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Where Historians Work: An Interactive Database of History PhD Career Outcomes
Where Historians Work is an interactive, online database that catalogs the career outcomes of historians who earned PhDs at universities in the United States from 2004 to 2017. Powered by Tableau, Where Historians Work provides the fullest picture of PhD careers available for any discipline. This tool allows current and potential graduate students to understand the full scope of career options open to history PhDs and to research which departments best fit their values and goals, enables departments to better meet the professional development needs of their doctoral students, and documents the broad impact of doctoral education in history.
Where Historians Work was first released in 2018. At that time, the data set included career outcomes for the 8,523 historians who earned PhDs at PhD-granting universities in the United States from 2004 to 2013. In 2022, the AHA released four years of additional data, adding career outcomes for the 3,787 historians who earned PhDs at US universities from 2014 to 2017.
Where Historians Work is a product of the AHA’s Career Diversity for Historians initiative, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation .
Where Historians Work, 2004–13
Where historians work, 2014–17, methodology, exploring the visualizations.
The Where Historians Work database consists of two separate dashboards: one containing the 2004 to 2013 dataset and the other containing the 2014 to 2017 dataset. Each dashboard features seven interactive data visualizations. Toolbars near the top of the dashboards allow users to view career outcomes in the aggregate and filter the results by variables such as gender, graduation year, department, and field specialization. Many slides contain additional information that can be accessed by hovering your cursor over individual data points. The Where Historians Work dashboards are best viewed in a desktop browser in full screen.
We hope users will explore the data, make discoveries, and share them with us. You can read a summary of initial findings from when the original 2004 to 2013 data set was published in 2017 here . A summary of findings from the 2014 to 2017 data set can be found here . Please send any comments or questions about Where Historians Work to Hope Shannon , the AHA’s marketing and engagement manager.
Acknowledgments
Team Project Director: Emily Swafford Project Coordinators: Dylan Ruediger, Hope Shannon Project Contributors: Avrati Bhatnagar, Megan Connor, Claire Vanderwood
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COMMENTS
DO NOT GET A PH.D. IN HISTORY. The purpose of getting a history Ph.D. is to get an academic job as a historian, and those jobs, by and large, do not exist anymore. The job market tanked in 2008 due to the recession, kind of recovered, and then tanked again, even before the COVID recession and the current, ongoing recession.
I can't imagine hiring someone from an online phd program as a new assistant professor through the 2030s. Online phd programs, if they're reasonably priced, seem like great alternatives for mid-career people in jobs where that phd is a qualification for promotion or higher pay.
In the US, the market for PhD history profs is really really bad. I know history profs who tell their students who ask about continuing for a PhD: Don't go, the chances of someone with a PhD in history getting a tenure track job are slim. If you want to take the risk, then never ever take out loans to get a PhD in history or any humanities field.
2. Are you willing to commit long hours to reading, research, and writing? Another obvious question, but think about it. Studying history requires a LOT of time with books, articles, primary sources, and many, many, many hours in front of your computer writing and editing a dissertation.
Where Historians Work is an interactive, online database that catalogs the career outcomes of historians who earned PhDs at universities in the United States from 2004 to 2017. Powered by Tableau, Where Historians Work provides the fullest picture of PhD careers available for any discipline. This tool allows current and potential graduate ...