Digital Commons Network^™

Grayscale Thoughts: Reactions To Brown V. Board Of Education, Haylee Orlowski

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

The 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education established that the segregation of public schools based on race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Across the United States, there was a spectrum of reactions to Brown. Responses ranged from optimism and celebration to anger and violence. This paper surveys the varied reception of Brown from politicians, parents, teachers, journalists, and other parties. It acknowledges the grayscale of opinions within and across demographic lines. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the complexity of a critical moment in the civil rights movement to prevent …

The Committee On Public Information And The Four Minute Men: How The United States Sold A European War To American People, Madison Mcternan

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

Shortly after America’s entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson created the Committee on Public Information to garner public support for the War. This committee was created not only to drum up support for the war, but to ease a public frustrated by an isolationist president’s entry into such a conflict. Notable reporter and writer George Creel served as its chairman, and together with countless others created a massive propaganda campaign. The Committee was incredibly successful in its mission of “selling the war.” This was largely due to the fact that Creel and his men revolutionized the way propaganda …

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 …

Baseball At The Precipice Of A Watershed Moment In The Production Of The Popular, Nathan E. Vaughn

Madison Historical Review

Baseball's 1919 season has been seen in two different ways. First, it has been seen as a triumphant season in which Babe Ruth ended the Dead-Ball Era and brought baseball into a productive Live-Ball Era. Second, it has been seen as disastrous season ending in the Black Sox Scandal, the worst sin in baseball history. Traditionally, the social historical perspective has made sense of these differing views by noting the power of the capitalist owners over their player-employees. In banning the eight Black Sox for life, the owners forcefully removed the offending party and brought their sport into line without …

Little Steel’S Labor War In Youngstown, Ben J. St. Angelo

Madison Historical Review

During the 1930s, in response to growing labor discontent, the United States Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Championed by President Franklin Roosevelt’s as an equalizing measure in the American workplace, the NLRA received vigorous opposition from powerful leaders in multiple industries. This article examines an outbreak of violence between workers and agents of management at Republic Steel in Youngstown, Ohio during the spring and summer of 1937 when workers attempted to organize—emboldened by new rights granted to them in the NLRA. It demonstrates the life and death consequences that marred labor relations in the United States. Disputes …

A Distinction Without A Difference: Vietnam, Sir Robert Thompson, And The Policing Failures Of Vietnam, Mark J. Rothermel

Madison Historical Review

The scholarship analyzing the failure of the American involvement in Vietnam began even before the war finished. Whether the Orthodox School which considered the war unwinnable or the revisionist which argued there was a path to victory for the Americans, there have been libraries of tomes arguing who or what was to blame for the American defeat. An increased amount of scholarship recently has been written regarding the influence of British officer Sir Robert Thompson and his attempt to advise both the South Vietnamese and American war efforts.

Thompson, who gained fame as one of the key leaders for the …

The Bourgeois Blues: Representations Of Race And Authenticity In The Songs Of Lead Belly, Jonathan Lower

Madison Historical Review

Abstract to come.

Sleeping With Storyville: The Influence Of Media, Race, And Morality In New Orleans’ Red Light District, Tiffany R. Nelson

Masters Theses, 2020-current

In 1897, the red-light district of Storyville was officially consecrated in New Orleans, Louisiana. Storyville encapsulated centuries’ worth of Southern cultural, social, and political values that culminated in the creation of a legally recognized district of vice. New Orleans was an economically situated city, profiting from the business and tourist routes provided by the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River. Known throughout the nation for a plethora of negative attributes, such as disease, prostitution, and murder, New Orleans developed a national reputation as a city of immorality, which was only furthered by the creation of a red-light district.

In exploring …

Worse Than Birmingham: How Segregationists In Danville Obstructed The Civil Rights Movement, Lauren E. Oakes

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis explores the civil rights movement in Danville, Virginia, and focuses on the tactics employed by prominent white men who, because they controlled the city’s leading institutions of power, were able to effectively squelch the movement by the end of the 1963 summer. This paper also traces how the Danville movement followed the path of the classical phase of the national civil rights movement, and represents the manner in which broader trends and events played out in small southern cities. The Danville movement began with a student-led sit-in at the whites only public library a few months after the …

Immigration After The Great Famine: A Case Study Of The Passengers Of The S.S. Canadian, Erin Kelly

Masters Theses, 2020-current

From 1879 to 1881 Western Ireland suffered a famine that left one million people in a state of destitution. To assist the starving, impoverished farming communities that were scattered across the region English Quaker and philanthropist James Hack Tuke successfully pitched the Tuke Emigration Scheme to the UK government in 1882, lasting through 1884. While historians of Irish immigration have recently begun to research famines other than the Great Famine, very few have delved more deeply into this particular scheme. Of those who have, including Christine Kinnealy and Gerard Moran, analysis has been limited to the perspective of Ireland and …