Digital Commons Network^™

The Maritime Revival: Antimodernity, Class, And Culture, 1870--1940, Glenn Michael Grasso

Doctoral Dissertations

Between 1870 and 1940, Americans redefined their perceptions, ideas, and cultural meanings of seafaring under sail. The Maritime Revival---a cultural phenomenon that took the workaday nineteenth-century maritime world and converted it into an archetypical exercise in essential Americanism---selectively picked stories, symbols, and specific lifestyles and elevated them to heroic status. Part of larger nineteenth-century revivalism, the Maritime Revival created an image of seafaring that was a small subset of the entire experience-as-lived. By the 1930s, Americans recognized a heroic, but lost, golden age of sailing ships that did not correspond to the maritime world that had once been a ubiquitous …

A Wild Web: The Tangled History Of Attitudes Toward Wildlife In A Dynamic New England Culture, 1945--1985, Mary H. Hopkins

Doctoral Dissertations

Attitudes toward wildlife are considerably more complex than one might suspect. This dissertation started with a hypothesis that population growth would correlate with increasing negative attitudes toward wildlife, but historical evidence only partially supports this hypothesis. Information about the frequency and types of wildlife references appearing in newspapers between 1945 and 1985 was gathered from a systematic sampling of six New Hampshire newspapers that represented towns with differing growth trends. While analysis of quantitative data minimized any correlation between growth and negative attitudes, qualitative data from newspaper articles, archival sources, government reports, books and articles, and other sources provided evidence …

Prodigal Sons: Indigenous Missionaries In The British Atlantic World, 1640--1780, Edward E. Andrews

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the hundreds of black and Native American preachers who worked as Christian missionaries in the early modern British Atlantic world. While scholars have generally accepted the convention that most missionaries were white Europeans who knew little about the native peoples they were trying to convert, there were practical and theological explanations for why native preachers not only became ubiquitous, but often outnumbered their white counterparts in Protestant missions. The language barrier, the opportunity to tap into extensive kinship networks, and early modern interpretations of black and Indian bodies all catalyzed the formation of an indigenous evangelical corps …

The Taxpayer As Reformer: 'Pocketbook Politics' And The Law, 1860--1940, Linda Upham-Bornstein

Doctoral Dissertations

Taxes and the citizens' tax burden have always been at the hub of American politics. This dissertation opens up consideration of taxpayers as political and legal actors, who saw paying taxes as a source of political legitimacy and empowerment. It examines the powerful connection between organized taxpayer activity, political reform, and the law.

Organized taxpayers have relied heavily on the law in general, and on taxpayers' lawsuits in particular, to promote their interests and political reform. During the last half of the nineteenth century courts, and legislatures throughout the nation came to recognize the right of taxpayers to bring suit …

Explaining Partition: Reconsidering The Role Of The Security Dilemma In The Cyprus Crisis Of 1974, Michael Todd Smith

Master's Theses and Capstones

In this thesis the proposed link between a security dilemma at the domestic-level of analysis and partition following ethnic conflict is examined in the context of the Cyprus crisis of 1974. The original framework of the argument being examined was offered by Chaim Kaufmann and is analyzed here by comparing and contrasting the history of Cyprus with the components of the framework. The thesis suggests that the framework does not adequately explain the partition in the case of Cyprus, as the history of that conflict does not reflect the components observable in the proposed linkage between the security dilemma and …

The Sewanee Football Narrative: Christianity, Southern Honor, And Intercollegiate Football At The University Of The South, 1890--1899, J W. Bozzi

Master's Theses and Capstones

By the turn of the twentieth century, intercollegiate football had developed a loyal following throughout the United States; however, since the game originated and rose to prominence in New England, national attention generally remained focused on the Northeast. As a consequence, historians of early collegiate sport have almost exclusively focused upon Yale, Harvard, and a handful of Northeastern colleges, and have promulgated the idea that football in the nineteenth century supported the ideals of northern industrialism. This limited view fails to recognize the fact that as a cultural text, football told a story that was interpreted by many different groups, …

John Robinson: The Man They Would Not Let Us Forget, Kathleen C. Beliveau

Master's Theses and Capstones

Very little is known of John Robinson. This paper endeavors to partially remedy this problem. In order to attempt such a significant project a variety of works were consulted.

While there is very little information about Robinson's first eighteen years, we can piece together insight from the times in which he lived. Further clues come from his own writings while the reminiscences of those who knew him offer additional insight.

Secondary writings include authors such as the late O.S. Davis, William Wallace Fenn, and Perry Miller. Contemporary authors encompass Stephen Brachlow, Timothy George, and Keith Sprunger. A few pictures have …

The Federal Art Project In Provincetown, Massachusetts: The Impact Of A Relief Program On An Established Art Colony, Whitney E. Smith

Master's Theses and Capstones

The Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration had a lasting impact on the American art scene. The experiences of artists associated with the Provincetown, Massachusetts art colony make evident the impact of the federal relief programs. The importance of the Provincetown art colony to the American art scene survived through the 1930s because of federal support. The focus on Provincetown and this smaller group of artists allows for comparisons to be made with the national society and art scene. The value of the Federal Art Project did not lie mainly in the finished artwork, but rather in the …