T, 2) you're doing first nations/indigenous history at a handful of schools, 3) you're doing canadian history. other than those three exceptions, the only jobs a student with a PhD from canada will even come close to getting is one at a community college relatively close to their PhD institution, and it probably won't be a tenure-track position. canadian schools prefer to hire candidates with PhDs from the US or oxbridge and with the state of the job market in the last 15 years, the schools have had the luxury of top-tier applicant pools for their job openings.

you'll get a fine education at a canadian PhD program. you just won't get a job. conversely, canadian schools are GREAT places to get fully funded MAs in any subfield that let students springboard into some of the best PhD programs in the US and UK.

[Safferz]

that's what my undergraduate professors at my canadian R1 school with a PhD program told me.

you won't get a job with a PhD in history from a canadian university, UNLESS: 1) you're doing medieval history at U of T, 2) you're doing first nations/indigenous history at a handful of schools, 3) you're doing canadian history. other than those three exceptions, the only jobs a student with a PhD from canada will even come close to getting is one at a community college relatively close to their PhD institution, and it probably won't be a tenure-track position. canadian schools prefer to hire candidates with PhDs from the US or oxbridge and with the state of the job market in the last 15 years, the schools have had the luxury of top-tier applicant pools for their job openings.

you'll get a fine education at a canadian PhD program. you just won't get a job. conversely, canadian schools are GREAT places to get fully funded MAs in any subfield that let students springboard into some of the best PhD programs in the US and UK.

FWIW, I go to the University of Toronto, and I've heard differently from my professors. I don't think you can make blanket statements like that.

[TMP]

I was going to suggest similar things as StrangeLight. Economic/business history is tough to find because there isn't much demand for it (even on the job market). But you could look into labor history, which is very population (read: stiff competition) to broaden your list of schools. Make sure you spin your SOP in that direction if you choose to apply to PhD programs in the US.

If you want to do your PhD in Canada, look very carefully and ask LOTS of questions about job placements and get impressions from non-Canadian departments. You should give yourself the option of studying in the UK in addition to the US if you can be interested in the European side of area you want to do.

OSU and Northwestern definitely comes in mind for "business history" and you'll probably want to research those professors to see where they got their PhDs.

[simone von c]

One of the things I've learned through my studies of history is that there are few absolutes, if any! I have the highest respect for your experience, Strangelight, but your assumptions give me pause. There are too many variables to make blanket statements of the sort shown above. U of T, for example, is a world-class university, highly regarded in the U.S., and claims an academic placement record in History exceeding 50%. I'm a U.S. resident who chose to do my PhD in Canada for myriad reasons, and I expect my future job prospects (like everyone else's, regardless of provenance) will hinge on a combination of factors, including luck.

[StrangeLight]

fair enough. but when i was leaving UBC as an undergrad, all of my professors told me that under no circumstances should i do my PhD in canada (in latin american history). when i protested and said i wanted to apply to at least one canadian program, the prof i contacted at that program also told me that if i wanted a good chance at getting a job, i should get my PhD from a US school rather than a canadian one.

while these warnings might have been tailored to my situation as a latin americanist, i have heard countless profs at canadian institutions strongly encourage their BA and MA students to pursue their PhDs in the US if they hope to land tenure-track jobs. i hope that, for everyone's sake, the profs i've talked to about this were being overly pessimistic.

i dig U of T, it's a great school, but a placement record "exceeding 50%" is not a good thing. it is a shame that we will all bleed and sweat and cry and work for almost a decade, only to have a coin flip's chance at a TT job. there are also a number of institutions with placement rates over 70%, so 50% is setting the bar pretty low. and are those tenure-track jobs, or simply jobs in academia?

i only discourage others from getting PhDs at canadian schools because i was so strongly discouraged from doing the same by the professors at my canadian undergrad institution, and only because they said explicitly that staying in canada will kill my job chances. i hope they're wrong. i'm sure all of you in canadian programs have seen your colleagues get jobs and i genuinely hope that continues.

Edited November 22, 2011 by StrangeLight

[simone von c]

Hola, Strangelight. It's a big crapshoot, isn't it? I appreciate your thoughtful response.

[Sigaba]

In regards to the OP, as the project seems to straddle many fields of history, might it be possible to make a list of those fields and then tailor your SoPs to how some of those fields fit with a specific program? You could make a broader argument that the airport represents an example of how apparently disconnected fields of history can be drawn together.

[Lustforlife]

I can't chime in on the issue about Canadian Universities. All I know is that U of T has probably the best collection of faculty for my field at the moment. In the humanities at the moment, isn't 50% placement above average? I was too lazy to do much of a search, but this article indicates that there are fewer advertised jobs than there are newly minted PhD recipients. http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2010/1001/1001new1.cfm

Regarding the issue about your topic: one of the reasons that I like history is that it is potentially the most inclusive discipline there is (although I'm sure we've all experienced moments where we've felt hemmed in by various institutional requirements). You can work on just about any topic and in almost any time period (historians are apparently even working on the 1990s). If you continue with the airline's topic, you'll need to be cognizant about how you spin it. As other posters have noted, business/industrial history isn't very popular at the moment. My sense is similar. But you don't have to present yourself as a business/industry historian if you don't want to. Your topic could be an interesting project in the history of science. It could relate to a really interesting project on mobility/movement (you might want to read Marc Auge's essay on the passport if this interests you) if you want to take it in an intellectual history direction. The project could relate to the history of tourism (there are a number of projects that I am aware of that have focused on colonial tourism). The politics of building an airport also come to mind (I remember a friend talking about the displacement of people in East St. Louis when they were building an airport there). It sounds like the last topic is similar to the direction you've taken it so far. If you describe the project as one dealing with state/society relations or the history of urban development (maybe relate it to some David Harvey's writings), I think people could get interested in your topic. I am sure that there are many other avenues where you could take this topic.

Finally, you mention language as a limiting factor. However, you can also think of it as something in your favor. You will (presumably) be doing research in your native language. This will give you a leg up on the majority of your peers, who will be conducting research in their second/third language. While you first year or so of grad school will undoubtedly be difficult, you will hopefully become more confident and comfortable in English over time. In my program at least, most of our foreign grad students seem to need a year or so before they feel really confident in English. By the time they complete the PhD, all seem pretty comfortable with English.

[kotov]

I know Wayne State (MI) is big on labor history, and some of the people in my department work with people down there on such projects.