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Christian Missions And Islam: The Reformed Church In America And The Origins Of The Moslem World, Christopher Cleveland Montrose Dec 2006

Christian Missions And Islam: The Reformed Church In America And The Origins Of The Moslem World, Christopher Cleveland Montrose

History Theses

This thesis examines the historical background of missionary attitudes toward Islam within the framework of the mission emphasis of the Reformed Church in America between the 1880s and 1911. It argues that the historical experience of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands produced a sense of pride and destiny that was transplanted by Dutch emigration to North America and maintained in the relationships of the Reformed Church in America with other nationalities and missions. That sense of pride ad destiny prepared the church to stand on its convictions in the face of opposition, which it drew upon itself when …


To Pick Up Again The Cross Of Missionary Work: The Life Of W. J. Northen, 1835-1913, Casey P. Cater Aug 2006

To Pick Up Again The Cross Of Missionary Work: The Life Of W. J. Northen, 1835-1913, Casey P. Cater

History Theses

Primarily focusing on his political career (1878-1894) and as an unofficial public figure after his retirement from formal politics (1895-1911), this study considers William J. Northen’s efforts in leading Georgia to the vague but resonant ideal of progress by analyzing his combination of religion and politics for social change, modern governance, and economic progress. After Reconstruction, urban middle-class southern Baptists like Northen began to realize the social problems of their civilization. Gradually, these reformers worked to expand their traditional mission of saving indivdual souls into a modern mission of saving the collective soul of society. Whereas personal, localized relationships customarily …


A Queer Miracle In Georgia: The Origins Of Gay-Affirming Religion In The South, Jodie Talley Aug 2006

A Queer Miracle In Georgia: The Origins Of Gay-Affirming Religion In The South, Jodie Talley

History Theses

The intersection of homosexuality and faith values, a very controversial topic in the United States, has generated both social accommodation as well as “culture war.” In the past forty years this nation has witnessed the establishment of predominantly gay congregations, gay “welcoming” and “affirming” mainstream congregations, as well as virulently anti-gay religious organizations. This study investigates the origins and evolving history of gay and gay-affirming religious traditions in America with an emphasis on Atlanta and Georgia. Primarily an oral history, this project draws from eighty-two interviews as well as primary and secondary documents to construct this history. Several conclusions unfold: …


Kaethe Kollwitz: Women's Art, Working-Class Agitation, And Maternal Feminism In The Weimar Republic, Jamie Dortch Aug 2006

Kaethe Kollwitz: Women's Art, Working-Class Agitation, And Maternal Feminism In The Weimar Republic, Jamie Dortch

History Theses

The German artist Kaethe Kollwitz challenged the cultural constraints placed on women during the Weimar Republic. My thesis analyzes the artwork of Kollwitz and the effects of maternal imagery within the political debates of abortion reform, sexual equality and pacifism in the 1920s and explores historians’ use of the ideas of maternal feminism to understand Kollwitz’s art. I challenge the social constructs of private versus public spheres to illustrate the diversity of experience and the agency of women like Kollwitz who manipulated these spheres. I argue that Kaethe Kollwitz gained a voice within the public domain by creating artwork and …


Strike Fever: Labor Unrest, Civil Rights And The Left In Atlanta, 1972, Monica Waugh-Benton Aug 2006

Strike Fever: Labor Unrest, Civil Rights And The Left In Atlanta, 1972, Monica Waugh-Benton

History Theses

This thesis aims to provide a history of African American working class and Leftist activism in Atlanta, Georgia during the early 1970s. It places a series of wildcat strikes within the context of political and social transition, and charges unequal economic conditions and a racially charged discriminatory environment as primary causes. The legacies of both the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left are identified as key contributing factors to this wave of labor unrest. One path taken by former Civil Right activists was to focus on poor peoples’ movements, and one course taken by the 1960s-era New Left activists …


Perpetrators & Possibilities: Holocaust Diaries, Resistance, And The Crisis Of Imagination, Eryk Emil Tahvonen Aug 2006

Perpetrators & Possibilities: Holocaust Diaries, Resistance, And The Crisis Of Imagination, Eryk Emil Tahvonen

History Theses

This thesis examines the way genocide leaves marks in the writings of targeted people. It posits not only that these marks exist, but also that they indicate a type of psychological resistance. By focusing on the ways Holocaust diarists depicted Nazi perpetrators, and by concentrating on the ways language was used to distance the victim from the perpetrator, it is possible to see how Jewish diarists were engaged in alternate and subtle, but nevertheless important, forms of resistance to genocide. The thesis suggest this resistance on the part of victims is similar in many ways to well-known distancing mechanisms employed …


Cuban Refugees In Atlanta: 1950-1980, Charlotte A. Bayala Aug 2006

Cuban Refugees In Atlanta: 1950-1980, Charlotte A. Bayala

History Theses

This thesis examines the lives of Cuban refugees who entered Atlanta, Georgia between 1950 and 1980. It explores early trans-national ties between the two areas. and how Cuban refugees relied on this relationship when they left the island. It shows the process they went through from finding aid and shelter to becoming a strong active community. It explains the role religious institutions had in settling refugees and shows how the state had to work to become equipped to provide resources to a large influx of Spanish-speakers. Through this thesis one will learn of the beginnings of an important Latino community …


Stop Taking Our Privileges! The Anti-Era Movement In Georgia, 1978-1982, Kristina Marie Graves Jul 2006

Stop Taking Our Privileges! The Anti-Era Movement In Georgia, 1978-1982, Kristina Marie Graves

History Theses

Graves discusses the important role that women played in the anti-ERA campaign in Georgia during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a controversial and divisive piece of legislation that polarized both legislators and constituents throughout the United States. Graves uses the anti-ERA campaign in Georgia as a model for studying the women who opposed the ERA on a national level. She writes about the differences between the feminist movement and the conservative grassroots movement, the role that anti-ERA women played in the rise of the New Right, and the legacy of the ERA’s failure …


The Polish Army In France: Immigrants In America, World War I Volunteers In France, Defenders Of The Recreated State In Poland, David Thomas Ruskoski Jul 2006

The Polish Army In France: Immigrants In America, World War I Volunteers In France, Defenders Of The Recreated State In Poland, David Thomas Ruskoski

History Dissertations

Independent Poland ceased to exist in 1795 and the various insurrections to restore the Polish state were thwarted by the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and Russians. During the First World War, Polish statesmen called upon the thousands of Polish immigrants in the United States to join the Polish Army in France, a military force funded by the French government and organized by the Polish Falcons of America and Ignacy Paderewski, the world-famous Polish pianist. Over 20,000 men trained in Canada and fought in the final months of the war on the Western front. While in France they were placed under the command …


Protestant Christian Missions, Race And Empire: The World Missionary Conference Of 1910, Edinburgh, Scotland, Kim Caroline Sanecki Jul 2006

Protestant Christian Missions, Race And Empire: The World Missionary Conference Of 1910, Edinburgh, Scotland, Kim Caroline Sanecki

History Theses

This thesis explores prevailing and changing attitudes among Protestant Christians as manifested in the World Missionary Conference of 1910, held in Edinburgh, Scotland. It compares the conference to missionary literature to demonstrate how well it fit the context of the missionary endeavor during the Edwardian era. It examines the issues of race and empire in the thinking of conference participants. It pays particular attention to the position of West Africa and West Africans in conference deliberations. It suggests that the conference, which took place soon after the scramble for empire and just before World War I and the subsequent upsurge …


The Recent Rise Of Southern Banking, Thomas D. Hills Jun 2006

The Recent Rise Of Southern Banking, Thomas D. Hills

History Theses

Between 1984 and 1986 the legislatures of several southern states enacted changes to their banking laws that enabled banking companies in Southern Region states to acquire and be acquired by banking companies in other Southern Region states, as long as these companies qualified as “Southern.” The purpose of the compact was to allow some southern banking companies an opportunity to grow and gain financial strength before full interstate banking was permitted. This study shows that the compact was successful. In 1985 no southern banking companies were among the top ten banks in the country, but by 2005 four were. Furthermore, …


A Misguided Quest For Legitimacy: The Community Relations Department Of The Southern Organizing Committee Of The Cio During Operation Dixie, 1946-1953, Michael Andrew Sloan Jun 2006

A Misguided Quest For Legitimacy: The Community Relations Department Of The Southern Organizing Committee Of The Cio During Operation Dixie, 1946-1953, Michael Andrew Sloan

History Theses

This thesis is a study of the Community Relations Department of the Southern Organizing Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations during the CIO’s Southern Organizing Drive, often referred to as “Operation Dixie.” The Community Relations Department was primarily interested in improving relations between organized labor and organized religion, in the hopes that improved church-labor relations would produce a situation more conducive to labor organizing, and reduce attacks on the CIO from religious leaders. This thesis examines the methods utilized by the CRD to achieve this end, and presents an analysis both of their efficacy and of their implementation. Specific …


Germans As Victims? The Discourse On The Vertriebene Diaspora, 1945-2005, Kevin Marc Larson Jun 2006

Germans As Victims? The Discourse On The Vertriebene Diaspora, 1945-2005, Kevin Marc Larson

History Theses

This thesis examines German memories of the Vertriebene, the twelve million Germans who fled their homeland in the face of Russian invasion in the closing days of World War II. I explore the acceptable limits of victim discourse and consider the validity of arguments about German victimization in light of the atrocities committed by Germans during the war. Three chapters discuss diaspora, discourse and commemoration. I relate diaspora historiography to the Vertriebene and then dissect the discourse of the Bund der Vertriebenen and its construction of a German "victim mythos" that undermined more acceptable claims for the recognition of Germans …


Defining Goan Identity, Donna J. Young Jan 2006

Defining Goan Identity, Donna J. Young

History Theses

This is an analysis of Goan identity issues in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries using unconventional sources such as novels, short stories, plays, pamphlets, periodical articles,and internet newspapers. The importance of using literature in this analysis is to present how Goans perceive themselves rather than how the government, the tourist industry, or tourists perceive them. Also included is a discussion of post-colonial issues and how they define Goan identity. Chapters include “Goan Identity: A Concept in Transition,” “Goan Identity: Defined by Language,” and “Goan Identity: The Ancestral Home and Expatriates.” The conclusion is that by making Konkani the official state …


The Cauldron Of Enmities: The Friends Of Ireland And The Conflict Between Liberalism And Democracy In The Early Nineteenth Century Atlantic World, Steven Michael Sams Jan 2006

The Cauldron Of Enmities: The Friends Of Ireland And The Conflict Between Liberalism And Democracy In The Early Nineteenth Century Atlantic World, Steven Michael Sams

History Theses

In 1828 the Friends of Ireland formed in the United States in order to support Daniel O’Connell’s Catholic Association in Ireland. The Catholic Association campaigned for Catholic Emancipation, a successful movement that promoted the participation of Catholic elites in the United Kingdom Parliament. In the 1840s the Friends of Repeal formed in the United States in order to support Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Association in Ireland. This organization sought the repeal of the Act of Union of 1800, which had created the United Kingdom and dismantled the Irish Parliament. This time, the movement failed due to mounting sectionalism and sectarianism in …


Render Unto Caesar: Sovereignty, The Obligations Of Citizenship, And The Diplomatic History Of The American Civil War, Samuel David Negus Jan 2006

Render Unto Caesar: Sovereignty, The Obligations Of Citizenship, And The Diplomatic History Of The American Civil War, Samuel David Negus

History Theses

In scholarship on the Civil War there is generally a lack of emphasis placed upon the significance of transatlantic diplomacy. However, much of the literature that is devoted to this subject does little to draw the importance of diplomatic and domestic histories together. This thesis uses British Foreign Office papers to discuss the role of Her majesty’s consuls, and the importance of resident persons of British nativity, especially within the Confederacy, during the war. It argues that the struggle between the Union and the new Confederacy affected diplomatic relations not only in the geo-political sense, but directly and personally through …


Searching For Sisterhood: Black Women, Race And The Georgia Era, Jennifer Powell Gonzalez Jan 2006

Searching For Sisterhood: Black Women, Race And The Georgia Era, Jennifer Powell Gonzalez

History Theses

This Thesis is a local study employing new definitions of political activism and using oral histories, personal records and organizational archived material to debunk the myth that the feminist struggle surrounding the Equal Rights Amendment was separate from issues of race. Black women were involved in the fight for the ERA although not necessarily in the ways that White men and women might expect. Additionally, even when not obviously present, proponents and opponents of the ERA argued over the idea of Black women and race. Concern about Black women, overt racism and coded race language were all a part of …