I'm an undergrad, but my parents my parents work in academia and I am doing my field experience to become a high school teacher, so I understand your question.

My first suggestion is to look into museum work--it's also pretty competitive, but you might find that it's more intellectually rewarding to you than teaching.

You sound pretty unhappy--do you think that is purely due to your lack of PhD? You might find that a therapist could help you to parse out your thoughts and figure out what exactly would make you feel happy and fulfilled.

But it might be that you just truly want to go back to school and get your PhD. Education is for more than just finding a job, it's also for your own joy and personal development. If you think getting a PhD would make you feel fulfilled, and you can afford to be a student again, then why not get one? Even though professorships are hard to get, have you thought about an alt-ac career? Inside Higher Ed has an article on getting started in alt-ac. You can do more with a PhD than just be a professor. If you don't care about tenure or status, you can always work as an adjunct or lecturer. If you have strong administrative skills, you could work as staff--I know it's unusual, but the connections my dad made during his PhD got him an administrative staff job where he gets to teach one or two courses a semester, and for him that's a perfect fit. I don't mean to encourage irresponsible investment in higher ed without a reason, but it seems like you might just be someone who needs that intellectual stimulation to thrive.

Otherwise, even with 'just' a master's, you certainly possess the critical thinking and writing skills necessary for all kinds of jobs. I think you may have to get creative, and apply for jobs you wouldn't expect a history degree to lead to, but you must be able to find something else. You deserve to be happy and your students deserve to be taught by someone who loves teaching.

It seems like you need to do some serious self-evaluation to figure out why you're unhappy and how you can change it.

As a lawyer who became a lawyer only because there weren't enough jobs in my undergrad field in 2008... PLEASE do not just go to law school for this reason. The odds are high you will regret it. At least consider working as a paralegal for a year or so before spending three years of your life and a lot of money on a degree for a career you don't really care about. Many firms will hire paralegals with any kind of bachelor degree, and at my firm the starting pay is around 50k. It could give you a look at the field before you make a huge commitment.

My academic path was strikingly similar to yours. I earned my Master's, originally intending to go on for a PhD and teach (Religious Studies, in my case) at the college level. Life intervened, and with a young family another move across the country and several more years of school just wasn't in the cards. After a fellowship and another Master's to get a teaching license, now I teach high school, a career I had originally considered and rejected all the way back when I was an undergrad. So I definitely get where you are coming from. I happen to (mostly) like teaching high school, but I'm not sure that's it's my forever job, either.

I can't tell you what you should do from here. Obviously it all depends on what your interests are and what jobs are available. What specifically did your studies focus on? How long have you been teaching high school?

If you're still interested in teaching college classes, but a PhD isn't in your future, you can reach out to the History department at a local college or university. They are often looking for adjunct profs, even if they aren't widely advertised. Last I checked, my local liberal arts school pays adjuncts $1000/credit. Not exactly big money, but it might be nice to have a little extra cash in exchange for indulging your passion a few evenings a week. I realize that an abundance of adjuncts with MAs is a primary reason why there are so few tenure track positions for PhDs, and I hesitate to encourage it, but the changes are happening regardless and you may as well take advantage if you're interested.

If research is more your thing, there's nothing stopping you from researching and writing on your own. That may not become a full-time, well-paid job, but many of us scratch the history itch by participating in subs like this one (hint hint). If you want to get paid to do it, look for openings at museums.

For something completely different, look outside of education altogether. You say you tried working at a nonprofit. Maybe a different sort of NGO is more your speed. Alternatively, several people I went to school with now work for the State Department or the CIA. You don't have to be a spy to work for the government; they are always looking for analysts who understand people, which is what history is all about.

And always bear in mind that what you do for a living is not the sum total of your life. It's totally fine for a job to be "just a job," while you get involved with something you really love doing outside of work hours. So much of popular discourse in this country, especially around education, revolves around "find your passion and do it for a living!" Your passion and what you do for a living can be completely separate things.

A couple of the replies here have suggested looking into museum work. I don't want to discourage you from looking at this option, but I want to explain what the industry looks like so you can make your own judgement.

Museums are a highly competitive industry. Not quite as much as academia, especially with some of the kinds of work that museums offer, but it's still incredibly difficult to get the more desirable roles. Especially hard to get are those with the greatest focus on history, objects and research. In addition jobs are often unstable and relatively poorly paid. This just comes with the territory - the funding model for museums ultimately means that long-term financial commitments to staffing have to be made very carefully, so often for smaller museums especially you'll see a small core of full-time staff supported by the occasional part-timer or contract position and contributions from volunteers. Even the biggest museums will rely heavily on short-term contracts just because of the potential for funding to fluctuate.

When most people think of history and museums they immediately go to curatorship. Now this is a big part of curators' roles, but an MA in history alone doesn't give you much of a chance (nor does Museum Studies for that matter), especially because curatorship is much more than just research and knowledge. It's also about following various codes of ethics and other standards - some international through ICOM, others through national bodies - and using them along with a range of skills to ensure due diligence and, above all, accountability. If you really want to take the curatorial route, then it won't be easy whilst holding down a full-time job (outside a museum environment - more on this later). It takes hard work and a good deal of luck. Most importantly, however, it means volunteering. Most museums will run volunteer programmes that you can get involved with to develop experience, and your first goal should be to find one with a team that takes an active interest in nurturing you and helping you grow. They will give you opportunities to learn what you need to know, and that will put you well on your way to your first role.

The main alternative, and one which is very often overlooked, is in museum education. Most museums will have some form of role working with education programmes, and larger museums will have whole departments for this purpose. These will give you an opportunity to work in a teaching environment whilst also exposing you to the various other aspects of museum work. Instead of teaching from books, you can teach with objects - either through gallery tours or hands-on experiences with the objects themselves. It has the potential to be a much more engaging and fulfilling job than teaching in schools, though there won't be the personal connections that you get with the students from being a teacher. It depends what you place more focus on, really. That said, with your teaching experience then this course would be well within reach - just be sure to swot up on some museum-specific standards.

Other roles exist in areas like collections management, too - like archivists, registrars and documentation. These are more administrative and specialised to museums but they still give experience with objects. For these the path is the same as curatorship - volunteering and learning from those in the know.

And if you're dead set on museums but don't manage to get anywhere with the above, then a third (and very common, but slow) way to get into the more desirable roles is to just get your foot in the door wherever you can. It's not at all unusual for people to get a job as a sales assistant in a museum shop and then use that to build connections with the staff who can get them where they want to be. After all, sad as it is to say museums (like many other industries) are very often about who you know, not what you know.

I hope this is somehow useful to you, if only to illustrate one of the alternatives that are out there. Ultimately my advice would be to not get too disheartened and try to take the opportunity to grow and develop your skills - use your time as productively as you can, and it will pay off in the end.

Give some serious thought to becoming an archivist. I specifically ended up at NYU's PhD program because they had a minor in Archival Management. I was able to work through the coursework in Medieval while keeping an eye out for long-term employment. The PhD never happened but I spent 10 years as a corporate archivist hip deep in history without having to bury myself in a dissertation I had no interest in.

The good news is there are multiple paths within the archives world - academic is obvious, but cultural, literary and as I did, corporate work are also options.

The less good news is the job market in the archives world is not much better than academia as a whole. The two archives I managed no longer exist, or at least no one holds the job right now. I've transitioned into tech for other reasons, but it could take some doing (and perhaps a move) to find the right role.

But if you want to stay in history but find another route, archives is a good way to go.

If you live in the US, BLM considers a history degree as an acceptable subsitute for an Archaeology degree to work as an Archaeologist for them.

Pay may not be great, but they are hurting for people and it is a federal job.