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Georgia Ghosts: History, Folklore, And The Roots Of The Southern Gothic, Katherine M. Mcdowell

Master's Projects

There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.

Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By …

Y'All Like Ike: Tennessee, The Solid South, And The 1952 Presidential Election, Cameron N. Regnery

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the changing nature of politics in the American South, specifically through the 1952 presidential election in the state of Tennessee. For much of the South’s history, the region was dominated by the Democratic party, earning it the nickname the “Solid South”. Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the South became an aggressively one-party region in which the Republican party found little electoral success and the Democratic party reigned supreme. This partisanship began showing signs of fracturing in 1948 when southern Democrats began to leave the party over racial issues. The presidency of Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) further …

Y'All Eat: Foodways, Performative Regional Identity, And The South In The Twenty-First Century, Kirsten Schofield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

"Y'all Eat: Foodways, Performative Regional Identity, and the South in the Twenty-first Century" examines the ways in which iconic Southerners--Jim Beam and his ilk, Colonel Harland Sanders, and Paula Deen--create and sustain the hypercontemporary South. Because of their media exposure and place in the popular imagination, these characters force a specific kind of performance in both an intergroup and intragroup context. Close readings of individual appearances and selected portions of these characters' output help to shed light on how these identities are formed, upon what they rely for structure and support, and what this means for modern consumers around the …

Behind The Fan: Conservative Activists In The New Orleans Christian Woman's Exchange, 1881-1891, Gabrielle Walker

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 1881, Margaret Bartlett of New Orleans crafted the Christian Woman's Exchange using the New York Exchange chapter as a model. Bartlett hoped this new organization would help alleviate at least some of the economic suffering "reduced gentlewomen"faced. Despite the Exchange's original mission to help the elite, the group soon crossed class and racial boundaries in a campaign of conservative activism. The Christian Woman's Exchange helped women provide for their families by training them to produce homemade goods for sale in consignment shops. Simultaneously, working-class women found employment within the Christian Woman's Exchange lunch room and other business ventures. Since …

Growing Up Biracial In A Southern Elementary School, Julie M. Kight

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explored the relationship between racial identity of biracial children (defined as fifty percent Black and fifty percent White) and their academic experiences in a southern elementary school setting. This dissertation ventured further to explore the curriculum in a southern elementary school setting and whether it meets the academic needs of the biracial child and includes the biracial child. This dissertation reflected on artifacts collected and analyzed narratives from the participants involved. These participants included six biracial female students in grades three through five. The current research employed Critical Race Theory as its theoretical framework. Critical Race Theory is …

Beyond The Solid South: Southern Members Of Congress And The Vietnam War, Mark David Carson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

From the beginning of America's involvement in Vietnam in 1943 to its disastrous end in 1975, southern members of Congress exerted a significant influence on and expressed divergent opinions about Cold War foreign policy. In part because of an enormous increase in military spending in the South fueled by prominent membership on military committees, congressional hawks were more inclined to support military aid for countries fighting communism and accept military over civilian advice in prosecuting the Cold War. Hawkish southerners embraced containment wholeheartedly, exhibited an intense patriotism, and concerned themselves with upholding personal and national honor. Therefore, with some prominent …