Home » History » Careers In History » Getting Involved

Getting Involved

© Chelsea Paige Buffington

No matter what historical route you take, whether it be as an archivist or a teacher or a government historian, it is important to get involved. There are numerous organizations that you can become involved with including the American Historical Association, http://www.theaha.org. The AHA puts out articles online and the have a printed bulletin called Perspectives that includes articles, job opportunities, and information on conferences and fellowships. The Chronicle of High Education--Academe This Week comes in both an online and a print edition, http://chronicle.com. While the Chronicle is not purely History related, it is an important source for those both in and out of academia. There are numerous informative and thought-provoking articles as well as a job guide. There are also sites like History Net http://www.TheHistoryNet.com that give you information similar to that you can receive from historical societies. History Net gives you information on activity within specific fields, notes upcoming events and exhibits, and has a section called Review Stand that includes reviews of historical books. Submissions for Review Stand are open to anyone interested in writing a review.

Historical Societies, however, are the best way to get involved in a more personal and effective way. Historical societies can be on the state, regional, local (city and county), national, and international level. They can also be oriented to a particular field. Historical societies are a good way to keep up to date on what is going on with History generally and your particular field or fields of interest. The best place to begin is with your local societies, you may have a county or both a city and county historical society. These societies not only familiarize the citizens of your area, but they help to bring in tourism.

A good place to look for historical societies is a site entitled Genealogical and Historical Societies, http://www.outfitters.com/genealogy/gens... More specifically, historical societies come in many varieties. For example, there are societies for particular regions and states like the Oregon Historical Society, who is noted for its Oral History project, http://www.ohs.org and there is the Boston Historical Society and Museum, http://bostonhistory.org. There are also historical societies devoted to a particular county such as the Lancaster County Historical Society in Pennsylvania, http://lanclio.org.

Some historical societies are devoted to an ethnicity, genre, event, or some other specialized subject rather than a state, region, nation, or community. Ethnically related societies include the Italian Historical Society of America, http://www.italianhistorical.org and the National Japanese American Historical Society (Nikkei Heritage), http://www.nikkeiheritage.org. A combination of state and ethnicity is seen in the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society, http://nmjewishhistory.org. Field related societies include the United States Commission on Military History, http://www.uscmh.org and The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Maine, http://www.acadia.net/sotcw. The United States Commission on Military History is international in scope as are many of the field related societies. Other historical societies include the Army Historical Foundation, http://www.armyhistoryfnd.org and the White House Historical Association, http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha/de... National societies include Canada's National Historical Society provides information on Canada history, producing a bi-monthly magazine, The Beaver. You can find this site at http://www.historysociety.ca.

The copyright of the article Getting Involved in Careers In History is owned by . Permission to republish Getting Involved in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.