Townsend's History and Historical Professionalization

First, I would like to note, while the book was interesting at times, I would not claim that the book interested me as a whole. Townsend definitely informed me of events that I was unaware of and I think these facts encouraged me to think about changes and continuity involving this particular topic. I did enjoy Townsend’s structure because it was easy to follow and allowed me to focus on his different arguments, but I would have probably taken a more chronological approach just because that is how I try to make sense of things, especially in such a short period of time. Townsend did continue to reference the earlier dates throughout the entirety of his book, preventing me from really seeing the extent of the changes that took place from 1880 to 1940. I also wish that he would have spent a little time talking about gender within this history of History, even though I understand it does not have much to do with his arguments. Townsend caught my attention when he mentioned Margaret Cross Norton and introduced her as the head of the Archives Department of Illinois State Library in 1930 (159). Even though library related fields were made available to women, I was just a little surprised about how much influence she seemed to have in the three sentences that Townsend actually spent talking about her, and I wish he could have mentioned a little more.

Second, there were a few ideas that I reflected on. It is both discouraging and somewhat comforting to find that during 1880-1940, people interested in a historical enterprise really struggled to find jobs (102) and were unsure about what skills academic historians were expected to have for jobs outside of the teaching profession (109). As a first-year graduate student with limited internship or employment experience, especially in historical positions, I cannot pretend to know much about the struggles of people who have fought to actually obtain a good job in the specialty they wanted. However, I do struggle to figure out what specific skills future employers will expect from me and worry that by choosing a specialization, I am also limiting myself and that fact is very conflicting. I have to know what exact job I want, and I have to figure out which path is best for me to gain the skills I need even though I am not guaranteed even an opportunity to work in my desired profession. Additionally, there seems to be a great amount of competition for any jobs in History professions. These jobs are hard to find and the expectations are high. I wonder if there is still not much desire for more jobs in these fields and why that might be or how it could be fixed. Similarly, Townsend discussed how definitions and specializations changed (88, 155). Today, even within academia, there are so many specializations solely in what students are able to study, in attempt to gain skills students think future employers of their desired job will expect or want from new graduates. I believe Townsend was essentially proving that these specializations were very limiting and created even more competition, which current graduates are facing.