Sample Personal Statement History PhD
University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. History
When, in the summer of 2019, I had the opportunity to pursue historical research on gender identity and household dynamics in the model town of Pullman, Illinois, I began my task armed with little more than a laptop and a love of United States history. The first day that I walked into the reading room of Chicago’s Newberry Library, the help desk attendant quickly showed me the available resources and then asked if I felt “comfortable enough to proceed on my own.” Overwhelmed by the countless card catalogues, finding aids, online databases, and the task that lay before me, I could only shrug in response. But as days turned into weeks and my research progressed, that initial feeling of uncertainty gradually faded and enthusiasm crept into its place. Even now, I can vividly recall the thrill I felt unlocking the secrets of a brittle, yellowed newspaper or the creak that would escape from an old wooden chair as I excitedly jumped forward after every new discovery. But, most of all, I remember the pleasure I felt as the scholarship I had poured over in semesters past and the lessons I had learned in my honors history seminars at Swarthmore College suddenly came to life before my eyes and gained a cogency heretofore unknown to me.
At the beginning of the current academic year, I returned to Swarthmore College with the intention of transforming my research into a senior thesis.¹ Throughout this process, I continually have been inspired and surprised by the way in which a gendered reading of the historical past not only illuminates new areas of inquiry, but also reinterprets familiar ones. For example, though my thesis examines the well-known story of George M. Pullman’s model town, a gendered lens has allowed me to reconceptualize the traditional narrative, move beyond the shop floor, and analyze both public and private spaces within the model town. I explore the very specific and deeply gendered domestic ideal that company officials promoted and that Pullman residents hoped to achieve when they relocated to the model town. As I argue in my thesis, when wage reductions and periodic layoffs pushed Pullman residents farther from that domestic ideal by simultaneously disrupting the structure and functioning of the home and challenging traditional sex-role ideology, class tensions dramatically intensified and eventually led to the 1894 strike. My work on my thesis has led me to recognize the productive value of engendering all of history and the importance of recognizing gender as an ideological construct that informs the relationship between race, class, and individual identity. My fascination with this process of identity construction inspires my passion for United States gender history and draws me specifically to recent scholarship which examines the ways in which masculinity and femininity have been constituted throughout the history of the U.S.
As a graduate student, I plan to study nineteenth-century United States history through the lens of gender. I intend to focus on examining constructs of masculine and feminine identity and their relationships to power and to race. I hope to employ a perspective that emphasizes cultural and social history and to analyze the role that certain issues ranging from interracial interactions and consumerism to leisure and parenting play in the formation of individuals’ understandings of their own manhood or womanhood.
I believe that the University of Pennsylvania Department of History reflects both my interests and my educational priorities. I appreciate the emphasis that the department places on gender issues, as illustrated by the numerous Penn historians currently working within this field. I am particularly interested in the emphasis that Stephanie McCurry and Kathleen Brown place on the connection between gender and race. While I realize that Dr. Brown focuses on colonial history, I feel that her work represents the type of scholarship that I would like to produce, and I know I could gain valuable methodological insight from working with her. Similarly, I was impressed by Dr. McCurry’s book Masters of Small Worlds, and I believe that her expertise in navigating both public and private space offers a valuable model. After having read her work, I contacted Dr. McCurry regarding my interest in Penn’s program and have been in touch with two of her current graduate students. Finally, I am interested in the work of Kathy Peiss and greatly appreciate the cultural approach that she employs. I have tried to keep in mind several of the techniques she demonstrates in her scholarship, particularly Cheap Amusements, when writing my thesis and examining the ways in which Pullman women constructed their identities. In the future, I would love to work with Dr. Peiss.
Finally, I am applying to Penn’s doctoral program because I value the environment fostered by the department. As a Swarthmore student, I have had the opportunity both to exchange intellectual ideas with my peers in honors seminars and to learn from the faculty members with whom I have developed relationships. Swarthmore has taught me that scholarship is not a solitary endeavor, and for that reason, I am particularly attracted to the University of Pennsylvania. I greatly appreciate the program’s emphasis on faculty mentoring and value the commitment the department has to maintaining a small, selective program. Finally, I admire the University of Pennsylvania’s commitment to train graduate students to be teachers as well as scholars. As a tutor for Upward Bound, I have discovered the satisfaction of sharing with others a subject about which I am passionate.
If admitted to the history program at the University of Pennsylvania Department of History, I know that my graduate experience will be both challenging and highly rewarding and that I will leave the program with the tools necessary to succeed as an historian.