Last December, U.S. News and World Report declared the occupation of curator to be a growth career in the next decade based on U.S Department of Labor reports. Reading through the short article led me to check out the DoL Occupational Outlook Handbook from which this information was gleaned. A few things struck me which I will expand upon in this and future posts. First, the sense one gets from the article is that the curatorial field will practically explode in the next several years outpacing the growth of other careers. This implies some sort of “golden age” of museums when budgets will be flush with funds allowing them to hire more curators to care for their collections and develop wonderful, thought-provoking exhibits.
As a former curator and currently an administrator of a small historical organization, I haven’t an inkling of these changes for the profession. What wasn’t mentioned in the U.S. News article, though clearly stated in the DoL report, was competition for jobs in the profession will remain fierce as the supply of qualified workers outstrips the demand. Academia has to take some responsibility for this situation.
For those of us with the inclination toward research and education the siren call of an academic life is very strong. When I embarked on my graduate studies there were forecasts of a future demand for history professors with the retirement of the old guard and the coming of the Boomer generation’s children pointed to as the rationale. Fortunately, during my grad school years, even though I was not advised of this by anyone I could see for myself the job prospects were not as rosy as once portrayed and I decided to stick to my original plan of pursuing a career in museums.
As public history programs mature and multiply, professors and career counselors are now more actively directing students eager to study and practice history into public history and museum studies programs. While the professionalization of public history occupations is commendable and needed, students need to know that finding a job will not be easy. And when they find that job, they may not be paid anywhere near the $49,000 median wage or even the $35,000-$50,000 average wage mentioned in the U.S. News article.
The question that confronts us as public history professionals and faculty ( I also teach public history courses occasionally) is how do you make the realities of the job market known to students without discouraging them entirely? It is a tricky proposition. I try to enlighten my students and interns, telling them how competitive the field is while also giving them advice on how to make themselves more marketable. But history departments and public history programs need to work to maximize their students’ success in the field by actively promoting their students to potential employers and by advocating the hiring of trained professionals in public history positions. The latter tactic worked for unions in the 20th century, it can work again now. That way, perhaps the rosy picture U.S. News has painted will have a better chance of becoming reality.
Update 4/8/2014: Removed dead link.