MA in Public History

One of the unique features of our program is the paid internship. Students work with a public history institution or on a public history project for a full academic term (Spring-Summer, Fall, or Winter of the second year). Students normally earn around $8,000 as salary as well as course credit (HIST 5703), but wages depend on the length of the internship and the funding model used by the employer. Over the past 20 years students have found work with over forty internship partners. In many cases their experience has led to further contract work after the internship is over and even long-term employment once their MA is completed.

Internships benefit from the “Capital advantage” because many faculty across a wide range of disciplines at Carleton have deep research links in the community. These relationships bring a good deal of synergy between the university and the wider community and our negotiations for paid internships draws from the trust established through such research collaborations. This also means that our paid internships often involve higher level work than is commonly experienced by interns, work study, and practicum students. It is the responsibility of the coordinator of the program to identify and explore internship possibilities and to link internship partners with students, but connections that students themselves have are often useful starting points for such negotiations.

Our students have worked in the national museums here in Ottawa, in many local and regional museums, in Library and Archives Canada as well as local city and corporate archives, for a great number of government departments, for Parks Canada and the National Capital Commission, for private corporations and non-profit organizations, for private historical research firms and so on. They have designed and curated exhibits, produced digital projects, conducted research and written scripts for living history programs, been the first to open, identify and create finding lists for archival collections, reviewed and developed outreach programs and so on. Occasionally we have place students outside of Ottawa and the National Capital Region.

In the past three years, Carleton University M.A. in Public History Students as well as undergraduate History practicum students have been employed by the following partners:

• Aga Khan Foundation
• Archives and Research Collections, Carleton University
• Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Canadian Medical Association
• Canadian Museum of History
• Canadian War Museum
• Canada’s Science and Technology Museum
• Carleton Immersive Media Studio
• Carleton University Corporate Archives
• City of Ottawa
• Council of Heritage Organizations of Ottawa
• Diefenbunker Museum
• Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Arts and Cultures
• Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada
• Know History
• Library and Archives Canada
• National Capital Commission
• Parks Canada
• Partnership Africa Canada
• Skate Canada
• Worker’s History Museum
  
  

We would also like to acknowledge the following partners who have also supported internships and practicum students in the past:          

• Abiwin Coop Project
• Alberta Heritage (Ukrainian Village)
• Archives of Martinique
• Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC)
• Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• Canada Agricultural Museum
• Canadian Association of Professors of Obstetrics and Genecology
• Canada Aviation and Space Museum
• Canadian Family History Project
• Canadian Policy Research Network
• Canadian Heritage
• Canadian Postal Museum
• Department of National Defence
• Eigg Road Consulting
• Federal Heritage Building Review Office
• Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
• Friends of Fairfields (Pinhey’s Point)
• Health Canada – Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Research
• History to Knowledge
• Imperial Order, Daughters of the Empire, Ottawa Branch
• International Research Development Centre
• Lowertown Heritage
• National Research Council
• Nepean Museum
• Niagara Parks Commission
• Office of the Curator of the House of Commons
• Ottawa Jewish Archives
• Ottawa South research project
• Parliamentary Library
• Rideau Valley Conservation Authority
• Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons
• University of Alberta Archives

To all we are grateful for the support. The experiences and mentorship extended towards our students is fundamental to their education and their professional careers. Indeed, all of us partners should take pride in the incredible work and successes of our students.

Please note that we are rarely able to offer institutional funding to International applicants at the MA level. If there is the possibility of obtaining financial support from a funding agency in your home country, or you have access to other sources of funding, please contact the Graduate Supervisor to discuss your application. We are sometimes able to offer funding to International applicants to the PhD program – again, please contact the Graduate Supervisor.

The Garth Wilson Fellowship

Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation & Carleton’s MA in Public History

The Garth Wilson Fellowship in Public History is a 2-year fellowship offered by Ingenium and Carleton University’s Department of History. It celebrates our collaboration with Canada’s Science and Technology Museum and is in the memory of Garth Wilson (1960-2010) who was the Curator of Transportation at the museum from 1989 until 2010. He was a passionate advocate of museology with interest in public history, transportation history, and material culture. He was highly respected for the intelligence, imagination and discipline that he brought to the collecting of artifacts, writing and editing of professional and general interest publications, curating of exhibitions, and teaching of museum studies.

The Fellowship provides a graduate student with an excellent opportunity to participate in public history projects at a national museum, gain valuable work experience in this competitive field, and have unique access to materials that contribute to a student’s research interests. The funding supports training, research travel, conference participation, and on-line and print publications.

Garth Wilson Fellows:

• Sara McGillivray (2014-16)
• Phoebe Mannell (2016-17)
• Dany Guay-Belanger (2017-18)
• Cristina Wood (2018-19)
• Camas Clowater-Eriksson (2019-2020)
• Victoria Hawco (2020/2021)
• Jaime Simons (2021/2022)

We normally admit eight to ten new students every year. Your chances of success are increased if you can demonstrate a strong interest in public history, show that you have had some experience (paid and / or volunteer) working in public history sites (museums, heritage houses, archives etc.) and/or creative ways of engaging with history (creating exhibits or digital sites, participating in performances or film-making etc.). While most of our students have an undergraduate degree in History, some come to us with cu_people_degree in other disciplines.

When applying be sure to connect with your referees well ahead of time so they can write you an informed letter of recommendation. Be careful in choosing your writing sample – we do read all of them – and of course take care in writing your statement of interest. The writing sample should demonstrate your ability to conduct research and communicate analytical thinking. It should therefore come from a recent, senior undergraduate-level course and while essays are the normal type of writing sample, please contact the Program Co-ordinator, James Opp, if you wish to submit an alternative example of your work. Both the writing sample and the statement of interest play very important roles in the application process as it is where we really get to know who you are and what you would like to do. Besides speaking about yourself, your interests and your background, it is important to tell us in the statement of interest what you would like to do for your major research project with some precision. For example, telling us that you want to look into issues of historical accuracy in opera, perhaps using the Canadian Opera Company’s recent Louis Riel production as an example, will help us more than telling us you’ve always loved history and music and want to work on a topic that brings the two together. Of course, you’ll not be tied down to what you propose in your statement; many topics change once students begin to take courses and get to know faculty.

If you have any questions about applying please contact the Program Co-ordinator, Professor James Opp. For technical requirements related to admissions please contact the graduate administrator, Ms. Joan White.

Carleton’s Public History Program actively promotes public history in Canada and across the globe. Our faculty have been involved in the Canadian Historical Association’s Public History Network and the Carleton Centre for Public History offers logistical support to the committee responsible for the CHA’s annual Public History prize.

Carleton History is an official partner of both the National Council on Public History (NCPH), the world’s oldest international association of public historians based in the United States founded in 1980, and the International Federation for Public History (IFPH),  founded in 2009. Adjunct Research Professor Jean-Pierre Morin is the chair of NCPH’s Long Range Planning Committee. Professor David Dean is a member of the IFPH’s steering committee.  Each year a Carleton faculty member is on the IFPH’s annual conference organizing committee. Professor John Walsh will be serving that role for the next conference taking place in Sao Paulo, Brazil in August 2018.

David Dean is also co-editor, with Dr. Andreas Etges of the University of Munich, of IFPH’s new journal International Public History. His role has been made possible thanks to financial support of Carleton’s Office of the Vice President Research and International.

Carleton public history faculty and students are regular participants in international conferences and you can read about their contributions on their individual profiles (see the links provided on the Our Faculty and Our Students pages).