Immigration History

[HistoryGrad55]

Hello everyone,

 

I am a senior at a small liberal arts university, and I am thinking of applying to PhD programs for Fall 2015. I would like to focus on immigration history, specifically the wave of Eastern Europeans in the early 20th century. Does anyone have any suggestions on strong programs with this focus?

 

Thanks!

[TMP]

It sounds like you really need to do more reading.  There's been a LOT of scholarship on Eastern Europeans around that time period.  But what has not been done well is emigration.  Tara Zahara at Chicago is working on that.

Make sure you have the languages, at least certainly German.

[Zephyr99]

Look at recently defended dissertations with a similar topic (which are listed on the AHA website) and see who their advisors are. Then read the works of these advisors. None of this will be served for you. It takes some research and digging.

[istoryk]

Hello everyone,

 

I am a senior at a small liberal arts university, and I am thinking of applying to PhD programs for Fall 2015. I would like to focus on immigration history, specifically the wave of Eastern Europeans in the early 20th century. Does anyone have any suggestions on strong programs with this focus?

 

Thanks!

 

Wave of Eastern European immigrants to where? Who exactly do you mean when you say "Eastern Europeans"? Do you have a specific group you're interested in? I just finished my MA in Canadian ethnic/immigration history (with a focus on a specific Eastern European ethnic group) and am currently playing the waiting game for PhD programs. If you want to talk through some of this stuff feel free to shoot me a private message!  

[Henry Hudson]

you definitely want to have a more specific idea, both to seek supervisors but also to write a killer app statement.

 

You can change/modify as needed once you are in, but by showing you have a concrete idea from the start will go a long way.

 

As the others suggest, find an area in need of more detail: find specific emigrants/immigrants to focus upon, find a gap in the scholarship or a historiographical problem to address, apply theory in a different way... find some way to stand out and above the pack. Sit down with your current profs and get feedback from them. Examine the most recent scholarship and pay attention to trends and disagreements. try to get to a conference as specific as possible toward your interests. 

 

you have a good general starting point, but by pinning down a more specific area early on, you can better find THE supervisor and program for you, prepare a better application, and have a fairly solid proposal from the outset of your grad studies.