American Studies Commons

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Recent Articles in American Studies

Roberts, Elizabeth Madox, 1881-1941 (Sc 959), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Roberts, Elizabeth Madox, 1881-1941 (Sc 959), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 959. Letter written by Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Springfield, Kentucky, to Marjorie, evidently a fellow student at the University of Chicago. Roberts mentions the Poetry Club, the problem of finding suitable housing, and comments about fellow students Janet Loxley Lewis and Maurice Lesemann.


Melville In Tahiti: A Gis Approach, Jessica Ewing Boise State University

Melville In Tahiti: A Gis Approach, Jessica Ewing

Student Research Initiatives

This presentation will focus on Melville's period in and around Tahiti in 1842, a part of the biographical record vexed by conflicting scholarly accounts of Melville's whereabouts and actions, and by inconsistencies—as well as outright falsehoods—among surviving documents and the author's own account of his experiences in his second book Omoo. Digitally expanding on methods of traditional scholarship, I will present the evidence in visual, electronic form by using ArcGIS software to map Melville’s movements, supplying relevant data and documentation and mapping alternate interpretations of the author's travels. The layered digital maps will ...


Rice, Alice Caldwell (Hegan), 1870-1942 (Sc 943), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Rice, Alice Caldwell (Hegan), 1870-1942 (Sc 943), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 943. Unsigned picture postcard, postmarked Cumberland, Maryland, and addressed to Rose Mehler, Lexington, Kentucky. The writer relates that their carnival was very successful and that their production of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was quite a “unique feature.” Picture on postcard is of the cast and scenery of the play.


Murdoch, Louise Saunders, 1872-1918 - Letters To (Sc 937), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Murdoch, Louise Saunders, 1872-1918 - Letters To (Sc 937), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 937. Congratulatory letters, 1918 (3), written to Louise Saunders Murdoch, Buckhorn, Kentucky, concerning her recently published book, Almetta of Gabriel’s Run.


Awaiting The Seer: Emerson's Poetic Theory, Rachel Radford University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Awaiting The Seer: Emerson's Poetic Theory, Rachel Radford

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.


Speed, John Orville, 1871-1970 (Sc 933), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Speed, John Orville, 1871-1970 (Sc 933), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 933. Two poems; excerpt from Who’s Who in Poetry that included one of John Orville Speed’s poems; 1970 newspaper clipping about Speed, all found in an autographed copy of his 1962 book Anecdotes and Tall Tale in Rhyme. Speed was originally from Madisonville, Hopkins County, Kentucky, and was called the “Pennyrile Poet Laureate.”


Interview Of Mary Butler, Mary Butler, Zach Bower La Salle University

Interview Of Mary Butler, Mary Butler, Zach Bower

All Oral Histories

Mary (King) Butler was born in 1942 in King and Queen County, Virginia. Her parents are Hayes and Blanche King. Her father’s parents were Archie King, Sr. and Rossie King. Her mother’s parents were Joshua and Peggie Whiting. Mary is the oldest of four children. Her two brothers were born in 1943 and 1951, and her sister was born in 1961. Her nuclear family lived close to her father’s parent’s farm in Plainview, VA. Her family was active in both Union Prospect Baptist Church and First Baptist Church.

Butler worked often on her grandparent’s farm ...


Middle Power Leadership And The Evolution Of The G20, Andrew Cooper, Jongryn Mo Global Summitry Journal

Middle Power Leadership And The Evolution Of The G20, Andrew Cooper, Jongryn Mo

Global Summitry Journal

Global power is becoming more diffuse, smarter, and more asymmetric. In developing this extended argument, we make four points. First, the G20 Seoul Summit in November 2010 showed that the G20 is becoming increasingly embedded as the hub of global economic governance. Second, a strong G20 has positive attributes for global governance. Third, a main driving force for the ascent of the G20 has been and will continue to be middle power leadership. This article, therefore, will concentrate in the following on the role of Canada, Australia and South Korea but, there is some considerable potential for this role to ...


Phoebe Snow: Odd, Rare And Sublime, Vincent L. Stephens Bucknell University

Phoebe Snow: Odd, Rare And Sublime, Vincent L. Stephens

Vincent L Stephens

A draft from my work-in-progress essay collection on post-war American popular singing "Sound Love." The essay argues that Phoebe Snow is unique among her generation of singer-songwriters as she is more notable as an interpreter than as a writer. Her synthesis of elements from blues, jazz, pop, gospel and R&B defy category as does her artistry.


Vaudeville, Popular Entertainment And Cultural Division In The Inland Empire, 1880-1914, Mark Hauser Claremont Colleges

Hancock, Elizabeth Ann (Moore), B. 1924 (Sc 906), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Hancock, Elizabeth Ann (Moore), B. 1924 (Sc 906), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 906. New Year’s greeting, designed using family members’ photos, of Elizabeth Ann (Moore) Hancock, Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Constance Mills, Bowling Green, Kentucky, and data about each family member’s 1993 activities. Mrs. Hancock is the daughter of Kentucky author Janice Holt Giles.


Stuart, Jesse Hilton, 1907-1984 (Sc 902), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Stuart, Jesse Hilton, 1907-1984 (Sc 902), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 902. Letter written by Jesse Hilton Stuart, Greenup, Kentucky, to Elizabeth Cossey, Bowling Green, Kentucky, thanking her for her letter and stating that he has no materials to send her for a classroom display. Also envelope.


Mitchell, Bernice Margaret, 1903-2000 (Sc 893), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Mitchell, Bernice Margaret, 1903-2000 (Sc 893), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 893. Correspondence chiefly of Bernice Mitchell, Burnside, Kentucky, concerning the book Burnside, Kentucky, 1890-1990 and author Harriette Simpson Arnow.


Warren, Robert Penn, 1905-1989 (Sc 883), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Warren, Robert Penn, 1905-1989 (Sc 883), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 883. Letters, 1978-1984 (17), written by Robert Penn Warren in response to Kentucky poet Charles Semones’ letters, discussing mainly the poetry. Also letter, 1993, giving data about the Warren letters.


Journalism In A Pr World, Michael I. Niman Ph.D. E. H. Butler Library at Buffalo State College

Journalism In A Pr World, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

Mike Niman discusses the future of journalism in a PR-dominated communication environment. In particular, he examines the migration of talent from journalism to the PR industry, the collapse of mainstream journalism and the role of an emergent alternative media as American journalism goes through metamorphosis from what it was to what it could become. Journalism is a social good that should equip people to understand and resist spin. Niman argues that mainstream American journalism, rather than rising to this challenge, has transparently succumbed to serving as an arm of the corporate PR industry, thus laying the groundwork for its own ...


"The Jaws Of Proprietary Slavery": The Pennsylvania Assembly's Conflict With The Penns, 1754-1768, Steven Deyerle Liberty University

"The Jaws Of Proprietary Slavery": The Pennsylvania Assembly's Conflict With The Penns, 1754-1768, Steven Deyerle

Masters Theses

In late 1755, the vituperative Reverend William Smith reported to his proprietor Thomas Penn that there was "a most wicked Scheme on Foot to run things into Destruction and involve you in the ruins." The culprits were the members of the colony's unicameral legislative body, the Pennsylvania Assembly (also called the House of Representatives). The representatives held a different opinion of the conflict, believing that the proprietors were the ones scheming, in order to "erect their desired Superstructure of despotic Power, and reduce to a State of Vassalage and Slavery, some of His majesty's most faithful and loyal ...


Blakey, Margoline (Pace), 1910-1999 (Sc 869), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Blakey, Margoline (Pace), 1910-1999 (Sc 869), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 869. Photocopy of paper written by Margoline (Pace) Blakey, titled “Alice Hegan Rice.”


Thornton, James Bankhead, 1806-1867 (Sc 2696), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

Thornton, James Bankhead, 1806-1867 (Sc 2696), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2696. Letter, 9 February 1847, of lawyer James B. Thornton, Memphis, Tennessee, to John M. Thornton, Newport, Kentucky. He asks John to deliver a circular and notice about a book he has written to a bookseller in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also provides an update on the search for an estate heir and mentions his poor health.


A Nation In Its Prime: A Pentadic Study Of Walt Disney World's Main Street, U.S.A., Casey Guise Liberty University

A Nation In Its Prime: A Pentadic Study Of Walt Disney World's Main Street, U.S.A., Casey Guise

Masters Theses

The purpose of this paper is to consider the entrance to Walt Disney World, Main Street, U.S.A., as a rhetorical text and apply Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad. Background is provided on rhetorical theory and The Disney Company. Meanings are derived from messages interpreted using semiotics and symbolic interaction within the location. The significance of Main Street, U.S.A., as a replica of historic architecture and an illustration of revival architecture in creating emotive messages is discussed. Further discussion includes the implications of this study on corporations and the field of rhetorical studies in addition to suggestions ...


White, Alfred L. (Mrs.) (Sc 842), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Western Kentucky University

White, Alfred L. (Mrs.) (Sc 842), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 842. Letters from Henry T. Coates and Company, Publishers, regarding the publication of a fictional revolutionary war monograph entitled Pemberton, or 100 Years Ago, 28 July 1898- 16 February 1899. Includes letter from Lavalette Wilson, Haverstraw, New York, civil engineer and surveyor, questioning the place Andre slept the night prior to his capture.