Increasingly, archival employers have recognized that
archivists use skills that require both technical training and historical
knowledge, and they seek applicants with master's degrees in both library and
information science and history. To meet the needs of students pursuing these
positions, the GSLIS and the Simmons college history department offer a dual-degree program in archives management leading to a master of science in library
and information science and a master of arts in history.
Applicants to this 57-semester-hour program must be
admitted to both the master's programs of the Simmons College Department
of History and to the Graduate School of Library and Information Science.
Concurrent application to both programs is not necessary; however, students
must be admitted separately to the history portion of the program. The
master of arts in history is offered only in conjunction with the dual-degree
program. Students who do not complete the program for the master of
arts in history will need to seek advice on applying credits to another degree
at Simmons College.
Please note: The dual degree program in Archives Management and History
takes approximately 3 1/2 years to complete.
Degree Requirements
The degree requires 57 credit hours.
33 credit hours at GSLIS:
- Five core courses in library and information science (15 credit hours)
- At least five courses in archives management (15 credit hours), including
four core courses in archives and one archives elective (see the Archives
Management Concentration list of required and elective courses.)
- One elective course (3 credit hours) from either archives/preservation
or the general LIS curriculum
24 credit hours in the CAS history department:
- 4 credit hours in Historical Methods and Research (HIST 597)
- 16 credit hours of history courses at the 400 level or above
- 4 credit hours of final thesis
Please note: all dual-degree students must take
Archives, History, and Collective
Memory. Students may take the class as either an LIS elective for three
credits (LIS 443) or a history elective for four credits (HIST 527).
Required History Courses (8 credits)
History 597 - Historical Methods and Research
(4 credits)
This course studies history as an interpretive craft. We will survey various
different models and methods for researching, analyzing, and writing history
in both academic and popular forms (including film, journalism, Internet sites,
and museum exhibits). The objectives of the class are to familiarize you with
major developments in history as a discipline and profession; to study current
historiographical trends, especially with regard to the selection and use of
sources; and to assess how both academic and popular historians present their
renditions of the past.
History 455 - Thesis (4 credits)
Master's thesis.
Elective History Courses (16 credits)
Students must also take 16 credits of electives
in history primarily from the following seminars with revolving topics:
History 502 - Seminar in Reforms and Revolutions in Asia (4 credits)
This course examines comparative revolutions and reforms in modern Asia, focusing primarily
on the watershed events occurring in the 20th century.
History 530 - Seminar in the History of Women and Gender (4 credits)
This course offers advanced studies in the history of women's experience and the construction
of gender.
Recent Topics
Women and Education in the United States
Students survey the expansion of educational opportunities
for women in the United States, examining how ideals of women's education
have changed from the American Revolution to the 20th century. Discussions include educational theories and institutions, the rise of feminism and its relation
to women's education, popular views of educated women, the debate over
coeducation, and more. Sources range from biography to film, editorials,
historical studies, and essays.
Gender and Consumer Culture
Students examines women's roles and experiences as creators, critics, and consumers
of American culture, from the colonial era to the age of mass media, "parlor
culture" to popular culture. Readings include work by historians
as well as primary sources such as novels and product advertisements.
History 537 - Seminar in Topics in Modern European History (4 credits)
Students engage in an intensive study of a specific topic in modern European history.
Recent Topics
Popular Religion in Europe
Beginning with the Reformation, this course will explore popular religion,
the forms of belief and practice that do not fit neatly into the parameters
of official Church doctrine but still bear some relationship to it. Topics such as witchcraft, prophecy, magic, visions, spiritualism,
religion and national identity, the feminization of religion, and the
relationship between religion and politics are examined. Attention is especially
focused on the issues of social class, gender, popular culture, and cultural
resistance.
History 541 - Seminar in Early American History (4 credits)
This course studies developments in American history from early colonization through the
War for Independence.
Recent Topics
Documents of Revolution
Students survey the primary documents of the American Revolution. Readings focus on the work of political theorists, such as Locke and Hume, as
well as the "Great Documents" of the founding — Paine's Common Sense,
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, state constitutions,
the Federalist Papers, and more.
History 542 - Seminar in the Early Republic (4 credits)
This course explores topics in the early National Period of United States history.
Recent Topics
The American Self
Engaged in puzzling out whether or not there is an "American Self" (and if
so, what defines such a thing), the class reads mostly primary documents,
augmented by a few secondary works, including the American Selves presented
by Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Mary Jemison,
as well as more ordinary Americans.
History 543 - Seminar in Nineteenth-Century U.S. History (4 credits)
This course focuses on topics in the cultural, social, and political history of the United
States in the 19th century.
Recent Topics
Expansion and Empire
Students trace the development of expansionist ideas and images of the frontier from
the explorations of Lewis and Clark through the articulation of Manifest
Destiny, to the conquest of the West and the foundations of U.S. imperialism.
The course will emphasize the impact and consequences of expansion on
the regions and peoples being colonized and incorporated into the nation.
We will pay special attention to factors of race and gender as Anglo
Americans, Native Americans, Mexican settlers, and Cuban, Puerto Rican,
and Filipino nationalists encountered one another on the "borderlands" of
the figurative American frontier.
The World of Little Women
The classic novel of American girlhood serves as a core text from which to
examine political and social issues of the nineteenth century — the
rise of transcendentalism, abolitionism, and other radical reforms, and
the changing ideas of masculinity and femininity.
History 548 - Seminar in Modern U. S. History (4 credits)
This course focuses on topics in the cultural, social, and political history of the United States after 1890.
Recent Topics
Cold War Culture
Focusing on the 1950s and 1960s, students examine the ways in which the Cold War
shaped American popular culture, conformity, and youth rebellion, increasing
demands for civil rights and changing gender roles. Readings will range
from essays and monographs by historians to fiction, autobiography, and
film.
Rise of Modern Sexuality
Students study the history of sexuality and the development of sexual identities
in 20th-century U.S. Topics include the "sexual revolution," pornography,
prostitution, and the "invention" of heterosexuality and homosexuality.
Course texts include recent work by historians and cultural theorists,
as well as film, autobiography, mass media, fiction, and other primary
sources.
Other Possible 4-Credit Electives
- History 404 - Japanese Culture — Gender, Family, and
Society
- History 406 - Rise of Modern China
- History 411/412 - The African-American Experience
- History 413 - Race and Ethnicity in U.S. History
- History 415/416 - Women and Gender in U.S. History
- History 419 - History of Sexuality and the Family
- History 425 - Topics in Cultural History
- History 435 - French Revolutionary Era
- History 437 - Holocaust
- History 441 - Colonial Americas
- History 449/450 - U.S. Foreign Policy
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