Digital Commons Network^™

"All The Crises Reached A Concerted Crescendo" - The Arab Oil Embargo And Why The United States Was Unprepared For It, Jonathan D. Chilcote

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

During the 2008 spike in oil prices, oil companies and government officials were brought under close scrutiny as many Americans began to question why prices were able to rise so quickly. Americans had become accustomed to living in an economy where cheap oil was the norm, and demanded answers when that situation changed. What most of them did not know is that they were repeating history and mimicking the response to the 1973 oil embargo. Just as in 2008, the United States faced a crisis in 1973 with which it was unprepared to effectively cope. This thesis analyzes the reasons …

John Bennett Walters, Total War, And The Raid On Randolph, Tennessee, Thomas Lee Anderson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The regnant interpretation of the American Civil War includes the fact that it evolved into a “total war,” which adumbrated the total wars of the twentieth century. Mark E. Neely, in 1991, published an influential paper calling this interpretation into question for the first time. In the article Neely revealed that the first mention of “total war” in connection with the Civil War was an article written in 1948 by John Bennett Walters about Gen. William T. Sherman and a raid he ordered on Randolph, Tennessee in reprisal for an attempted hijacking of the packet boat Eugene on the Mississippi …

Landscape Of The Past: The 1815 Log House At Western Kentucky University, Elizabeth Alewine

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The 1815 Log House is located on the campus of Western Kentucky University. Built in the early 1800's by Archibald Felts, the house was occupied by his descendants until 1968. The dogtrot floor plan, V-notched logs, and stone chimneys are some of the historical architectural features that can be viewed. It was donated to the Kentucky Library & Museum at WKU in 1980, and now serves as an on-site exhibit of early frontier life in Kentucky. The new landscape design for the log house includes a kitchen garden with period-appropriate plants and outdoor demonstration areas. The inventories and journals of …

The Narratives Of Ann Lee As A Core Component Of Shaker Theological Evolution, Matthew Cook

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or the Shakers, are a small progressive communal religious group founded in the mid-eighteenth century by a woman named Ann Lee. This thesis follows the stories told about Ann Lee by the Shakers throughout their history and documents how the changing narratives reflect the changing culture of Shakerism. As a result of being both a progressive and a communal religious society, the Shakers faced the dilemma of maintaining their religious core while maintaining a progressive stance that was consistent with the dominant culture from which they strived to separate themselves. This …

The Wehrmarcht: Soldiers And Germans During The Second World War, Neil Varble

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The German Army, also known as the Wehrmacht, fought a brutal war on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. These soldiers, under the command of military officials of the Nazi state, vowed to destroy Bolshevism and Jewish populations. By examining letters from soldiers to family members on the German home front as well as letters from families to the men on the front lines, a better understanding of the motivations of war is revealed. Letters of these men and family members present insight into a vast area of research in German twentieth century history. An estimated 20 to …

Jefferson's Abomination In The Valley: A Study Of The Economic Effects Of The Embargo Of 1807 On Louisville's Frontier Economy, Williams Lewis

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines the effects of the Embargo of 1807 on Louisville and its surrounding areas. The purpose of this study is to discover if the interior suffered to the same degree as other regions of the country as a result of Thomas Jefferson's trade restrictions. Louisville is the focus area because it is not only representative of the Ohio Valley and the interior but also because it marked the end of civilization and the beginning of the frontier. Distinctions between class, economic status, and occupation between the inhabitants of Jefferson County are also observed. This particular approach leads to …

Oedipus' Wake: The (Neo-)Masculinization Of The Self In Late Twentieth-Century American Women's Memoir, Thomas Johnson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Without pretensions to exhaustiveness, this study briefly examines the mid- to late-twentieth-century flowering of western theory and criticism built around autobiographical writing and follows the feminist branch(es) of that theory and criticism through a reading of the following four memoirs: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, All the Lost Girls by Patricia Foster, Lying by Lauren Slater, and Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. Using both Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory as they relate to literature, I argue that the selves these four women write in their memoirs are not selves built around the model historically set for women by …

George Mason: Slave Owning Virginia Planter As Slavery Opponent?, Louis Bellamy

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The present work investigates the often cited, but poorly supported, notion that Founding Father George Mason was a wealthy, slave-owning Virginian who vehemently opposed slavery. Utilizing Mason's state papers, letters, and other documents, as well as contemporaries' accounts of his speeches, this work will analyze those records' contextual construction, and it will deconstruct both Mason's written and spoken words and his actions and inactions relative to slavery. The goal of this effort is to determine whether Mason, who ostensibly played such an instrumental role in the development of the "rights" of Americans, and who remained a slaveholder—thereby trampling the rights …

The Stories Of Eleven Who Served In World War Ii From Lewisburg, Kentucky, Annie Duncan-Ponvert

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is a narrative of eleven World War II veterans from a small, rural southern town, Lewisburg, Kentucky. It is a brief description of the development of Lewisburg and of one family in particular, the Richardsons. The thesis follows the lives of the G.I.s from their youths, through their military careers, their lives after the war and their eventual return to Logan County. Primarily, most of the material is taken from oral taped interviews. Heretofore, none of these experiences have been recorded. Actions of valor and courage are preserved in the plain, unadorned stories of the veterans. This thesis …

Dark Days In The Ohio Valley: Three Western Kentucky Lynchings, 1884-1911, Woodrow Wilson Maglinger, Iii

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis investigates three lynchings of African Americans in Progressive-Era western Kentucky. The first occurred in Owensboro. In July 1884, a masked mob at-tacked the Daviess County jail. Richard May, an African-American field hand, had been incarcerated for the alleged sexual assault of a local farmer’s daughter. During the lynch mob’s actions that claimed May’s life, the white county jailer was killed protecting his prisoner. Ironically, just two decades earlier Jailer William Lucas had fought for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

In nearby Hawesville in September 1897, Raymond Bushrod was also arrested on suspicion of raping …

Claybrook V. Owensboro: Equality, Integration, And Struggle, Lori Coghill

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In 1883 the case of Claybrook v. Owensboro was one of the first challenges to equal educational funding under the Fourteenth Amendment. The definition of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause was vague and left blacks with little guidance about their new found constitutional rights. By analyzing the case along with legal, educational, and local racial attitudes toward blacks at the time, historians and educators can better understand the evolution of the Fourteenth Amendment in state and local issues. The case record from Federal Reports as well as the case file from the law final record book at the National …

The Controversial Career Of George Nicholas Sanders, Melinda Squires

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

George Nicholas Sanders' involvement in regional, national, and international affairs in the mid-nineteenth century significantly shaped the history and unique character of America, as perceived by both Americans and Europeans. Sanders influenced the course of national political events not by idealistic leadership but by active participation. No one has yet written a biography on George N. Sanders, even though he played a prominent role in the annexation of Texas, Young America, presidential elections, diplomatic affairs, and in the Confederacy. Historians often ignored or slighted him because he tended to wield his influence behind-the-scenes. Hence, Sanders' true significance was often masked …

Experiments In Social Salvation: The Settlement Movement In Chicago, 1890-1910, Janet Reed

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this study, the settlement movement in Chicago is presented as a crucible for the development of Progressive reform. The subjective and objective necessities for social settlements are described through the lives of men and women central to the movement. Reformers such as Jane Addams, Graham Taylor, and Mary McDowell fused their personal motives to their expanding assumptions regarding public welfare in their pursuit of social salvation. The settlement community advanced a methodology of experimentation and flexibility, which was instrumental to the transformation of nineteenth century ideas of charity into the new twentieth century science of social work. The processes …

Place, Disease And Mortality: Trimble County, Kentucky 1849-1894, Nancy Demaree

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This researcher describes the characteristics of place...physical, cultural and human...of a small Kentucky county and looks at the incidence of disease and dying that occurred in that place in the last half of the nineteenth century. The impact of death on particular subsets of the general population was given a closer evaluation. Very young, females and the slave/Black communities were investigated individually. The overall site and situation of all aspects of Trimble County, Kentucky were viewed in an effort to support the notion that it is the manner in which man interacts with this environment that causes disease and death …

A Life Of Paradox: Thomas Merton's Asian Trajectory, Gary Houchens

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Anthony Padovano called Thomas Merton a "symbol of the century" inasmuch as he embodied many of the changes facing Christianity during the often tumultuous and violent, but increasingly pluralistic, middle decades of the twentieth century. Merton engaged in a "total ecumenism," in which he intensely studied other religious traditions, most notably the religions of Asia, in order to better understand his own Roman Catholic tradition. This paper will trace the trajectory of Asian ideas and experiences throughout Merton's life and analyze how these experiences transformed him from a narrow-minded monk to an ecumenical mystic. An ever-present subject emerges: the coincidence …

"Indignities, Wrongs, And Outrages": The Home Front In Kentucky During The Civil War, Scott Lucas

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In the 1920s historians such as James Harvey Robinson and Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., attempted to examine historical topics using new methodology. Writing "New Social History," they endeavored to emphasize society, culture, and the common people rather than great men and strictly political events. Since the 1980s historians have exhibited new interest in the importance of social history. "Indignities, Wrongs, and Outrages: The Homefront In Kentucky During The Civil War" attempts to apply the methods of the "new social historians" to the era of the American Civil War, centering on the homefront by examining in detail its impact on the everyday …

The U.S. Government's Investigation Of E.B. Stahlman As An Enemy Alien: A Case Study Of Nativism In Nashville, Robert O'Brien

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

As a railroad executive for the Louisville and Nashville and then publisher for the Nashville Banner, Edward Bushrod Stahlman, a German immigrant, made many enemies. Stahlman's constant feuding with Luke Lea, who owned the rival Nashville Tennessean, led to an investigation of his citizenship during World War I. Hatred of Germans was at a fever pitch and not only did the Department of Justice examine Stahlman, who actually had been naturalized as a child, but the Tennessean also accused him of being a German propagandist. This thesis serves as an example of the scrutiny German-Americans underwent during the war. Organizations …

Duncan Hines The Man Behind The Cake Mix, Louis Hatchett

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

To many Americans Duncan Hines (1880-1959) is just a name on a cake mix package. Few would suspect that in the 1940s and 1950s Duncan Hines was the most trusted name in the food industry. In the early twentieth century Hines was a traveling salesman of printing wares who was keenly interested in discovering safe places to eat during the course of his business excursions. He eventually became well-known among the public for his specialized knowledge of the locations of superior dining facilities. In 1936 he began publishing this information annually in a restaurant guide. By the end of the …

The Greens Of Falls Of Rough: A Kentucky Family Biography 1795-1965, Hugh Ridenour

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of writing about the Greens of Falls of Rough is to record the extraordinary lives of three generations of a prominent, but somewhat neglected, Kentucky family that contributed greatly to the history of the Commonwealth. This family’s activities parallel that history in social, economic and political aspects from the state’s inception to the 1960s.

In addition, this thesis should alleviate a pervasive misunderstanding regarding the identity of Willis Green, founder of the Greens of Falls of Rough. Mr. Green, a prominent Kentuckian in his own right, has been confused with another Kentuckian, a Willis Green of Danville. The …

The Athens Of The West: Education In Nashville, 1780-1860, Timothy Augustus Sweatman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Nashville, Tennessee, is known as the Athens of the South because of its reputation as a center of learning. The city’s commitment to education goes back to the days of its founding as a village on the extreme Western frontier of the United States. In 1785, five years after Nashville was first settled, Davidson Academy, an advanced classical school, was established. At the same time, numerous private schools operated in the Nashville area, providing many of the region’s children with a basic education.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century Nashville moved closer to becoming a major educational center. …

Striking Resemblance: Kentucky, Tennessee, Black Codes And Readjustment, 1865-1866, Beverly Forehand

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

To date, the scholarship covering the Black Codes has centered on these laws' role as the predecessor of Jim Crow. Little study has been given to the laws as a whole--the one encompassing work being Theodore Wilson's Black Codes of the South. Other studies have examined the Black Codes' effect on specific states; however, no specific study has been done on the Black Codes of Kentucky and Tennessee nor has any study been made of these laws' relation to the antebellum Slave Code. This project therefore will represent an attempt to show that the Black Codes of Tennessee and Kentucky …

Revolution Of Reforms: The Kingdom Of Bavaria In The Napoleonic Era, 1799-1815, Scott Anderson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

For many years, scholarship covering the Napoleonic satellite kingdoms has centered on the overriding presence of Napoleon Bonaparte without looking a great deal at the kingdoms that supported him. Since the recent publication of Stuart Woolf's Napoleon's Integration of Europe the focus of study on these satellite kingdoms will change. Bavaria's history in particular needs to be examined, especially since a clear study will reveal much of Bavaria's modernization during these years was already underway before Napoleon assimilated it into his empire. However, much of that progressive policy would not have been enacted without Napoleon's protection. This project therefore will …

The German Immigrant Experience In Late-Antebellum Kentucky, Paul Roides

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

While this thesis focuses almost entirely on the German-American experience in late-antebellum Kentucky, it will, from time to time, make comparisons to immigrants elsewhere in America, especially the Irish. In addition, the thesis will explore the rich story of the strengths and weaknesses, the harmony and divisiveness, and the moderation and radicalism of Kentucky's German-born settlers. The question of cultural assimilation among immigrant groups has frequently fascinated social historians. One of the central themes of inquiry continues to be the relative speed with which various early arriving groups blend into mainstream American society, losing their former culture while making their …

The Termination Of The Quickening Doctrine: American Law, Society, And The Advent Of Professional Medicine In The Nineteenth Century, Beth Gibson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The moment life began was defined at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the mother's awareness of fetal movement. That moment was called quickening. The common law of England and of the early United States embraced quickening. Prior to quickening abortion was legally and socially benign. Abortion was a non-issue, for life was not considered to exist before the fetus was quick — which usually occurs in the fourth or fifth month of gestation. At the early stages of fetal development there was no difference between terminating pregnancy and simply restoring menses. By the end of the nineteenth century, …

Women Writers In Revolution: Feminism In Germaine De Staël And Ding Ling, Sara Powell

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this essay, the concern is feminism in the writings of the two revolutionary women, Germaine de Stael, who lived and wrote during the French revolutionary era, and Ding Ling, who lived and wrote during the Chinese Communist revolutionary era. The main theme of the essay is to determine whether the feminism in their work is of a similar nature despite the vast differences in the times and places in which they each lived. Concomitantly, the theme is also an attempt to discover through such similarities if feminism is of a universal nature. Through biographical sketches and analysis of selected …

Effectively Radiated Powers: The Cultural Impact Of Media On A Kentucky Community, William Drury

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis chronicles the development of Henderson and its media. Unlike most pioneering towns that sprung up west of the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains during the 18th century, Henderson assumed a unique position in the development of the Midwest as an important and major tobacco port, as an agricultural conduit to the North and industrial path to the South. and as an outpost of trade to the West. A clearer picture of its aggressive nature becomes evident by tracing the hard-fought beginnings of the region. As Henderson grew in importance, so did its lust grow for excitement and entertainment. Compared …

President Reagan's Rhetorical War Against Nicaraugua, 1981-1987, Donald Morton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Reagan administration launched a two term campaign to win support for the Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua. The rhetorical war began in secrecy and ended in scandal. With Reagan's reputation as a "great communicator" and the priority he assigned to the Contra cause it seemed surprising to find virtually nothing on the topic in a search of the communication journals through mid 1992.

The central research question of this thesis is whether President Reagan used rhetorical strategies and similar depictions to other presidents in his prowar rhetoric against Nicaragua. A common theme of war rhetoric is the dehumanizing of the …

Soldiers In War: A Brief History Of The United States' Participation In World War I With Special Emphasis On The Kentucky National Guard, Rhonda Smith

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Using mainly primary sources, the activities of the Kentucky National Guard in World War I are chronicled. The major contribution of these Kentuckians was the 149th Infantry, which served on the front line in France. After extensive research, it is concluded that the Kentucky Guard did not play a major role in the war effort.

German Foreign Policy & Diplomacy 1890-1906, Lee Button

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

From 1871 to 1914, Germany experienced its first taste of world power and the failure of controlling and retaining that power. German power after 1871 had sought only a dominance of continental politics and a maintenance of a status quo in Europe favorable to Germany. Following 1890, however, the German course deviated to include a vision of world power. German foreign policy until 1890 was based on two things: hegemonic control of the heart of Europe and the force of will of one man, Otto von Bismarck. Yet despite relative control of the European situation and a cautious and able …

Major General Sterling Price's 1864 Missouri Expedition, Scott Sallee

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Early in the Civil War, the Union Army drove pro-southern Missouri leaders and their followers into Arkansas, and the state fell under Federal occupation. However, many people of southern sympathies remained in Missouri, and between 1862 and 1864 Confederate forces launched four large scale cavalry raids into the state from their Arkansas bases. Major General Sterling Price, C. S. A., led the fourth and largest of these raids, September through November, 1864.

An ex-Governor of Missouri, Sterling Price was the truly representative figurehead of the state's Confederate element. Throughout the war, he constantly believed that an oppressed, hidden majority of …