Digital Commons Network^™

If I Had A Hammer: American Folk Music And The Radical Left, Sarah C. Kerley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Folk music is one of the most popular forms of music today; artists such as Mumford and Sons and the Carolina Chocolate Drops are giving new life to an age-old music. It was not until the 1950s that new popular interest in folk music began. Earlier, folk music was used by leftist organizations as a means to reach the masses. It assumed because of this history that many folk artists are sympathetic to the Left. By looking at the years from 1905-1975 with the end of the Vietnam War, this study hopes to present the notion that even though these …

The Czech-Egyptian Arms Deal Of 1955 : A Turning Point In Middle Eastern Cold War History., Thomas Michael Shaughnessy Skaggs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the Czechoslovakian-Egyptian arms deal of 1955 and analyzes how it impacted Middle Eastern Cold War policy. Central to the issue is Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser’s approach to garnering Pan-Arab Nationalist support and his decision to approach the Soviet Bloc for weapons and economic aid. Supporting evidence came from several repositories, including the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library. In addition to primary sources, a thorough examination of the existing scholarship was conducted. In conclusion, the Czech-Egyptian arms deal, more than any other event, cemented Nasser's place as champion …

Reverend Jonathan Fisher: One Thread In The Web Of Early American Education, 1780-1830, Brittany P. Cathey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jonathan Fisher was a remarkably gifted man with a passionate interest in the education of the future generations of Maine citizens. No historian, however, has yet to examine Jonathan Fisher’s connection to American educational trends. Primary and secondary schools had existed in colonial America since the 1630s. Fisher witnessed and participated in the transformation of American schooling through his involvement in the local schools, libraries and education within his home, his establishment and maintenance of the Blue Hill Academy and the Bangor Theological Seminary and the publication of his juvenile works The Youth’s Primer and Scripture Animals.

The first …

Window Into Cultural Manipulation: The Conservative Attack On National History Standards, 1994-1995, Todd Blanchette

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research looks into the public debate surrounding the release of proposed voluntary National History Standards within the context of the 1990s culture wars in the United States. The goal is to offer a glimpse into how history education is tied with notions of culture, and how conceptions of history and national identity were manipulated by individuals, spear headed by former NEH chairwoman Lynne Cheney, with a political motive. The author gives a brief context of the United States’ during the mid-1990s, including tenuous issues of race, gender, sexuality and multiculturalism. The origins and development of the national history standards …

Under The Shadow Of The Awful Gallows-Tree: The Murder Trials Of Thomas Dula And Ann Melton As A Case Study In Gender And Power In Reconstruction Era Western North Carolina, Heather L. Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a micro-history that explores everyday life on a small scale by tracing the common, if elusive lives of Thomas Dula, Ann Melton, and Laura Foster, and the communities they lived in, to explore the culture in which they lived—and died. Reactions to the murder unleashed an outpouring of discourse embedded in broader, national debates concerning gender roles. The dominant cultural theme that emerged from the murder trials as reflected in middle-class newspapers maintained that true women did not kill and real men acted as gentlemen and defenders of women’s honor. The project mines a wealth of primary source …

Encounters With The American Prairie: Realism, Idealism, And The Search For The Authentic Plains In The Nineteenth Century, Jacob L. Vines

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Great Plains are prevalent among the literature of the nineteenth century, but receive hardly a single representation among the landscapes of the Hudson River School. This is certainly surprising; the public was teeming with interest in the Midwest and yet the principal landscape painters who aimed to represent and idealize a burgeoning America offered hardly a glance past the Mississippi River. This geographical silence is the result of a tension between idealistic and empirical representations of the land, one echoed in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Prairie, Washington Irving’s A Tour on the Prairies, and Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the …

Bluegrass, Bildung, And Blueprints: The Little Shepherd Of Kingdom Come As An Appalachian Bildungsroman, Leona Shoemaker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come takes as its backdrop the American Civil War, as the author, John Fox, Jr., champions Kentucky's social development during the Progressive Era. Although often criticized for capitalizing on his propagation of regional stereotypes, I argue that the structure of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come is much more problematic than that. Recognizing the Bildungsroman as a vehicle for cultural and social critique in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century writing, this project offers an in-depth literary analysis of John Fox, Jr.'s novel, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, in which I contend the story itself is, …

Constructing The World's Largest Prison: Understanding Identity By Examining Labor, Hubert J. Gibson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

A Civil War prison camp operated by the Confederacy known as Camp Lawton was once considered the largest prison in the world. This label was attributed to the fact that Lawton’s stockade enclosed 42 acres. The historical record does not have a clear picture of who built it. Newspaper interviews claim the construction was carried out by 500 impressed slave laborers and 300 Union POWs, but these lack the credibility of official orders. Unfortunately, many Confederate documents were lost when Sherman’s army came through Millen, GA. This study archaeologically examines construction techniques utilized for building stockades in an effort …