Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Machines In Desolation: Images Of Technology In The Great Basin Of The American West, Todd Shallat

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mythic thinking about technology as an engine of progress has shaped the ways Americans have come to perceive the boundaries of vacant space. In the Great Basin of the Rocky Mountains, where the West still appears to the East as empty and formless, photography and art tell richly symbolic stories about wastelands transformed into wealth. Often those stories aggrandize machines and engineering. The essay presents a visual sampling of machines remaking the desert from three historical eras. First, from the postbellum era of the transcontinental railroad, are pictures of barrens redeemed by science and industrialization. Second, from pioneer Utah, are …

Vigilante Violence Vs. Freedom Of Choice In Marriage: The Foray/Zajazd In The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Of The 18th Century, Lynn Lubamersky

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

The most famous poem in the Polish language, ‘Pan Tadeusz’ by Adam Mickiewicz, tells of the foray – an institution where the nobles might carry out acts of vigilante violence. Generally speaking, noble families would make use of the court system in search of justice, but if they could not gain justice within the courts system, they might seek vengeance through violent collective action. In some cases, the reason why estates were being raided and their inhabitants attacked was that noble families claimed to be defending the family honor. They might say that a lady’s honor had been insulted if …

Branding Basques, Bilbao, And Boise: Marketing As Metaphor For History, John Bieter, Nina M. Ray

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose – Naturally occurring brands combine history, anthropology, sociology and marketing to explain the phenomenon of communities defined by a sense of place. Focusing on both the Basque Country and Basques in Boise, Idaho, we discuss the naturally occurring brand of the Basque people throughout history into the modern day. We explain who the Basques are and how they have branded themselves through language, place, industry, food, drink and culture with mention of similarities to other communities and the lessons that other ethnic/cultural communities can learn. The purpose of the paper is to address the “marketing and imagined communities; nations …

我爸爸，中国的朋友 / My Father, A Friend To China, Elizabeth Myers Macinata, Josephine B. Howe, Erik Van Ingen Schenau

College of Arts and Sciences Poster Presentations

This short talk introduces the life of Daniel F. Myers (1889-1973) and his experience in China from 1929 to 1944. Myers was an American automotive engineer selected initially by a representative authorized by Marshal Zhang Xueliang to set up and engineer a truck manufacturing factory in Mukden (Shenyang), Manchuria (Dongbei, North-East China). Although Shenyang fell to the Japanese in 1931, Myers stayed until 1933. Throughout the 1930s, Myers continued to work for the Chinese, first as technical advisor and service manager of Cathay Motors, then as Technical Advisor, regarding the development of automotive and other industries, to the Trust Department …

Troubled Consciences: New Understandings And Performances Of Penance Among Catholics In Protestant England, Lisa Mcclain

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prior to Protestant reforms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Catholic clerics frequently preached about the necessity of confessing one's sins to a priest through the sacrament of penance. After the passage of laws in the 1570s making it a criminal offense to be a Catholic priest in England, Catholics residing in Protestant England possessed limited opportunities to make confession to a priest. Many laypersons feared for their souls. This article examines literature written by English Catholic clerics to comfort such laypersons. These authors re-interpreted traditional Catholic understandings of how sacramental penance delivers grace to allow English Catholics to confess …

Finding Community In The Mitchell Hotel, Alan Virta

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

"Lesbian and gay people are the only people on Earth who have to find their tribe. We aren't born into it. You have to have a place to go find the tribe. And so you will start with the most obvious place."—Phyllis Burke, in the documentary film The Castro

For gay men and women in Boise, there was no "obvious place" in their own hometown until the summer of 1976, when a group of local businessmen, with the help of friends and family, turned a corner of an old hotel into that place: Boise's first gay bar. The hotel, known …

Coping With Conquest, Todd Shallat

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

On March 10, 2006, the United Nations assailed the United States for denying the natives of the Boise Valley their traditional rights to an oval of sagebrush that spanned the desert corners of four western states. Already Congress had offered $140 million for 27 million acres in four western states. "The fight is not over," said Raymond Yowell of Elko, a cattleman descended from Shoshone-Paiutes who never agreed to relinquish their land. "You cannot sell out a nation. The [settlement offer] does nothing to change our inherent rights."

The Hispanic Profile Data Book For Idaho, Errol D. Jones, Rosaura Conley-Estrada, Greg Hill

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

The 2010 United States Census confirms the continuing dramatic growth of Idaho’s Hispanic people. Demand for demographic data and information regarding the Hispanic population continues to be essential for understanding and serving Idaho’s Hispanic community. In recognition of this need, in 2004 the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs developed the first Hispanic Profile Project, a demographic report of Idaho’s Hispanic community at that time. Another Hispanic Profile report was published in 2007.