Digital Commons Network^™

Vice In The Veil Of Justice: Embedding Race And Gender In Frontier Tourism, Daniel Richard Maher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes how "frontier" discourses in Fort Smith, Arkansas simultaneously constitute mythological narratives that elide the deleterious effects of imperialism, racism, and sexism, while they operate as marketing schemes in the wager that they will attract cultural heritage tourists. It examines material exhibits and interpretive history programs at locations including the Fort Smith National Historic Site, Fort Smith Museum of History, Miss Laura's Visitor's Center, and the Clayton House; in texts such as the 1898 book by Samuel Harman whose title forever branded Fort Smith as Hell on the Border; in the subsequent branding and marketing derived from the …

Annie Oakley, Gender, And Guns: The "Champion Rifle Shot" And Gender Performance, 1860-1926, Sarah Russell

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

From A Northern Home To A Southern School: Cultural Imperialists Or Just Stubborn Yankees, Janel Janiczek Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the cultural influences on the lives of northern teachers in southern schools. During the 1860s, white, northern, middle-class women traveled to southern homes to begin and maintain schools for the recently freed slaves. Each woman carried with her an independent set of cultural systems that predetermined her perspective for educating the African American students. Furthermore, the northern relief agencies, Freedmen's Bureau agents, southern white citizens, and southern freedmen all had their own opinions for the education of the students. Although much time has elapsed between the 1860s and 2013, the same topics …

The Power To Protect Themselves: Gender, Protective Labor Legislation, And Public Policy In Michigan, 1883-1913, Amy Marie-Holtman French

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study provides a narrative of laborers' fight for legal protection through the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Since American law was one of the most important forces in shaping and limiting workplace reform, both labor unionists and reformers used the law to try to solve labor problems. Reformers employed the law to force state control over women and children, while labor unionists attempted to craft legislation to allow working men control over industrial relations.

Although society and the law treated men as independent agents, working men were not truly free. Common law designated workers as servants. Employers denied laboring …