Digital Commons Network^™

“That Desolate Section Of Dixiecrats And Hookworms”: The Rise And Fall Of The Cio In Sumter, South Carolina, 1927-1950, Stephen Malenowski

Theses and Dissertations

In March of 1942, the Williams Furniture Company of Sumter, South Carolina signed the first union contract in Sumter County history, the Congress of Industrial Organization’s (CIO) United Furniture Workers of America Local 273. This contract provided the CIO with one of their largest victories in all of South Carolina and helped create a sense of hope that the CIO could win organizing battles in South Carolina. Despite the optimism, unionization failed to spread across Sumter County during the postwar Operation Dixie organizing campaign. This thesis looks to answer why the Southern drive failed in Sumter. Local 273 did not …

Enslaved Women: Reproductive Choices And Medicine, Adedoyin Adekunle

Theses and Dissertations

Enslavement in the American South persisted as a form of subjugation that endured into the nineteenth century. The origins of slavery stemmed from enslavers’ aspirations for dominance. This compelled displacement involved the removal of Africans from their native lands and their subsequent transport as chattels to America. Slavery gave rise to paternalism, an attempt to justify exploitation to resolve the fundamental contradiction inherent in slavery. Paternalism gave rise to the false idea of ultimate submission, which historians have agreed that most enslavers never attained because of slave resistance. However, the study of slave resistance had been primarily focused on enslaved …

The Northern View Of The Southern Shore: Experience, Reconciliation, And Commemoration In Postbellum Charleston, South Carolina, Michael Edward Scott Emett

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the experiences and commemorative practices of nearly 200 northern passengers in Charleston, South Carolina, as they attended the flag reraising ceremony at Fort Sumter on April 14, 1865, and then organized the Sumter Club to celebrate that event annually. While some has been written about postwar Charleston during the first half of 1865, and a little more has been published covering this flag ceremony, the Northern view and their experiences with each have not been investigated, nor has anyone written an account of this club. This dissertation utilizes the theory and methodology of the history of experience, …

Institute Of Enslavement: Enslaved Lives At South Carolina College, Jill Found

Theses and Dissertations

“Institute of Enslavement: Enslaved Lives at South Carolina College” argues that enslaved people used the structure of the school, their own knowledge, and connections to other individuals and institutions to negotiate the terms of their enslavement. It examines how enslaved people on campus influenced their daily lives to the best of their abilities, in ways that were similar and different to other forms of enslavement. “Institute of Enslavement” considers how the unique structure of enslavement on a college campus, with multiple potential masters creating inconsistent authority for the school officials over enslaved people, created opportunities as well as moments of …

From North To South: North Carolina's Black Union Veterans In The South Carolina Lowcountry, Elizabeth L. Laney

Theses and Dissertations

For the almost two thousand black Union veterans living in South Carolina following the end of the Civil War, the formation of robust social networks, particularly those composed of fellow veterans, would be the key to sustaining themselves and public memory of their service. This was especially true for the veterans of the 35^th US Colored Troops (USCT), formerly the 1^st North Carolina Colored Volunteers, who settled in smaller rural communities throughout the South Carolina Lowcountry. Establishing social networks through marriage, forming local veteran support systems and initiating local celebrations were just some of the ways that out-of-state …

Meditations On Modern America: The Ambiguous Worldview Of Transcendental Meditation, 1967-1979, Grant William Wong

Theses and Dissertations

Transcendental Meditation [TM], a form of silent mantra meditation pioneered by the Indian holy man Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1957, took the United States by storm as over two million Americans learned its meditative technique between 1968 and 1978. At once a spiritual movement and a lifestyle, TM was a countercultural movement that went mainstream. I argue that TM was appealing because of its ambiguity and consequent malleability, as its teachings and practice came to reflect the aspirations and anxieties of its followers. By tracing their varying interpretations of the practice across periodicals, movement literature, memoirs, and contemporary scholarship, I …

Colored Lawyer, Topeka: The Legend And Legacy Of Elisa Scott, Jeffery Scott Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Attorney Elisha Scott’s reputation for fighting injustice grew so large he received letters addressed only, “Colored Lawyer, Topeka, Kansas.” He was born in obscurity in 1890, but his death made national news in 1963. Scott’s story may not be known at all if his name was not often listed as counsel in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that desegregated public schools. But it was his sons who filed the case and helped fight it from Topeka to the United States Supreme Court. He was never officially part of the legal team. He had, however, won a …

Piratical Transportation: Highlighting Silences In Carolina’S Enslavement And Exportation Of Native Americans, Jordan Stenger

Theses and Dissertations

When Carolina colony was established, its early financial success was inherently bound to its enslavement and exportation of countless Indigenous people in the colonial pursuit of Native land, wealth, and enslaved labor. However, given the Indian slave trade was largely illegal in Carolina, how did colonists export Indigenous people? This study seeks to expand the land-locked historiography and explore how enslaved Indigenous people appear in the historical record across the Atlantic world. Utilizing term proximity as a methodological approach in reading historical records, and privileging Carolina’s black-market trade with pirates, I propose that the trade with pirates also included enslaved …

Lunatics, Liberals And Bloodthirsty Haters: The South In The 1972 Presidential Election, Thomas Clayton Strebeck

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will analyze the political campaigns of President Richard Nixon and Senator George McGovern in the Southeastern United States during the 1972 presidential election. Both candidates’ political careers up to the 1972 presidential election, which informed their actions and the actions of their campaigns, will also be analyzed to determine how these impacted their political decisions. Nixon’s career as Vice President, his comeback after his losses in 1960 and 1962, and his first term as President all taught lessons that culminated in a campaign that earned him one of the most dramatic landslides in American political history. Senator McGovern’s …

“All The Rights Of Native Cherokees”: The Appearance Of Black People In Cherokee Society, Ayanna Goines

Theses and Dissertations

The appearance of Blacks in Native spaces affected the very structure of Indigenous lives during the forced removal of Native groups in the 1830s to the emancipation of enslaved people in the 1860s contributing to the change from a “clan-based society to a society grounded in the modern concept of rule of law” as the need to control the actions of enslaved people called for the creation of laws. Tribal courts were also used to determine whether someone was recognized and adopted into the clan. Outside of government involvement, the status of enslaved Black people was reinforced by the social …

Before The Storm: Youth Hockey In North Carolina Ahead Of The Nhl’S Arrival, Sarai Sharei Dai

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at the development of youth hockey in North Carolina before the coming of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes in 1997. Although the American South with its warm weather and lack of snow or ice seemed inhospitable to such a wintry sport, ice hockey found a niche in Charlotte, the Piedmont Triad, and the Research Triangle in the mid- to late- 20^th century through a combination of minor professional teams, local boosters, and northern transplants who all worked together to organize youth and amateur hockey associations as well as advocate for accessible ice rink facilities in …

Resurrecting A Nation Through Silk And Diplomacy: American Material Culture And Foreign Relations During The Reconstruction Era, Paige Weaver

Theses and Dissertations

The Reconstruction Era, a time of immense change in American culture and society, is often conceptualized as a wholly domestic affair; however, a closer analysis of the work of American diplomats scattered throughout the world reveals the impact of foreign policies and relationships on the development of the nation state, as well as cultural values. With this broadened perspective, Reconstruction becomes a more complicated period of entangled international concerns and influences in a globally connected world.

This thesis argues that intricate international relations and complex foreign policies helped shape American identity and values at home. Diplomats abroad in countries such …

Who Has The Right To Reproduce? Forced Sterilization In South Carolina In The Early Twentieth Century, Kathryn Pownall

Theses and Dissertations

This paper aims to uncover the history of forced sterilization in South Carolina. Compulsory sterilization of the feebleminded, a form of eugenics, gained prominence in the United States throughout the early twentieth century. It was both an ableist and misogynistic movement that targeted women because they were seen to be responsible for reproduction. Sterilization was regarded as a solution to halting the reproduction of feebleminded individuals, who would otherwise continue to depend on the state financially. South Carolina was slow to implement a sterilization law, becoming the thirty-first (and second-to-last) state to pass one. Although South Carolina shares a border …

The Presbyterian Exception? The Illegal Education Of Enslaved Blacks By South Carolina Presbyterian Churches, 1834-1865, Margaret Bates

Theses and Dissertations

The study of literacy among enslaved people in South Carolina is often limited to legal literature, enslaver and enslaved autobiographies, and Northern accounts of education from teachers sent to the South. The use of these types of sources to describe literacy and education of enslaved people leaves out a major contributor to the enslaved literacy movement, the churches. Using documentation from two Presbyterian churches in South Carolina, this thesis expands upon the enslaved literacy movements in South Carolina to look at the roles ministers, missionaries, and congregations played in teaching enslaved blacks how to read religious literature, why these institutions …

Roy Acuff, Democratic Candidate, Henry Luther Capps Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to analyze the ways in which fame, cultural capital, and the political landscape of Tennessee placed the political amateur Roy Acuff in a strong position to win the 1944 Democratic primary, adding to our understanding of how fame can impact American politics, and also enriching our understanding of party politics in the single-party Solid South. The first part pays close attention to Acuff’s entertainment career prior to his political engagement with an eye to exploring why Tennessee voters thought Acuff would be a good candidate for governor. The second part details Roy Acuff’s political engagement from the …

Sex (Work) And The City: Sex Work In Columbia, South Carolina, 1860-1880, Presley Mckalyn Ramey

Theses and Dissertations

Nineteenth-century sex work in the American south has long been neglected in sex work historiography. Formerly Confederate states have red-light districts rich in history, and stories of the South waiting to be told. The city of Columbia has great significance as the capital of the first southern state to secede from the Union, and this thesis acts as a local history of the city’s red-light district. Utilizing city ordinances, court cases, census records, city directories, probate records, and wills, the lives of Columbia’s sex workers and how they interacted with the growing city around them are brought to the forefront. …

Flying Saucer Of The Smokies: The Debate Over National Park Architecture And Wilderness Values In Clingmans Dome Observation Tower, Michelle Fieser

Theses and Dissertations

Clingmans Dome Observation Tower sits on the highest point in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was constructed in 1959 as part of a ten-year project called Mission 66. Although Mission 66 is a critical component of National Park history, most people are unaware it happened. This thesis will use criticism of Clingmans Dome Observation Tower to demonstrate that critiques of Modern architectural style within the National Parks was a proxy for conflict about interpretations of wilderness and how National Parks should be used. The architectural style from this era is called Park Service Modern, and it was widespread and …

“I Like A Fight”: Margaret Sanger And The First Birth Control Clinic In The United States, Rebecca Linnea Hall

Theses and Dissertations

It is nearly impossible to read the news in the United States today without hearing the name Planned Parenthood, but few Americans know about the origins of this organization. Margaret Sanger founded the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, the precursor to Planned Parenthood, in 1923, but this was not the first time she opened a clinic. In this paper, I assess Margaret Sanger’s 1916 opening of the Brownsville Clinic, the first birth control clinic in the United States, and the responses to this event from multiple historical perspectives. I use historical newspapers to demonstrate how popular media, legal experts, and …

“Hungering And Thirsting” For Education: Education, Presbyterians, And African Americans In The South, 1880-1920, Rachel Marie Young

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the relationship between the white-dominated Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) and African Americans from 1880-1920, exploring the motivations, philosophies, and strategies of the PCUSA and the ways that they used education to achieve their goals of helping forge educated and devoutly Christian African Americans. The church’s history highlights the ways in which Presbyterian paternalism developed in the years leading up to 1880, as well as contradictions in white church members’ understandings of race relations and their conflation of civic duty with religious responsibility. The church’s efforts in primary education provide a window into …

Building A New (Deal) Identity The Evolution Of Italian-American Political Culture And Ideology, 1910–1940, Ryan J. Antonucci

Theses and Dissertations

Italian Americans were a key constituency of the white-ethnic voting bloc that formed one of the main pillars of the New Deal coalition. However, few historians have looked at motives for the group’s allegiance beyond economic necessity and machine politics. This approach has falsely colored enthusiasm for the New Deal as a reflexive reaction to the Great Depression. “Building a New (Deal) Identity” argues that Italian Americans living in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, from Pittsburgh through Cleveland, voted heavily for the New Deal during the 1930s because of their unique political reshaping during the preceding two decades. In this …

The Governor’S Guards: Militia, Politics, Social Networking, And Manhood In Columbia, South Carolina, 1843-1874, Justin Harwell

Theses and Dissertations

This paper reconstructs the history of the Governor’s Guards in Columbia, South Carolina from 1843 to 1874. In addition to examining the conditions that influenced the formation of the company, this paper analyzes the ages, wealth, class, and occupations of the men that served in the company before, during, and after the Civil War. Specifically for white men of Columbia’s fledgling middle and upper classes, the Governor’s Guards facilitated opportunities to network, climb the social ladder, seek political advancement, and influence the social, political, and economic landscape of Columbia.

This work also illuminates the company’s involvement in numerous local, state, …

Charlotte's Glory Road: The History Of Nascar In The Queen City, Hannah Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the relationship between the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and Charlotte, North Carolina, and how the geography of the Charlotte area was a catalyst to the growth of the motorsports industry in the Queen City. Specifically, this thesis investigates the roles of NASCAR teams, Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the NASCAR Hall of Fame in creating and continuing to grow the presence of NASCAR in Charlotte. The Hall of Fame in particular has strengthened the position of Charlotte in NASCAR history, after officials selected Charlotte over Daytona and Atlanta for the site of the …

Patients’ Rights, Patients’ Politics: Jewish Activists Of The U.S. Women’S Health Movement, 1969-1990, Jillian Michele Hinderliter

Theses and Dissertations

As the women’s health movement grew out of second wave feminism in the late 1960s, activists demanded women be taken seriously as health care consumers and critics of male-dominated medicine. Health feminists aimed to fundamentally redefine the relationship between patient and practitioner. Jewish women helped found and sustain the women’s health movement, yet their activist identities are often separated from Jewishness in histories of health reform. “Patients’ Rights, Patients’ Politics: Jewish Activists of the U.S. Women’s Health Movement, 1969-1990,” considers the impact of Jewish identity on Jewish activists’ conceptions of social justice while also tracing their significant contributions to women’s …

“We Are Going To Be Reckoned With”: The South Carolina Udc And The South Carolina Confederate Relic Room And Museum, 1986-2000, Caitlin Cutrona

Theses and Dissertations

From 1986 to 2000, the South Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy actively negotiated influence for its organization at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Museum (SCCRRM) as an important museum stakeholder. While 1986 marked a low point for UDC authority over the museum, from 1986 to 2000, the South Carolina UDC sought to salvage and protect is influence at the SCCRRM and ultimately reclaim its authority over the museum. The South Carolina Daughters did this through a variety of means and methods, including employing Dotsy Boineau, a UDC member and SCCRRM employee, as an instrument …

The Robber Barons Of Show Business: Traveling Amusements And The Development Of The American Entertainment Industry, 1870- 1920, Madeline Steiner

Theses and Dissertations

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, traveling amusements such as circuses, minstrel shows and Wild West shows were the most popular forms of entertainment in the United States. This study argues that advancements in transportation and technology inspired managers of traveling amusement companies to create new business models that transformed popular entertainment from informal, local productions into modern commercial spectacles. These amusement companies were capitalist enterprises, significant not just in the cultural arena but also in the growth of American business. These amusement companies traveled nationwide on the newly expanded railroad system, sporting elaborate sets and props and …

Religion, Senses, And Remembrance: Brooklyn’S Sumter Club In Postbellum Charleston, S.C., Michael Edward Scott Emett

Theses and Dissertations

Civil War historians are slowly coming to realize the need to explicitly analyze the senses of those who lived in, and survived, the Civil War era. Although vision has reigned as the “supreme” sense, the nonvisual senses, with the help of historians of the senses, are becoming just as important to Civil War research. However, scholars are still unraveling the lived experiences of Civil War Era Americans and the perceptions and meanings these Americans gave to those experiences, with Northerners receiving comparatively little attention. To understand the world of antebellum and Civil War Americans, we should take them at their …

Foxy Ladies And Badass Super Agents: Legacies Of 1970s Blaxploitation Spy And Detective Heroines, Carlie Nicole Todd

Theses and Dissertations

The presentation of Black femininity in Blaxploitation spy and detective films like Cleopatra Jones (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), and Get Christie Love! (1974) – depicting powerful, independent, and multidimensional characters – was a sharp departure from the derogatory images of African American women in film prior. These films also included some of the first Black spy and detective film heroines – Foxy Brown, Cleo Jones, and Christie Love – that portrayed a “serious” female detective or government agent as the main protagonist and center of the film’s action. These Blaxploitation heroines were unique in how their characters departed from prior …

Shaping A Queer South: The Evolution Of Activism From 1960-2000, A. Kamau Pope

Theses and Dissertations

Queer activism dismantles and challenges normativity in spaces that criminalize, oppress, and perpetuate violence towards queer folks. Using Cathy Cohen’s model of radical queer politics, this thesis examines the South as a place that has been shaped over time by queer activism. Beginning with 1960 and the founding of SNCC sets the tone of how the South is non-normative and queer in the context of the United States, yet still a perpetrator of white supremacy, sexism, and homophobia. With a sole focus on the region of the U.S. South, this paper diverges from the narrative of urban queer movements, and …

Joshua Gordon’S Witchcraft Book And The Transformation Of The Upcountry Of South Carolina, E. Zoie Horecny

Theses and Dissertations

The life of Joshua Gordon and his intellectual product, Witchcraft Book (1784) gives access to the backcountry of South Carolina. Witchcraft Book is exemplary of syncretism in the Atlantic world, influenced by multiple European traditions, understandings of science in the early modern world, indigenous knowledge, and life in North America. After serving in the American Revolution, Gordon transitioned from a small farmer to a slaveholder. He was a part of political and economic processes that unified the backcountry with low country elites in defense of slavery. As a prominent figure in his community and church, he solidified his legacy for …

Media Combat: The Great War And The Transformation Of American Culture, Andrew Steed Walgren

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the role of professional musicians, stage performers, civilian entertainment organizations, and the federal government in the formation of a nationalized, wartime cultural apparatus during the United States' involvement in the First World War (1917-1919). This process was contested, fragmented, and incomplete, but it laid the foundational groundwork for federal cultural initiatives and programs during the 1930s and 1940s. In many ways, the war forever altered the relationship between American citizens and the federal government. Specifically, this project examines two major cultural arenas – music and theater – by looking at the institutions and actors that transformed them. …