Digital Commons Network^™

Question Of Revolution In The Carolinas And Georgia From Colonial Times To The Time Of The Early Republic, Megan Shirley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The American War of Independence was not and unlimited revolutionary event. More correctly it was a limited revolution. The ideologies, legal codes, and events that formed the basis for justification had historical precedent in English and ancient history. Women and people of color experienced a counter revolution with regards to their rights and liberties after the conflict known as the American Revolution. Although women participated in the conflict did not experience a progression in rights and freedoms. People of color, free and enslaved, certainly experienced a different outcome. They became citizens of a new nation but were denied equal freedom …

The Memory-Keeping Daughter: Exploring Object Stories And Family Legacies From America's Modern Wars, Susan R. Grayzel

History Faculty Publications

This essay demonstrates how wartime objects can have a special resonance in families as keepers of memory, and it especially explores the role of daughters of military participants in preserving the artifacts of their veteran fathers. Using several case studies from a recent public history project collecting objects and object stories in the American southwest, it argues that a focus on daughters as caretakers of family military history offers a new way to engage with descendants' histories by showing how the work of such women can contribute to our understanding of modern war and its legacies.

Ladies Art Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 762), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Collection 762. Minute books of the Ladies Art Club, an African-American women’s club in Bowling Green, Kentucky, whose objectives included social and charitable activities and annual exhibits of sewing work.

Bureaus Of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Comparing The Roles Of Women In The Special Operations Executive And The Office Of Strategic Services During World War Ii, Adaline Nolley

Senior Honors Theses

In 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive. The SOE was one of the first government agencies to recruit female spies. In 1941, United States President Franklin Roosevelt commissioned the Office of Strategic Services, which also employed women. The organizations approached the concept of female agents differently. The OSS maintained female staff in domestic offices, but employed foreign women as agents. The SOE recruited women to go abroad, as they were less suspicious than men in occupied territories. The study of female staff in the OSS and the SOE allow historians to understand roles of women …

Bicycling During The 1890s: The Unlikely Means Of Women’S Social Reform, Rachel Lewchanin

History Student Projects

The paper focuses on the women’s bicycling movement in the US during the 1890s. More specifically, it argues that bicycling and the movement that developed behind it was used by upper and upper-middle class white women to create social changes that furthered their independence from certain societal expectations.

Women In Early Soviet Propaganda, Rowan Morrison

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Major: History

"Girls Don't Strike Without Provocation.": African American Women, The General Strike, And The Good Samaritan Hospital School Of Nursing, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1956-1959., Francena F.L. Turner

Sociology Department Faculty Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Tejedoras Y Madres: Las Mujeres En El Códice Madrid, Manuel Alberto Morales Damián

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

Se reflexiona sobre el papel social de la mujer durante el postclásico en la península de Yucatán; se utiliza como testimonio el Códice Madrid a partir de la información que ofrecen las figuras femeninas que aparecen representadas en 27 almanaques y en el cosmograma de las páginas 75-76. El porcentaje de figuras femeninas (10,15%), así como las funciones que desempeñan en las distintas escenas, indican que la mujer tiene un papel secundario, incluso pueden ser sustituidas por varones. Se muestran evidencias de un patriarcado de baja intensidad.

This paper analyses the social role of women at Postclassic Yucatan; the Madrid …

The Women’S Committee Of The Council Of National Defense In Maryland, 1917-1918, Savannah Scott

Honors Projects

During World War I, the United States created the Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense to organize and coordinate women’s war work. The Women’s Committee had a federalist structure of national, state, and local committees to organize the different levels of women’s societies in the country. This paper uses the Maryland Section of the Women’s Committee as a case study to argue how how the centralized organization of the Women’s Committee and its flexibility with the local committees led to more productive efforts at mobilizing women. It will expand on the formation and organization of the Maryland Women’s …

Suzanne Witthoff: Trailblazing At Wmu, University Libraries

East Campus Oral Histories

WMU Alum Suzanne Witthoff meets virtually with Cassie Kotrch over Zoom to discuss her time at WMU College of Business when it occupied East Campus. Suzanne shares memories and stories she has of her time at WMU in the 1960s.

“Women Who Speak With The Power And Authority Of God”: The Role Of Women In The Northern Indian Mission, 1964-1973, Amber Miller

Student Works

Since the Church's founding in the early 19th century, numerous historians have chronicled the story of "Lamanite" Missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of these Indian Mission histories, however, mention little more about women than missionaries marrying Native women, and non-native women receiving blessings that they will one-day teach the "Lamanites." Although the continuing conversation of these historic missions covers a wide range of views and interpretations, the roles and contributions of women often take a subordinate position in the Indian Mission narrative. The Northern Indian Mission of 1964 to 1973 serves as a microcosm …

“I Never Shrink From Any Duty”: Mary Easton Sibley And The Gendered Politics Of Abolitionism, Stephanie Marks

Student Scholarship

Mary Easton Sibley, the founder of Lindenwood University, was an ambitious woman. A supporter of the abolition movement and women's education, she founded and taught in schools for white women and enslaved African Americans in St. Charles, Missouri. As an American woman in the nineteenth century, however, her attitudes toward race and gender proved complex, reflecting the struggle of white women at the time. Drawing on scholarship that examines a shift in the focus of white female abolitionists of the period from freeing enslaved peoples to freeing white Americans from the sin of slavery, This case study poses two unique …

Making Herstory: Admission Of Women To The Evening School Of Commerce, Laurel Bowen

Selections from the University Library Blog

No abstract provided.

Complacency And Conformity: The Female Experience At Gettysburg College, 1956-1966, Greer Garver, Emily B. Suter

Student Publications

Women at Gettysburg College from 1956-66 received unequal treatment at a predominantly male school. Despite the 1960s being seen as a time of radical change, the majority of women on campus were content with the rules and social norms which held them in place. Changes and complaints were not widespread or outspoken, but they did exist in organizations such as the Women’s Student Government Association. Examinations of campus policies, dress codes, and dorm regulations illustrate the different standards men and women were held to on campus. Meanwhile Greek life, beauty contests, athletics and first hand accounts of social life reveal …

Book Review Club - Fordsville, Kentucky (Sc 3638), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3638. Yearbooks, 1942/1943 1953/1954, of the Book Review Club, Fordsville, Kentucky, a woman’s literary club organized in 1938. The yearbooks include the club constitution, program notes, and membership lists.

By The Power Vesta-Ed In Me: The Power Of The Vestal Virgins And Those Who Took Advantage Of It, Elena M. Stanley

Classical Mediterranean and Middle East Honors Projects

Vestal Virgins were high ranking members of the Roman elite. Due to the priestesses’ elevated standing, Romans made use of their inherent privileges. Through analyses of case studies from ancient authors and archaeology, I identify three ways Romans wielded Vestal power: familial connections, financial and material resources, and political sway. I end by exploring cases of crimen incesti, the crime of unchastity, which highlight all three forms. The Vestals were influential women who shared access to power in different ways. The Vestals were active participants in the social and political world of Rome.

Redefining Gender Roles In Higher Education: Women At Gettysburg College During World War Ii, Addison E. Lomax

Student Publications

Throughout the early 20th century, the role of American women began to change. The U.S. entrance into World War II and resulting draft provided women at institutions of higher education the opportunity to develop their place on college campuses. Through analyzing yearbooks, student publications, and personal testimonies, the case of Gettysburg College provides a lens to better understand the changing dynamics on college campuses during the war years. Although men remained on the campus of Gettysburg College during the war years, the changing dynamics of the College, both academically and socially, allowed women the opportunity to increase not only their …

Book Review: Kathleen A. Cairns' At Home In The World: California Women And The Postwar Environmental Movement, Molly Mcclain

History: Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

‘It All Comes From Me’: Bahu Begam And The Making Of The Awadh Nawabi, Circa 1765–1815, Nicholas J. Abbott

History Faculty Publications

This article examines the durable, yet largely overlooked, claims of Bahu Begam (1727–1815) to dynastic wealth and authority in the Awadh nawabi (1722–1856), a North Indian Mughal ‘successor state’ and an important client of the East India Company. Chief consort (khass mahal) to Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula (r. 1754–75) and mother to his successor Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula (r. 1775–97), Bahu Begam played a well-documented role in the regime’s tumultuous politics, particularly during Warren Hastings’s tenure as the Company’s governor-general (1773–85) and his later parliamentary impeachment. But despite her prominent political influence, little attention has been paid to the substance of her …

"The Women's Hell": Distinctions Between Forms Of Sexual Violence At The Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, The Liberalization Of Sexuality In The Weimar Republic, And The Exploitation Of Sexuality In The Third Reich, Ashley Ruth Lamoureux

Masters Theses

The Ravensbrück concentration camp located in northern Germany acted as the only Nazi concentration camp designated exclusively for women following the closure of the Lichtenburg camp. Beginning in 1939, women held in other camps, ghettos, prisons, and sanatoriums across the Reich were transported to Ravensbrück, “the women’s hell”. Until recently, Holocaust scholarship has largely overlooked the history of Ravensbrück as well as the complicated demographics of prisoners in the camp. A majority of the female prisoners at Ravensbrück were asocials or political and religious dissidents. The distinction of asocials as a separate prisoner categorization was not invented by the Nazi …

Bearing Report: A Roundtable On Historians And American Veterans, James Marten

History Faculty Research and Publications

Five historians—each an expert on a specific era and issue related to veterans—were asked to ponder the following questions: 1. What are the most important questions explored by historians in veterans studies? 2. What are the books that have been most useful to your particular area of interest in veterans studies? 3. How can the history of veterans help us understand larger cultural, social, and economic issues during the time periods in which the veterans you study lived? 4. What are the particular contributions that a historic sensibility can bring to the study of veterans of any war? 5. How …

Atlantic Legacies: Free Women Of Color And The Changing Notions Of Womanhood In The Long Nineteenth Century, Marie Stephanie Chancy

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on three free-born African-descended women who defied expectations and prejudices to live previously unthinkable lives in the nineteenth century. The project uses their biographies to illustrate how, as black and mixed-ancestry émigrés from the Americas living in Europe, they adopted and adapted the evolving notions of ideal womanhood. As a result they expanded who could be identified as a true, redemptive or new woman. The project shows how they used the tenets of these ideals to live life on their terms. The dissertation is set in an era dominated by white males, and defined by the enslavement …

“Our Antient Friends . . . Are Much Reduced”: Mary And James Wright, The Hopewell Friends Meeting, And Quaker Women In The Southern Backcountry, C. 1720–C. 1790, Thomas Daniel Knight

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although the existence of Quakers in Virginia is well known, the best recent surveys of Virginia history devote only passing attention to them, mostly in the context of expanding religious freedoms during the revolutionary era. Few discuss the Quakers themselves or the nature of Quaker settlements although notably, Warren Hofstra, Larry Gragg, and others have studied aspects of the Backcountry Quaker experience. Recent Quaker historiography has reinterpreted the origins of the Quaker faith and the role of key individuals in the movement, including the roles of Quaker women. Numerous studies address Quaker women collectively. Few, however, examine individual families or …

The Virago Paradigm Of Female Sanctity: Constructing The Masculine Woman In Medieval Christianity, Angela Bolen

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Latin word virago, in its simplest definition, means “a man-like, warrior woman.” For Christian men and women in the Patristic era and the central Middle Ages, the virago represented a woman who denied all biological characteristics of her womanhood, fiercely protected her virginity, and fully embodied the virtues of Christian masculinity. The virago paradigm of female sanctity, a creation of male writers, reconciled a pervasive fear of the female sex with an obvious admiration for holy women. Additionally, the virago model maintained the supremacy of masculine virtues, upheld a patriarchal hierarchy, and created a metaphorical space that validated …

The Real 1920s: How The Immigration Act Of 1924 Empowered And Encouraged Organized Nationalism, Amanda Pawling

History Presentations

The 1920s were a key era for women and women’s rights. It was also a key era for immigration reform and antiimmigrant sentiment. My research is asking if and how there is a correlation between these different takes on one decade. What my research has shown is that while women were fighting for equality and their right to vote, many were also fighting for traditional family values, family roles, conservatism, and nativism. When it comes to the KKK and its rhetoric of America first and anti-immigration, women were not only in the background but front and center in the fight. …

Women’S Advocate Or Racist Hypocrite: Gertrud Scholtz-Klink And The Contradictions Of Women In Nazi Ideology, Mary C. S. Frasier

Student Publications

The Reichsfrauenführerin, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, led the National Socialist Women’s League from 1934 until she went into hiding in 1945. During her career in the Nazi Party, she created a female focused sector of the party that promoted pronatalist propaganda, discouraged women from engaging in politics, and urged women to only perform gender-suitable work. In contradiction to her message, Scholtz-Klink was the highest-ranking female political figure and a divorcee, who regularly chose her political career with the Nazi Party over her duties in the private sphere. Although she had little to no political power in the inner circle because of her …

Aftermath Club - Russellville, Kentucky (Sc 3287), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3287. History of the Aftermath Club, a women’s literary club organized in Russellville, Kentucky, in 1896; club yearbooks, 1951-1952, 1952-1953; and correspondence regarding donation of the materials to WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.

Peridot Pictures - Bowling Green-Warren County Bicentennial Film (Mss 715), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 715. Proposal, script materials, correspondence, publicity, interviews and other items relating to the production of a film for the Bowling Green-Warren County (Kentucky) bicentennial by Peridot Pictures and the Landmark Association of Bowling Green.

0865: Mccomas Family Letters, 1906 – 1930s, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

The collection consists of eight folders of correspondence between various family members of the McComas family between 1906 – 1930s. The McComas family consists of Mr. and Mrs. George J. McComas, and their son, B.C. “Curtis” McComas, and daughter, Margaret McComas. The majority of the folders contain correspondence from Curtis McComas detailing his experiences in France and Germany during the First World War. Other soldiers, including Curtis and Margaret’s cousin, Henry, also sent letters to Margaret detailing their experiences or thanks for gifts provided to the war front. The rest of the collection include letters received during Margaret’s stay in …

The Frontier Demimonde: Prostitution In Early Hays City, 1867-1883, Hollie Marquess M.A.

History Faculty Publications

Hays City, Kansas, founded in 1867, became a bustling Western frontier town due to its possession of the Eastern Division terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad and its position near a military post, Fort Hays. Prostitutes, often among the first arrivals to Western frontier towns, played an integral role in the social and economic livelihood of Hays City. Sex work brought necessary commerce to the town and helped to support other aspects of Hays City nightlife like the gambling dens and saloons. Though respectable employment was largely closed to women in the West, prostitutes in Hays City maintained a mutually …