Digital Commons Network^™

Luke Pryor Blackburn: The Good Samaritan, Nancy Baird

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Luke Pryor Blackburn, Kentucky’s only physician governor, is one of the forgotten public health figures of the 19^th century. As health officer of Natchez in the 1850s he instituted the first effective quarantine used in the Mississippi Valley and became a strong advocate of its use as a preventive measure in the control of yellow fever. During his lifetime Blackburn also became well known for his unselfish aid to communities stricken with the disease.

In March 1878 announced his candidacy for governor of his native state. Local politicians scoffed at his chances for election, but his actions during the …

Tradition And Chance In The Indo-Anglican Novels Of The Post-Independence Era, Margaret Lindley Koch

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The theme of the conflict of old and new, tradition and modernity, east and west in contemporary India has been a major concern of many Indo-Anglican novelists of the post-independence era. This study focuses on the reactions of various authors to this theme, as expressed by their treatment of it in the novels.

Four particular aspects of the theme which are explored in the novels, the fate of the family, economic upheaval, a questioning of religion, and the impact of the conflict on the individual person are discussed.

Three reactions to the tension facing contemporary India are expressed by the …

The Rhetoric Of Laura Clay: A Southern Argument For Woman Suffrage, Margaret Wesolowski

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study focused on the persuasive efforts of Laura Clay (1848-1941) as they represented a particularly southern argument for woman suffrage as opposed to the northern, or National American Woman Suffrage Association, suffrage argument. As a Kentuckian, she believed she understood southern attitudes on the three major issues she encountered during her thirty-two years as a suffragist.

The three issues were those of woman's traditional role, the race question, and state versus federal legislation. The arguments of Miss Clay concerning these issues were premised on justice and expediency, which formed the rationale of suffragist rhetoric.

Her arguments, tailored to southerners, …

The Beeson Farmstead: A Study Of The Functional Aspects Of A Black Farm In The Richland Community, Annelen Archbold

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study documents the lifestyle on a small, prosperous black farmstead in the Richland community of Butler County, Kentucky. It is based on extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted with Percy Beeson, owner of the farm for aver fifty years. The result of the fieldwork and interviews was the documentation of how this farmstead, maintained without mechanical farm equipment, worked as a functional unit on a year-round basis.

As a functional unit, the Beeson farmstead is described in terms of the Beeson family and their ownership of the farm and the breakdown of the property into two dependent units. In the …

The Effects Of A Short Term Preacademic Total Approach Program On The Language Development Of Disadvantaged Children, Doug Richter

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This research tests a short term total academic language development program on the development of language delayed children. It was hypothesized that an increase in vocabulary and response length after a six week treatment program would be reflected on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Mean Length of Response Test. The treatment program utilized both the group and tutorial approach emphasizing the basic skills associated with listening, language, reading, writing and arithmetic. The subjects were nine-preschool Head Start children participating in a summer program at Western Kentucky University. A comparison of the performance on pre and post test revealed …

The Growth Of Anti-British Attitudes In Kentucky Prior To War Of 1812, Edward Pippin Jr.

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study is to examine the causes of belligerency in Kentucky in this period of diplomatic crisis, thus examining the second level of causation for the war as suggested by Brown's study. The test case used is Kentucky which was known as one of the states most anxious for war against Britain, both in Congress and in the state itself. However, this study will not attempt to interpret the role of the state's representatives in the Congress of the United States, since, if Brown is correct in his interpretation, the causes of public belligerency had little to …

An Analysis Of The Themes Of Guilt And Atonement In The Writings Of Tennessee Williams, James Curry

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The themes of guilt and atonement have been analyzed in selected writings of Tennessee Williams. Research concerning these two themes has been developed simultaneously with Williams’s concept of the universe and man. Many of Williams’s characters seek a form of atonement or purification for their guilt which has arisen due to their “incompleteness and unnatural desires.” Williams’s basic concept concerning the universe is that it is fragmented, a universe not completed by its Creator. Consequently, Williams envisions man and his nature to be likewise incomplete. It is this incompletion in man which causes him to have “unnatural desires,” labeled as …

Jane Austens' Attitude Toward The Position Of Women, Carol Burford

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Jane Austen's attitude toward the position of middle-class women at the end of the eighteenth century is examined in the context of her life and thought and the women characters in her six novels. Comparisons are made with the position of women today regarding marriage, work, and the goals of the women's liberation movement. Jane Austen shared with feminists a recognition of the need for self-fulfillment. Because she was a realist, she provided fulfillment for her heroines through the only vehicle that was available to most women of her time--marriage. The solution she worked out for satisfying this need in …

Gertrude & Volumnia: Their Influences On Their Sons At The Climaxes Of The Plays, Laddawan Bunchoo

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The examination of the climaxes of the two plays Hamlet, and Coriolanus, illustrates that the two mothers, Gertrude and Volumnia, have destructive influences on their sons. The closet scene in Hamlet reflects that Gertrude's second marriage and her choice of Claudius shatter Hamlet's Idealization of her in the role of the faithful wife and the virtuous mother. Hamlet's inaction and destruction are caused in part by his mother's influence.

Volumnia's influence both shapes and destroys her son. She rears him as the embodiment of her chivalric ideal of nobility. The climactic scene in this play reveals that Coriolanus' …

Individuality & Art: The Search For Fulfillment In Willa Cather's Heroines, Nancy Moore

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Willa Cather believed very firmly in two things: individuality and art. The purpose of this study is to show Cather's intense dedication to the pursuit of individual artistic achievement as depicted by the heroines of seven Cather novels: O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), My Antonia (1918), A Lost Lady (1923), My Mortal Enemy (1926), Lucy Gayheart (1935), and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940). Cather was concerned about whether or not woman as artist could succeed or be forever bound by sexual limitation. She devoted her life to the worship of art and the belief that …

A Comparative Study Of German And Kentucky Moon Beliefs, Katherine Martin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A body of moon beliefs from Kentucky was compared with a body of moon beliefs from Germany to discover similarities and dissimilarities between the two and to ascertain how well a body of beliefs (specifically moon beliefs) can be transferred from the Old World to the New World. The presence of a German culture in Kentucky was established and parallels were drawn between the structure, function, and esthetic aspects of both groups of beliefs. The Kentucky moon beliefs that migrated from 'Germany showed a surprising persistence, considering the move to America, change of language, and exposure to unfamiliar cultures. Some …

Parallelisms In Attitude Of Vietnam Veterans & Veterans Of The Indian Wars As Reflected In Memoirs & Oral Traditions, Charles Martin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Oral narratives of Vietnam War veterans, collected at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, were paralleled to the written narratives of the Indian War soldiers abstracted from existing diaries, journals and autobiographies. A statistical analysis was applied to the Vietnam War texts to discern the attitudes of the informants as a group. Informants' attitudes towards the enemy and the enemy's guerrilla fighting style were shown to be similar to the attitudes of the Indian War soldiers in both areas. Both sets of similar attitudes resulted in high levels of frustration which produced occasional atrocities. By the application of folklore and folklore fieldwork, in …

The Influence Of Turner's Frontier Thesis Upon American Religious Historiography, William Riley Jr.

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Frederick Jackson Turner exercised considerable influence among American religious historians during the first four decades of the twentieth century, especially at the University of Chicago's Divinity School, William Warren Sweet, the father of American church history, became the major religious popularizer and adherent of Turner's frontier thesis. Sweet's professional secular training and adaptation of the frontier thesis in historiography allowed him to make church history a respectable academic study among American secular historians. After the Second World War American historiography underwent a shaking of its progressive foundations, and a similar parallel was found in religious historiography. The New Church History …