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Capitalism, Colonial Expansion, And Forced Child Indenture In The British Atlantic, 1618-1776, Angela Austin

History Dissertations

This dissertation examines colonial child servants from the British Isles between the years 1618-1776, illustrating how economic demands, colonial ambitions, and capitalistic drives combined with ethnic and class prejudices to perpetuate the indenture of children irrespective of individual or parental consent. An examination of legislative actions, legal enforcement, and governmental complicity reveals both direct and indirect government involvement in perpetuating involuntary child labor across the British Isles. In fact, the volume of this human trafficking required some level of awareness and support from legislators and officials at both the local and national levels. In some cases, officials removed children from …

"Innumerable Small Crafts": Maritime Work In The Estuarian Gulf, 1865-1900, Kevin Grubbs

Dissertations

Maritime historians have argued for a highpoint in maritime activity during the antebellum years. This peak was fed by Americans travelling on tall wooden sailing ships in international trade, in the whaling industries, and as members of the US Navy. The prowess of the American Merchant Marine faded quickly in the middle of the nineteenth century due to military losses during the American Civil War and due to the rise of steamships and steel hulls. This peak was followed by another lesser peak in the Twentieth Century as American ships caught up with technological changes. World War One provided a …

Critique! Critique! Critique! Black Labor In The Early American Book Trade, John J. Garcia

Criticism

This article pursues two lines of inquiry: first, recovering the presence of Black labor in the history of the book in colonial North America, the British Caribbean, and the early United States, with a second and complementary discussion of why critique must be foregrounded in the field formation of critical bibliography. Free and enslaved Black men and women helped make early American books possible. Their presences are to be found at the edges and vicinities of print cultural production, in roles such as papermaking, wagon driving, and forms of domestic labor that extended to the libraries and reading practices of …

Unions - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 3673), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3673. By-Laws and Trade Rules of Union Local No. 2156, Bowling Green, Kentucky, of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

Her World Changed: Anna Louise Strong And The 1916 Everett Massacre, Charlotte Nabors

History Theses

The 1970s saw a resurgence in the scholarship on Anna Louise Strong’s life, especially in feminist circles. In general, historians pre-1970 doubted the authenticity of Strong’s political radicalism and criticized the inconsistency in her participation. Neis’ scholarship represents the largely uncritical second-wave feminist interest in Strong’s life following her death in 1970. The scholarship on Strong’s life falls into three categories: the old guard, the feminist renaissance, and twenty-first-century perspectives. Since 2000, a more nuanced interpretation of Strong’s life incorporated elements of the old guard and feminist discussions. Anna Louise Strong’s introduction to activism began in her childhood as the …

Ledgers Of The W.T. Carter And Brother Lumber Company: An Archival Processing Project, Christopher Cameron Cotton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The W.T. Carter and Brother Lumber Company began in 1898 and operated until 1968 when it was sold to the U.S. Plywood Corporation. The Polk County, Texas company harvested longleaf pine during a crucial period of development for the Texas economy. The lumber industry was the state’s first large scale commercial enterprise not dependent on farming and provided a model for future extractive industries in the state. The W.T. Carter and Brother Lumber Company town of Camden, Texas exemplifies rural implementations of the company town system in the Texas lumber industry. This public history thesis provides a brief history of …

Warrioress In White: A Semiotic Analysis Of America's Joan Of Arc In The Women Of The Copper Country, Akasha Khalsa

Conspectus Borealis

Mary Doria Russell’s The Women of the Copper Country is a fictionalized historical account of the 1913 mining strike in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Significantly in this strike, a great deal of leadership was focused in the Union’s Women’s Auxiliary. In particular, one woman formed the backbone of the local movement. Known by her community as Big Annie, Anna Klobuchar Clements was the heart of the 1913 strike. Memories of her bravery linger today in the form of recorded testimonies by elderly community members, immortalization in plaques and songs, and Russell’s popular novel. Today she is remembered not as herself, not …

Positioning The 1913 Paterson Silk Workers’ Strike Within A Dialectical Framework, Raymond Adam Ciafarone Jr.

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis places the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike within a dialectical framework by historically surveying the constant motion of industry in Paterson, New Jersey. It follows the dialectical method by examining the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike not as a singular event but as one part of a continuous historical process. In the late 18th century, a group of investors introduced capitalism to Paterson and completely transformed the social relations of production from a mostly self-sufficient agrarian existence to a center of capitalist manufacturing. From that moment forward, production in Paterson was in a constant state of flux as mills, shops, …

Baseball, With A Southern Accent: The Urban Game In The Post-Reconstruction South, Paul Dunder

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Numerous scholars and historians have illuminated the importance of baseball within American society from the end of Reconstruction to the Great Depression. Yet their gaze has often been turned to the northern professional game. Very little has been written about how the game played a role in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. This study considers how baseball in the South helped to reflect and underscore some of the tensions within a society marked by racial, class, and gendered conflicts. Baseball played an instrumental role in shaping aspects of Southern society and community identity in new urban …

'A Deadly Menace To All Young Womankind': Seduction And Protective Legislation In America, 1850-1923, Elissa Michelle Isenberg

Dissertations - ALL

"A Deadly Menace to All Young Womankind": Seduction and Protective Legislation in America, 1850-1923 looks at sexual harassment before it was an actionable offense. Although female domestic servants have endured unwanted sexual attention for most of American history, the entry of women into wage labor in factories and offices during the late nineteenth century dramatically increased the number of girls and women that were subjected to what we today call harassment. Careful examination of American newspaper archives, court records, and reformers' personal papers have uncovered cases of unsolicited sexual advances toward women, and have demonstrated that sexual harassment was considered …

The Law And The Household: Criminal Courts In Early Twentieth Century Rockingham County, Jennifer Taylor

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis examines the early twentieth century as a period of transition for rural, southern communities where the state began to increase its authority in matters of the family and the household. This prompted a transition from traditional patriarchal authority to state paternalism. Using the criminal court case records from the Rockingham Criminal Court, it is possible to evaluate the rural population’s reaction to this transition. Certain populations, particularly women, were willing to use the law as a place to find justice against male power, while men continued to perpetuate traditional ideas about masculinity and informal, violent retribution as a …

The Congress Of Industrial Organizations: Operation Dixie And A Legacy Of Worker Activism, Trevor G. Porter

Honors Theses

Trevor George Porter: The Congress of Industrial Organizations: Operation Dixie and a Legacy of Worker Activism (Under the Direction of Dr. Jarod Roll)

The passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 overhauled United States labor law, and it shifted the balance of power in favor of organized labor. Seizing upon this monumental moment in history, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was founded with a mandate to “organize the unorganized”. The labor federation made its primary focus the mass production workers of America, many of whom had not previously been afforded the opportunity to join a union. This …

The Frontier Of The Labor Movement: Latinas And The Longest Strike In Twentieth-Century Las Vegas, Maribel Estrada Calderón

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

After the mid-twentieth century, the American labor movement began to decline. Across the U.S., Union memberships and the rate of work stoppages decreased. In the hospitality-industry-driven city of Las Vegas, Nevada, however, the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 more than doubled its membership. In 1989, the Elardi family purchased the Frontier Hotel and Casino and began to eliminate workers’ benefits. Led by the Culinary Union, workers went on strike on September 21, 1991, beginning one of the longest strikes in twentieth-century Las Vegas. Latina workers played critical roles in organizing and maintaining this successful, six-year-long battle against the Elardis. Positioning …

Sweetened Blood, Sweat And Tears, Nathan Celestine

All Theses, Dissertations, and Capstone Projects

Of the transatlantic diffusion of culture, there is no better example than what developed out of Caribbean enslavement. The loss of African identity among slaves with a common, methodically destroyed ancestry, along with the diversity inherent to the different groups of Africans and Europeans and their respective cultural elements and identities resulted in a complex homogeny of culture, race, nationality, and socioeconomic status that has continued its development since the introduction of slaves to West Indian soil. It was this same soil that would cause the demand for slave labor to explode throughout European-controlled Caribbean islands, from the addition of …

More Austerity Coming? Lessons From New York City's 1970s Fiscal Crisis, Marc Kagan

Publications and Research

Crises can be moments of opportunity, but it is not foreordained who will seize the ring. The Great Depression ultimately led to the New Deal/Great Society state and increasing equality. 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, on the other hand, laid the groundwork for decades of neoliberal austerity. Despite political vulnerabilities, bankers and their Washington allies acted boldly to protect imperiled assets and remake a city in which the working class wielded some power as a bastion of finance capital. Seemingly powerful unions abandoned the public they served, and followed a risk-averse strategy of concessions in exchange for junior-partner corporatism, …

The Business Of The Girl: Celebrity And The Professionalization Of Girlhood In Early Twenty-First Century Media Culture, Jessica Elizabeth Johnston

Theses and Dissertations

The achieving “can-do” girl, who thrives in her personal, academic, and aspirational endeavors, emerged in response to self-help crisis literature of the 1990s urging mothers to manage their daughters’ low self-esteem. However, even as media industries have adopted the successful girl subject in popular film, television, and digital marketing campaigns, public conversations of tween and teenage girls still identify rising levels of anxiety and self-doubt that diminish girls’ confidence well into adulthood. Responding to what critics call the “confidence gap,” girl culture of the twenty-first century has organized itself around the affordances of social media and digital celebrity in the …

The Flame That Sparked Outrage: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Amanda Isaacs

History | Senior Theses

The Flame that Sparked Outrage

The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, a tragic event in New York City, reflected the ignored demands by both foreign born and U.S born citizens. The unrelenting rioting and protesting marked a turning point in progressive American politics. The late 19th and early 20th century was a glorious time for new beginnings in America. The buzz about the opportunities in the States roamed the globe and sparked interest in every person encountered. The ships carrying Eastern European immigrants; Italians, Jews, and those of Polish descent, were migrating across seas to enter into the modern world of …

Perry Collection (Mss 676), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 676. Letters, papers, photographs and scrapbooks of the Perry family, principally Gideon Babcock Perry, rector of Grace Episcopal Church, Hopkinsville, Kentucky and his children, Reverend Henry G. Perry, Chicago, Illinois, and Emily B. Perry, Hopkinsville.

The Life And Political Career Of Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Dylan Mcnutt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hubert Horatio Humphrey never reached the Oval Office, but his accomplishments during his tenure as mayor, senator, and Vice President are just as noteworthy. During Humphrey’s political career he played a pivotal role in the most influential period of liberal American politics. During his youth and college years Humphrey became learned how to remain loyal to the people around him, and about the racial divisions of the South. Most research on Vice President Humphrey analyzes his time as a Senator, Vice President, and the 1968 Presidential election. The Life and Political Career of Hubert Humphrey, examines Humphrey’s life in its …

“Realizing Democracy”: A Study Of The Regional And National Social, Political, And Economic Factors Driving Suffrage Development In The Age Of The Common Man, 1820-1850, Matthew Prosper

Honors Theses

The Age of the Common Man was a period of American political history lasting from 1820 to 1850 characterized by the implementation of universal white manhood suffrage by every state through removing property and tax qualifications from state constitutional suffrage laws, as well as the “common man” entering the center of much political discourse. These conventions were demanded by the political, social, economic, and in some cases physical climates and conditions of each state. To look at these factors, this thesis divides the nation into three regions, two of which are examined: the Northeast, the Northwest, and the South (the …

Two Poems: Stop Time Before; Forsaken Ones, Ánh-Hoa Thị Nguyễn

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This creative work features two poems: Stop Time Before; Forsaken Ones

Factionalism In The Democratic Party 1936-1964, Seth Manning

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The period of 1936-1964 in the Democratic Party was one of intense factional conflict between the rising Northern liberals, buoyed by FDR’s presidency, and the Southern conservatives who had dominated the party for a half-century. Intertwined prominently with the struggle for civil rights, this period illustrates the complex battles that held the fate of other issues such as labor, foreign policy, and economic ideology in the balance. This thesis aims to explain how and why the Northern liberal faction came to defeat the Southern conservatives in the Democratic Party through a multi-faceted approach examining organizations, strategy, arenas of competition, and …

Images, Art, And Paraphernalia: Analyzing Tactics Of The United Farm Workers And The Coalition Of Immokalee Workers, Felicia Viano

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

What do grapes and tomatoes have in common? Both of these foods have been or are major points of contention for influential farm worker movements. The United Farm Workers formed by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Gilbert Padilla in 1962 has become a hallmark of success in labor history. This movement used traditional yet innovative methods of social movement strategy, eventually branding themselves as a household name. The images and paraphernalia such as buttons, bumper stickers, and posters distributed during the Delano Grape Strike seemed like a simple concept at the time, but there were strategic decisions made to incorporate …

Frontier Capitalism And Unfree Labor In Middle Appalachia: The Development Of Western Pennsylvania And Maryland, 1760-1840, Nathaniel Conley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Slavery and unfree labor have been a subject of growing interest for historians, particularly when dealing with frontier areas and the rise of capitalism. Recent studies have shown that slavery and unfree labor existed well into the antebellum period in the North despite the lack of legal support for the institution. Few historians have identified the importance of slavery in the development of western areas, however, particularly in the Appalachian regions of western Pennsylvania and Maryland. As a result, concerted study of slavery in rural, western areas is lacking, particularly in the borderland region between slavery and freedom along the …

Nature & Nation: The Civilian Conservation Corps In Zion And Bryce Canyon National Parks, Valerie Jacobson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

CCC experiences have been written about other camps and areas across the United States, however, an in depth look at the CCC involvement in Zion and Bryce has not been attempted. The CCC camps in Zion and Bryce created a mark on the landscape through the projects and improvements, but also left a mark on the “boys” who were in the program. The experiences and projects the young men did with the CCC altered the land in the parks in southern Utah. The changes included new or improved trail systems in the park, better roads and maintenance, soil and erosion …

Free Labor: The Civil War And The Making Of An American Working Class By Mark A. Lause (Review), Joanne Pope Melish

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Inspiration Or Distraction: Eugene Debs At The Head Of American Socialism 1895-1921, Stanley Schwartz

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

This project seeks to provide historical context for the modern revival of avowed socialism in America through an examination of Eugene V. Debs leadership of American Socialism from 1895 to 1921. The paper argues that Debs’ leadership of American socialism was unsuccessful because he left the critical task of convincing the American people that the ideology of Socialism is correct and fundamentally different from traditionalism, capitalism, and progressivism, incomplete. Reform Socialism did not distinguish itself from local progressivism, and revolutionary Socialism adopted violent, opportunistic methods which prevented broad support. Debs’ unique ideology of Founding ideals, faith in democracy, and total …

Black Gold: Molly Maguireism, Unionism, And The Anthracite Labor Wars, 1860-1880, Samantha Edmiston

History Theses & Dissertations

The class and ethnic tensions that manifested in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania were a microcosm of the broader, nation-wide labor wars of the late-nineteenth century. These labor wars, violent and sometimes bloody, shaped workingmen’s condition and the larger history of unionism. The Molly Maguires, in both their real and imagined form counted as key protagonists in these wars between big business and unions. More local wars also occurred between workers, those like the Mollies who wanted to use violence to encourage change, and others who instead sought to peacefully organize and bargain collectively with their employers.

This thesis …

Father And Servant, Son And Slave: Judaism And Labor In Georgia, 1732-1809, Kylie L. Mccormick

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In 1732 a philanthropic trusteeship was granted the charter to Georgia with the lofty goals of bringing aid to the impoverished in the British Empire and the persecuted Protestants of Europe. Within these goals was an emphasis on using the labor of indentured white servants, an unofficial ban on slavery, and a reluctance to allow Jewish colonists. To understand how both slavery and Judaism took hold in Georgia, this two part study explores the changing labor institutions through the lives of Benjamin Sheftall and his youngest son Levi—the two men who maintained the first Vital Records for Savanah’s Jewry. Benjamin’s …

Inspiration Or Distraction: Eugene Debs At The Head Of American Socialism 1895-1921, Stanley Schwartz

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

This project seeks to provide historical context for the modern revival of avowed socialism in America through an examination of Eugene V. Debs leadership of American Socialism from 1895 to 1921. The paper argues that Debs’ leadership of American socialism was unsuccessful because he left the critical task of convincing the American people that the ideology of Socialism is correct and fundamentally different from traditionalism, capitalism, and progressivism, incomplete. Reform Socialism did not distinguish itself from local progressivism, and revolutionary Socialism adopted violent, opportunistic methods which prevented broad support. Debs’ unique ideology of Founding ideals, faith in democracy, and total …