Digital Commons Network^™

Frontier Respectability To Gilded Age Splendor: Women And Consumerism In The Cultural Development Of Bloomington, Illinois, 1839-1900, Kera B. Storrs

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the importance of late nineteenth century gender ideals and consumer practices in the development of the city of Bloomington in McLean County, Illinois. Most histories of not only Bloomington, but the greater Midwest, have focused on the rise of industry and business, and their effect on the development of the region. This study instead places women's social and cultural activities at the center of the story, and explains the significance of feminine consumption to the community's growth from a small frontier village to a Gilded Age city. While all of Bloomington's classes played a role in this …

Merchant Guilds, Local Autonomy, And Municipal Governance In A South China Treaty Port: Shantou, 1858- 1939, Fusheng Luo

Theses and Dissertations

Between the mid-nineteenth century and the 1930s, Shantou, a treaty port located at the southeast coast of China, evolved from a mere fishing village into an international port and a thriving commercial city. Shantou presents an unusual case study among the treaty ports of China on account of its location at the periphery of the empire and its connection to a South China Southeast Asia trading zone. The absence of Chinese imperial as well as foreign influence, combined with the centrality of trade to the city, allowed the local merchants to play dominant roles, settling trade disputes and taking over …

The Countryman: Joseph Addison Turner And The Cultural Construction Of Confederate Nationalism, Christina Lea Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This master's thesis starts from the premise that Confederate nationalism was not just a political entity, but a cultural project. It examines the role of print culture in shaping a distinctive and unified Confederate community. Emerging on the eve of the Civil War, Confederate nationalism flourished due to the creation and dissemination of southern print culture through newspapers and magazines. This thesis approaches the development of Confederate cultural nationalism through a case study, Joseph Addison Turner, who wrote and edited a weekly journal, The Countryman, from 1862 to 1866. Through The Countryman, Turner advocated and shaped white southern beliefs and …

Utilizing Illinois State University's Environmental Legacy And Historical Collections To Sustain A Global Future, Melissa Nergard

Theses and Dissertations

The scholarly capital of materials at Illinois State University includes numerous natural history collections from the mid-nineteenth century that hold significant research and historical value. Changes in pedagogical methods and academic leadership, however, created confusion and territorial competition in who would preserve and manage the collections. Consequently some specimens from those early collections have been both lost and forgotten. This thesis used a systems approach to track the material losses incurred when institutional support shifted in the 1870s, and the original collectors and curators left Central Illinois for national interests in Washington, D.C. Yet, historical environmental collections have become increasingly …

An Old Soldier's View Of The Early Cold War, 1949-1953, Daniel Scott

Theses and Dissertations

This Master's Thesis examines General Douglas MacArthur's strategic assessments which led to his pursuit of the expansion of the Korean War beyond the Yalu River. By examining General MacArthur's actions during the Korean War, I clarify the reason behind his desire to expand the war into Manchuria and China. This evaluation also provides insight into MacArthur's overall early Cold War strategy - 1949-1953. This Master's Thesis challenges the notion that General MacArthur's desire to use atomic weaponry in the expansion of the Korean War as being indicative of a flawed personality or a lack of understanding of the geopolitical situation. …

"Building A 'Temple Of Temperance': The Repeal Of Prohibition In Virginia And The Alcoholic Beverage Control Act", Alexandra T. Silva

Theses and Dissertations

"BUILDING A ‘TEMPLE OF TEMPERANCE’: THE REPEAL OF PROHIBITION IN VIRGINIA AND THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL ACT”

By Alexandra T. Silva, Bachelor of Arts, 2011

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015

Major Director: Dr. John T. Kneebone, Chair, Virginia Commonwealth University Department of History

This project examines the process by which the Commonwealth of Virginia repealed its statewide prohibition laws and the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933 and created a public monopoly system of alcohol control in 1934. It provides an overview of …

Confederate Richmond: A City's Call To Arms, Tucker L. Modesitt

Theses and Dissertations

This work mainly focuses on putting the laborers of the Richmond Armory and the Tredegar Iron Works into the context of Civil War Richmond by focusing on their skills, backgrounds, and loyalties throughout the conflict. It highlights the similarities and differences between the two institutions and the legacies that they left behind in the years following the war. It also sheds light on some of the problems facing the Confederacy during the course of the war and its struggle to procure arms.

On The Trade Winds Of Faith: Puritan Networks In The Making Of An Atlantic World, Rachel L. Monroy

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation dismisses the New England dominance of colonial puritan historiography to argue that an interconnected community of Atlantic puritans pursued an alternate path to their faith apart from the Massachusetts Bay experiment. While a number of Atlantic puritans emerged from the nucleus of the Ancient Church and others eventually joined those original networks, ultimately membership within the puritan Atlantic involved the embrace of a particular attitude about faith, commerce, and political involvement. Atlantic puritans were concerned with the spiritual fate of Europeans and Native Americans scattered throughout the Caribbean and along the Atlantic coastline of North America as central …

Crabgrass Piety: The Rise Of Megachurches And The Suburban Social Religion, 1960-2000, Nathan Joseph Saunders

Theses and Dissertations

Although there were less than twenty megachurches (churches averaging over two thousand in weekly attendance) in the United States before 1960, by 2010 there were approximately fifteen hundred. Megachurches are not a homogenous group, but they exist in all parts of the country and they have enough in common to warrant their identification as part of a coherent trend in American evangelical culture. Specifically, most megachurches appeal to an ethos that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s known as the suburban social religion. The suburban social religion combined to differing degrees the American civil religion described by Robert Bellah, meritocratic …

Shifting Authority At The Confederate Relic Room, 1960-1986, Kristie L. Dafoe

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the Confederate Relic Room and its final years in the hands of the United Daughters of the Confederacy before the South Carolina state government fully took over the museum. This small, localized perspective on the organization shows that the UDC was still actively commemorating the Civil War well into the late twentieth century, which challenges the current historiography that consistently ends in the 1930s. By researching this museum, insight into how the UDC’s mission and public perception had changed can be gained. In order to fully examine the museum’s history in the late twentieth century, this thesis …

National Register Nomination For St. James The Greater Catholic Mission, Diana Garnett

Theses and Dissertations

St. James the Greater Catholic Mission constitutes a rare and possibly unique site on the American landscape. Comprising a church, a schoolhouse, and a cemetery, the mission parish serves the rural black community south of Walterboro, South Carolina. Black Catholics in rural America are a rarity unto themselves, but the St. James blacks are particularly extraordinary. Parishioners today trace their roots to ancestors who were slaves of Irish Catholic planters in the 1820s and 1830s. Originally biracial, the parish evolved into a predominantly black congregation by the middle of the nineteenth century. The early white heritage exists quietly on today …

"This Is A Little Beauty": Preserving The Legacy Of The Columbia Cottage, Kayla Boyer Halberg

Theses and Dissertations

In 1965 the built environment of the city of Columbia, South Carolina, was in a state of flux. An active urban renewal campaign existed in the city for nearly a decade prompting a reactionary historic preservation movement. Upon a collaborative recommendation from the Historic and Cultural Buildings Commission and the Historic Columbia Foundation, City Council hired architectural historian Dr. Harold N. Cooledge to conduct an architectural and feasibility survey. In his report, Cooledge identified the Columbia Cottage, a vernacular form widespread throughout the historic neighborhoods of South Carolina’s capital city. His use of the term “Columbia Cottage” to label the …

Making La Ciudad Blanca: Race, Region, And Reconstruction In Nation Building Bolivia, Caleb Wittum

Theses and Dissertations

Prior to the 1899 Federal Revolution, Sucre elite used the memory of Chuquisaca independence exploits to justify their rule and imagine a future for the Bolivian nation. These symbols became widespread in the Bolivian public sphere and were the dominant national discourse for the Bolivian nation. However, dissatisfied highland elite began crafting an alternative national project and these two competing Nationalisms clashed and eventually led to the 1899 Federal Revolution. Following the war, the Liberal Party allowed and even supported a continuation of the Sucre based origin story in the Valley regions of Bolivia. This has created ideas of “Sucrense …

Boundary Stones: Morbid Concretions And The Chemistry Of Early Nineteenth Century Medicine, Edward Allen Driggers Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation is the story of communities of physicians seeking to understand the morbid concretion of the body using the new chemistry from the late eighteenth century. Morbid concretions, or calculi, were occurred in the urinary passages, lungs, joints, pancreas, uterus, and other areas of the body. At the turn of the nineteenth century, some physicians saw analytical chemistry, emerging out of the so-called chemical revolution, as applicable in understanding and treating stone-based diseases. However, some physicians and surgeons saw the treatment of stones with chemistry as evidence of the need to return to older practices of medicine, like humoral …

Foundations Of Memory: Effects Of Organizations On The Preservation And Interpretation Of The Slave Forts And Castles Of Ghana, Britney Danielle Ghee

Theses and Dissertations

The historical understanding of a place is bent to the will of the passage of time, but is susceptible to the pressures of entities that lay claim to the space. The memory of forts and castles dispersed along the tropical shorelines of Ghana have been remembered, forgotten, and rediscovered several times over the span of five centuries. But how has their story been changed? What is privileged and created for the collective memory and what has been concealed? The buildings currently serve as memorials to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but this understanding is complicated by the previous preservation motives and …

Living In A Gangsta’S Paradise: Dr. C. Delores Tucker’S Crusade Against Gansta Rap Music In The 1990s, Jordan A. Conway

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines Dr. C. DeLores Tucker’s efforts to abolish the production and distribution of gangsta rap to the American youth. Though her efforts were courageous and daring, they were not sufficient. The thesis will trace Tucker’s crusade beginning in 1992 through the end of the 1990s. It brings together several themes in post-World War II American history, such as the issues of race, gender, popular culture, economics, and the role of government. The first chapter thematically explores Tucker’s crusade, detailing her methodology and highlighting pivotal events throughout the movement. The second chapter discusses how opposition from rap artists, and …

Race And Mental Illness At A Virginia Hospital: A Case Study Of Central Lunatic Asylum For The Colored Insane, 1869-1885, Caitlin Doucette Foltz

Theses and Dissertations

In 1869 the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia passed legislation that established the first asylum in the United States to care exclusively for African-American patients. Then known as Central Lunatic Asylum for the Colored Insane and located in Richmond, Virginia, the asylum began to admit patients in 1870. This thesis explores three aspects of Central State Hospital's history during the nineteenth century: attitudes physicians held toward their patients, the involuntary commitment of patients, and life inside the asylum. Chapter One explores the nineteenth-century belief held by southern white physicians, including those at Central State Hospital, that freed people …

Community Development And Development In Communities: Challenges To The Miami-Dade County Historic Preservation Ordinance, Max Adriel Imberman

Theses and Dissertations

In Miami-Dade County, Florida, historic preservation is most powerful at the county level. The county’s historic preservation office has the power of administration over most municipalities within its borders. In 2014, organized resistance against the county office was sparked by an attempt to declare a mid-century modern section of the town of Bay Harbor Islands as an historic district. Opposition to county management of historic preservation affairs in Bay Harbor culminated in an attempted amendment to the county historic preservation ordinance that would allow municipalities to opt out of county supervision. This thesis examines the arguments used by county preservation …

The Sensory Environments Of Civil War Prisons, Evan A. Kutzler

Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation explores the experiences of four hundred thousand Union and Confederate prisoners during the American Civil War. While much has been written on the overlapping experiences of soldiers, civilians, and slaves, less attention has been paid to those behind masonry walls or wooden stockades. The premise of the dissertation, borrowed from the theory and methodology of sensory history, is that while human sensory physiology changes slowly over time, perception is fluid and varies by time, place, and culture. Drawing from nearly two hundred unpublished manuscripts as well as newspapers, government records, and postwar narratives, this dissertation explores the experiences …

Interdisciplinary Connections Between Science & Theatre, Jessica N. Dotson

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SCIENCE & THEATRE

Jessica Nicole Dotson

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015.

Major Director: Dr. Noreen C. Barnes, Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor of Theatre

In the 1990s, astronomer Peter Usher was searching for new ways to teach his introductory astronomy class at Pennsylvania State University. He began to engage his students by searching for astronomical connections from other disciplines. His focus was turned to the arts, especially the works of William Shakespeare. Usher found, while …

The Integration History Of Kuwaiti Television From 1957-1990: An Audience-Generated Oral Narrative On The Arrival And Integration Of The Device In The City, Ahmad Hamada

Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to compose an account of television history in Kuwait, one that focuses on its integration into society and is told from the audience's perspective and experience. This study represents a cultural alternative to the overwhelmingly national, institutional, and biographical focus that accompanies television history works in Kuwait and the Arab world.

The narrative is gathered and generated through the individual oral stories of 25 Kuwaitis over the age of 50, who generally represent the six geographical districts of Kuwait. Through their oral stories, the narrators examine the different areas in which television has integrated itself into society …

The Fancy Trade And The Commodification Of Rape In The Sexual Economy Of 19th Century U.S. Slavery, Tiye A. Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine the Fancy Trade—the buying and selling of mixed-race enslaved women for the primary purpose of prostitution and concubinage—through an intersectionality lens. Therefore, I will explore a culture of rape through the lived experiences of fancy maids, the women who were sold as sex commodities in the 19th century domestic slave trade. Who was she? Using an intersectionality framework to answer the proposed questions will achieve the following. First, it will highlight the social constructions of race, gender, and sexuality within the 19th century southern context. Secondly, an intersectional methodology will explore the …

Knowing In America: The Enlightenment, Science, And The Early Republic, Timothy K. Minella

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes practices of science and technology in the early United States as windows onto the American Enlightenment. Although scholars have emphasized the important impact of Enlightenment thought on the American founding, the historiography tends to argue for the decreasing influence of the Enlightenment on American culture as the nineteenth century progressed. In addition, scholars tend to see a decline in American science after Benjamin Franklin as nineteenth-century Americans began to focus primarily on the practical problems of everyday life. I question these interpretations by connecting scientific practice in the Early Republic with transatlantic Enlightenment thought and analyzing American …

Of Mammoths, Mastodons, Megalonyxes, And The Nation: Jefferson And The Question Of American Degeneracy, 1780-1812, Marlena B. Cameron

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

'The Sancity Of Womanhood': John Ruskin And The Medieval Madonna, Katherine M. Hinzman

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

How And Why Patrons Of The Arts Used Music As A Form Of Political Currency From 1780 To 1800, Mark J. Sciuchetti Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.