Digital Commons Network^™

"Nothing In America Would Outrival Such A Spectacle": The Contested Histories Of Mount Rushmore, Western Tourism, And American Nationalism, Sophia Ciatti

Undergraduate Research Awards

Mount Rushmore, as one of the primary tourist destinations of both South Dakota and the American West in general, is an important source for an examination of American interstate tourism. However, while many scholars have discussed the physical history of Mount Rushmore, such as Gilbert Fite’s Mount Rushmore and Rex Allen Smith’s The Carving of Mount Rushmore, fewer historians have discussed the intellectual history behind the monument. The intentions imbued in the monument from its creators, and the impact the creation of Mount Rushmore had upon the American public are both worth analyzing because those two aspects ended up …

The Forced Effeminization Of Male Chinese Immigrants And The Consequences Of This Process, Hailee Brandt

Undergraduate Research Awards

The aim of this paper is to uncover and highlight the forced effeminization of male Chinese immigrants and the consequences of this process during the Chinese Exclusion Act Era. The Chinese Exclusion Act Era is defined by a period of time within American history in which strict and scrutinizing laws were created with the aim of restricting access to the United States for Chinese people. Additionally, these laws aimed to restrict the freedom the Chinese people might have had whilst living their lives in America if they ever were to make it through such oppressive borders. The most notable of …

Impacts On Native American Literacy Throughout The 1800s, Alyssa Lawhorn

Undergraduate Research Awards

The literacy of Indigenous peoples of America underwent extreme transformations as the tedious attempts by descendants of colonizers to integrate aspects of white American life into Indigenous customs continued. Native American literacy exclusively consisted of oral traditions prior to the arrival of British colonizers in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia. These oral traditions were, and still are, key elements of Indigenous culture as they serve to distribute cultural lessons, record histories, and share religious legends through the generations and amongst others. As the basis of Indigenous culture these traditions were one of the primary features of Native American life that scholars …

“A Colony Of Our Choice”: Black Baltimoreans And Emigration To Trinidad, Mars Mcleod

Undergraduate Research Awards

Black American history is a narrative characterized by a struggle for rights, including rights to self-preservation and self-determination, for all Americans. Exemplified throughout all four centuries of Black America’s creation, Black resistance to white supremacy has appeared in the form of protests, violence, emigration, and social movements, as well as more accommodationist theory and practice. Black Americans have been the primary force in building out and enforcing revolutionary the ideas presented in the Declaration of Independence, ensuring that those words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator …

Jewish Pioneers In The Service Of Christian Whiteness In The 19th-Century American West, Elizabeth Klein

Undergraduate Research Awards

In recent years, historians of American religion have contributed significantly to pushing back against the conception of America as a nation founded on religious freedom and characterized since its inception by a strong sense of pluralism. Although religious tolerance was one of the most essential American ideals, it was not always a reality for minority religious groups, and the religious pluralism that developed in the years after the Revolution was created by those outside of the Christian majority who had to fight to create space within it. This research has shown that over the course of American history, Jews have …

Jewish People And Relationships With Christians In The Antebellum Us, Elizabeth Klein

Undergraduate Research Awards

In surveys of American history, the presence of Jewish people is usually not mentioned more than twice. The first time is with the late 19th-century’s major wave of Jewish immigration, and the second is with the onset of the Second World War and the Holocaust. Although discussing the history of Jewish immigration and anti-semitism in the United States is important, these stories are not the only ones that comprise Jewish American history. Little attention is paid to the Jewish population in America during the antebellum era, yet it is clear that Jewish people were here, and their presence was only …

The Worth Of The Black Disabled Body: An Excavation Of Black Disabled Legal History, Alyssa Mcleod

Undergraduate Research Awards

Slave law was overwhelmingly concerned with the state of individual bodies, from the earliest colonial iterations of race-based statutes through to the end of the antebellum era, becoming a key index in shaping the concept of race from that point forward. In this time, white legislators were trying to answer several burgeoning questions including: Are enslaved bodies inherently damaged, broken, criminal, or worthy of manumission? The answer, it seems, is that every enslaved person’s value was determined almost strictly on the value of their labor, and therefore, their ability to work (and thus, by implication, their value as salable property). …

Mothers, Morals, And Godly Motivations: Conservative Women’S Activism From Anticommunism To The New Christian Right, Kaitlyn C. Phillips

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The modern conservative movement cannot be understood without investigating women’s activism. Women’s political participation sustained the transformation of the Republican party from an emphasis on economic issues to a focus on social issues, especially throughout the mid-late twentieth century. One key point of transformation was in the 1950’s, when Communism posed a very serious danger. Conservatives claimed that in Communist countries, women gave their children to government funded programs and went to work.1 This policy took women away from their assigned roles as wives and mothers. Another important turning point was in the 1960’s, when the United States saw sweeping …

Imagining A New Nation: Patriotism And National Identity In The Writing Of Late-18th Century American Women, Aysia S. Brenner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Benedict Anderson defined the nation as “an imagined political community” that is “imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” The research for this paper began with a desire to know how American women in the time leading up to, during, and immediately after the American Revolution and War of Independence did or did not imagine themselves as members of the newly emerging political community eventually known as the United States of America. As tensions between the Colonies and Great Britain increased, as tea was dumped in Boston harbor, and as independence was declared in 1776, how did women make sense …

Interpretresses: Native American Women Translators In Colonial America, Faith Clarkson

Undergraduate Research Awards

Underlying all the disputes and treaties between native Americans and Europeans was the need for an understanding of what the groups were saying to each other. Translation was the common denominator throughout the numerous interactions between native tribes in America and colonists coming over from Europe. In colonial America, translators were crucial to establishing relationships between native Americans and the Europeans that came to North America to create colonies. These interpreters operated in the in-between of two different cultures and they needed to be knowledgeable enough about both of them to correctly convey meaning to either side. It was also …

John Andrew Jackson: Enslaved Resistance, Uncle Tom’S Cabin, And The Downfall Of American Chattel Slavery, Alexander Ernst

Undergraduate Research Awards

John Andrew Jackson was a former slave who lived in the early-to-middle nineteenth century. After escaping slavery in South Carolina and making his way north to Massachusetts, Jackson was forced to head to Canada after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act. Jackson lectured about his experiences as a slave after he travelled to England and he eventually returned to South Carolina after the Civil War, to the place where he was enslaved, where he worked to improve the lives of other former slaves. During his journey to Canada Jackson met Harriet Beecher Stowe, who housed Jackson and helped him …

Printing Profanity: How The Homophiles Sought To Organize An American Gay Movement, Gina Wiese

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Gay history, as it is currently taught in America, centers the Stonewall Riots of 1969 as a cataclysm of social change for gay rights, and as the beginning of gay resistance. Most histories of gay resistance in America will mention efforts of early homophile organizations, and credit the Stonewall riots as a cumulation of those earlier efforts. But this is an inaccurate interpretation of gay history. The homophile movement deserves vastly more credit for how gay Americans navigate the world today than do the riots at the Stonewall Inn. This paper will identify these individuals and the several early organizations …

Mamas, Miners, & Movements: Women And Gendered Labor In Central Appalachia During The 20th Century, Devan M. Mullins

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to better analyze the contributions and experiences of women within the central Appalachian region through the work they participated in during the 20th century. It lays the foundational understandings of gender roles that crafted the society of the area and connects labor evolution for women within Appalachia and the US as a whole – highlighting similarities and differences. It also discusses Appalachian women’s move from the household to waged labor within the coal mines. Special attention will be paid to the reactions of men and other women to women coal miners to understand what gendered labor means …

“Country Faggots” Are Everywhere: Gay And Lesbian Life In Rural America, Katie Taylor

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis will challenge many scholarly works that define being “out” and visibility as the ultimate expression of gay resistance. To define outness as the ultimate expression of resistance is to erase a group of people who did not have the privilege of always being able to be out and any contributions they made towards LGBT resistance. When studying LGBT resistance, it is important to acknowledge the necessity of political resistance, but that does not mean that other forms of resistance should be ignored. To analyze the importance of LGBT resistance outside of the public sphere means to re-examine the …

Limitation, Liberation, And The Latter-Day Saints: The Establishment Of Mormon Womanhood In The Woman’S Exponent, 1872-1890, Meaghan Harrington

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Navigating the establishment of Mormon womanhood from 1872-1890 in the Exponent shows how Mormon women related to their outer world, their inner world, and themselves. This thesis analyzes the thoughts, feelings, and desires of a complex sociocultural grouping, and asks the reader to question their own attitudes towards gender and culture. The rhetoric of Mormon womanhood in the Exponent and the culture from which it stemmed have implications for understanding both “the rights of the women of Zion, and the rights of the women of all nations.”

Discursive Mapping: Alvar Núñez Cabeza De Vaca And Thomas Jefferson’S Construction Of Selfhood And Otherness, Monica Doebel

Undergraduate Research Awards

The binary of savage versus civilized was deeply embedded in the structure of early American society and the consciousness of early generations of colonizers, codified through multiple methods of inscribing meaning upon native land. Thomas Jefferson, in his pseudo-scientific Notes on the State of Virginia, taxonomizes life in native America using maps, charts, and textual descriptions for the purpose of consolidating an American identity premised on superiority over native people and black slaves. In contrast, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca maps native America purely through language, constructing the illusory infallibility of European colonizers while crafting an overall narrative of native …

The Spinster (2016), Hollins University

The Spinster

Yearbook of Hollins University (previously College)

The Civil War In Southwest Virginia, Darlene Richardson

Articles about Hollins and Special Collections

Ellen Adair was a sweet, somewhat silly 17-year-old and well into her second year at Hollins Institute when one day in January 1863, with the Civil War showing no sign of ending anytime soon, her father unexpectedly showed up to take her home. Ellen’s idyllic days as a Hollins student were ending, and fate held cards it had yet to show. Diary entries from the period show the impact of war on a formerly quiet part of the state.

The Spinster (2013), Hollins University

The Spinster

Yearbook of Hollins University

I Must And Will Survive: The Civil War-Era Diary Of Virginia Daniel Woodroof, Class Of 1866, Beth S. Harris

Articles about Hollins and Special Collections

Virginia Daniel Woodroof's diary covers many themes, including romantic love, duty to family and God, fear for those at war, college life, worry about the future, and the struggle to do the right thing. Virginia attended Hollins Institute 1864-1866. The diary covers February 1860 to October 1894..

The Lasting Importance Of Ephemera: What Scrapbooks, Diaries, Newspapers, And Receipts Tell Us About Life At Hollins During The Civil War., Karen Adams

Articles about Hollins and Special Collections

The University Archives and Special Collections at Hollins University contain a rich collection of documents, from academic catalogs, newspapers, and diaries to receipts, scrapbooks, and other artifacts. Together they tell a story of life at Hollins during the Civil War.

The Spinster (2012), Hollins University

The Spinster

Yearbook of Hollins University (previously College)

The Spinster (2011), Hollins University

The Spinster

Yearbook of Hollins University (previously College)

The Spinster (2010), Hollins University

The Spinster

Yearbook of Hollins University (previously College)

The Spinster (2009), Hollins University

The Spinster

Yearbook of Hollins University (previously College)

The Spinster (2008), Hollins University

The Spinster

Yearbook of Hollins University (previously College)

Hollins Columns (2007 May 2), Hollins College

Hollins Student Newspapers

Table of Contents:

• Campus security responds to tragedy
• Temporary appointments fill empty SGA positions
• QEP and SSLs: The ABCs of first year seminars
• Examples of QEP Seminars
• Hollins Students take a voluntary vow of silence
• Indie folk artist performs at Hollins
• Students frustrated with new email system
• Library extends hour for exams
• Spring 2007 exam schedule
• Hollins Alumni reappropriates porn
• Virginia tech victims are remembered
• Students question gun control policies
• Shapiro: A pretty good band
• Quality TV comes from "Mars"
• Media behavior shameful
• Columns Comic:
• Tennis team finished 3rd in ODAC
• In-House show offers friendly competition
• Fitness tips
• Hollins names …

Hollins Columns (2007 Apr 16), Hollins College

Hollins Student Newspapers

Table of Contents:

• Hollins elects new SGA officials
• Hollins riding places first in region, third at zone
• "Balanced Way" program offers healthy options
• Hollins golf team finished season
• "Smashed" author speaks to campus
• Renovations approved; said to start summer 2007
• Hollins professor receives George Garrett Award
• Students Participate in creating graffiti art
• Lee Smith: A true Hollins woman
• Green and gold go after the bra
• Hollins students venture "Into the Woods"
• SRLA Penny War Raises Money for SOS Fund
• A Night Out With the Drag Kings and Queens
• Porterdavis rocks our stacks
• Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in time at 84
• Fight …

Hollins Columns (2007 Apr 1), Hollins College

Hollins Student Newspapers

Table of Contents:

• Mrs. Degree teaches homemaking skills
• Hollins prepared for terrorist attacks
• Golf team sports Loch Ness Monster in pond
• Hollins students strip tease to success
• Out with Sodexho, in with Food Network Chefs
• Campus takes up cause to free Spears and Lohan
• 50% of Olsen Twins admitted to Hollins
• The gavel shares his life story
• "300" film embraced by Republican party
• This spring: Fugly is the New Black
• The straight and narrow path
• Columns Comic: Smokers vs. Capt Squirell
• Hollins wins Division III basketball title
• Fitness tips for bikini season

Hollins Columns (2007 Mar 13), Hollins College

Hollins Student Newspapers

Table of Contents:

• Grapheon presents 74th annual lit. fest
• Stables prevent spread of equine herpes
• Wilson Museum presents Godey's Lady's Book
• Students lend a helping hand in Lucea
• Housing Sign-ups Spring 2007
• Richard Rudolph conducts a new tune
• For students, Mrs. Dee means breakfast
• FBI Profiler speaks at Hollins
• OUTLoud sponsors drag king event
• Fans excited about "the Neon Bible"
• No excuse for smoking
• Hollins Comic: Critters vs. Smokers Part 1
• Varsity Tennis off to a promising start
• Lacrosse welcomes new members
• Fitness tips