Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Different Welcome Home: How Accusations Of Brainwashing Affected The Experience Of The Returning American Pows From The Korean War, Margaret Merithew

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

American POWs from the Korean War had a different experience than POWs from other wars. The POWs who returned from the Korean War faced a home front that was suspicious of them. Due to the prevalence of McCarthyism in America during this time, the military, government, media, and citizens all worried that the returning POWs may return as communists. The military and FBI investigated the POWs and court-marshaled a few for collaborating with the North Koreans while in the camp. The experience of what happened to the American soldiers in the POW camps has received much scholarly attention, but the …

The Mogadishu Effect: America's Failure-Driven Foreign Policy, Philip Benjamin Dotson

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The October 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, commonly referred to as “Black Hawk Down,” transformed American foreign policy in its wake. One of the largest special operations missions in recent history, the failures in Somalia left not only the United States government and military in shock, but also the American people. After the nation’s most elite fighting forces suffered a nearly 50 percent casualty rate at the hands of Somali warlords during what many Americans thought was a humanitarian operation, Congress and the American people erupted in anger. Although the United States has continued to be seen as an overbearing global …

Queer Frontier: Gender, Sexuality, And Intimacy In Minnesota Before 1900, Tyler J. Amick

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The colonization of Minnesota brought about a sexual revolution that redefined what gender, sexuality, and intimacy meant within Minnesotan society before the turn of the twentieth century. Initial Euro-American forays into Minnesota created a hybridized society where indigenous traditions and Euro-American cultural ideas intermixed. Fur traders and early settlers broadly accepted indigenous customs, and some Euro-Americans even adopted indigenous practices. The most apparent of these practices are indigenous marriage rites. Large numbers of fur traders engaged in marriages à la façons du pays, in the style of the Dakota and Ojibwe. In some instances, these fur traders even engaged in …

“Rare And Curious Covers”: Embroidered Book Bindings In Early Modern England, Christy Elaine Gordon Baty

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Protestant devotional books with highly decorative embroidered bindings flourished in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century like no other time in history. Indeed, the number of these objects extant in collections today attest to their importance. Although decorative embroidered book bindings on Protestant devotional works would seem to be a contradiction, it was a natural confluence of religious, economic, and societal factors that enabled women to assert both a private and a public identity. Because the explosion of printers in Europe brought Bibles and other books to a much wider audience at a time when women’s education and literacy …

“My Flesh Was Its Own Shield” Eroticism In Aids Activism, Jake Whitney

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The most enduring images of the HIV/AIDS crisis are pictures of ACT UP members being arrested and staging die-ins or men huddled together in hospital beds. These images and the historical narrative accompanying them espouse unity, a coming together of the queer community. No one manufactured this unity. Gay men came together to fight AIDS with force stronger than that which had fought back at Stonewall. Although the gay community saw increased unity during the AIDS Pandemic, the benefactors of this unity, the mainstream gay movement, marginalized men practicing radical sex through a rhetoric of anti-eroticism, a negative, rather than …

Indigenous Economies In Wisconsin: The Impact Of Allotment Policies And The Indian New Deal, 1800s – 1930s, Kyle Davis

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Indigenous peoples in Wisconsin experienced many significant economic changes during their history. Currently, there are eleven federally recognized tribal nations within the Badger State. Americans forced the Oneida and Stockbridge-Munsee peoples to move west, while the Menominee, Bodewadmi, Ho-Chunk, and Ojibwe homelands in Wisconsin preceded European settlement. This thesis looks at the histories of the Oneida, Stockbridge-Munsee, Menominee, Bodewadmi, Ho-Chunk, and six Ojibwe reservations in Wisconsin and the transition of economic dependence on seasonal natural resources to wages earned from tourism between the late 1800s and the Indian New Deal in 1934. Indigenous peoples have relied on seasonal economies that …

Stolen Votes And Silenced Voices: An Overturned Colorado Election And The Suppression Of Free Speech, David Hosansky

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Against the backdrop of violent labor disputes in Colorado’s mining districts, a pro-labor Democratic candidate in the 1904 gubernatorial race appeared to oust the Republican incumbent by 10,000 votes. But amid widespread allegations of fraud, Republicans used legal and political maneuvers to seize the governorship and establish control over the General Assembly, the state supreme court, and even local offices in the traditional Democratic strongholds of Denver. When U.S. Senator Thomas Patterson, a Colorado Democrat and publisher of two Denver newspapers, reacted with scathing commentary about the Colorado Supreme Court’s role in the takeover, the court fired back, fining Patterson …

The Intersection Of American Nativism And Eugenics: Anti-Japanese Sentiment Prior To World War Ii, James Richard Chesemore

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

This thesis examines how the anti-Japanese sentiment and legislation promoted by those leading the American eugenics movement contributed to the key economic, diplomatic, and social policies that influenced the start of the Pacific War. In the years leading up to and following World War I, Japan desired and sought full parity, including diplomatic racial equality, with the United States and other Anglo-Saxon powers. However, the United States wanted to maintain the pre- and post-World War I world order, which meant the continued subordination of Japan on the world stage. As both nations sought global economic expansion and colonialism in the …

The Working Class Birth Of Birth Control, Jake Whitney

Graduate Review

The most popular image of the historic fight for birth control is connected to the Women's Liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s. Prior to that, the struggle is tied to Women’s suffrage. Regardless of the starting point, the common understanding of the fight for birth control is one along gendered lines. Historians like Linda Gordon in the book Women’s Body, Women’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America keep with this line of thought. Although most historians currently view the struggle for birth control through a gendered lens, the organized discourse of birth control began as a …

Silent Voices, Stolen Imagery, And Subjected Violence: Plains Native American Women In Historiography, Bobbie J. Roshone

Graduate Review

This paper delves into the historiography of Indigenous women’s history and experiences on the Great Plains have been recorded. The main question when approaching this subject was, “what does a review of the historiography reveal about how historians have addressed Indigenous women’s history in the Great Plains?” The overwhelming consensus was that Indigenous women’s history of the Great Plains was minimal in regard to articles, however, there was a growth of autobiographies and other historiographical works throughout the same time period. This would lead to a directed look at how individual women in Indigenous Plains history had a larger impact …

Liberty And Justice For Some - Experiences Of Marginalized Children On The World War Ii United States Home Front, Courtney Polak

Graduate Review

Many scholars have discussed the experiences of the home front and its significant contributions to the war effort. However, the study of children in World War II home front has not been widely examined. Even more so, the experiences of minority children are rarely discussed. Youth of African Americans, those of German and Japanese descent, and the poor classes experienced a drastically different home front than the mainstream culture. The experiences of children, especially, are not addressed widely as they are further ignored as a group without political or economic power. Yet, numerous primary source accounts explain how these marginalized …

The Impact Of Gender Roles, Political Environments, And Social Environments On Women Activists In Peru From The Mid-1800s To The Mid-1900s, Kathleen Johndrow

Graduate Review

Going back into the colonial era, and certainly post-independence, women in Peru were discussing their political and civil rights, and questioning not only their status, but the status of workers, indigenous people, and those in poverty. In fact, within the handful of names that have appeared as well-known Peruvian women activists, they all concentrated on class as well as gender, and incorporated race in terms of indigeneity as well. In doing so, the women involved in working for increased equality created or joined different organizations over time. What led women to join one group versus another, and were there groups …

Reconciling Genoa: A Historiography Of The Genoa Indian Industrial School, Andrea Huebner

Graduate Review

In 1884, the Genoa Indian Industrial School was established to aid in the assimilation of Native American students. Schools, like Genoa Indian Industrial School, were originally considered successful but as historians uncovered abuse and unsafe living conditions the narratives surrounding the schools changed. This paper builds looks directly at how historians’ interpretation of the Genoa Indian Industrial School has changed over time. This contributes to a deeper understanding of how important it is to continue re-evaluating events throughout history.

Archiving Latinxs On The U.S. Great Plains - Coming To The Plains, Laurinda Weisse

Posters, Proceedings, and Presentations: CTR Library

This panel examines the intricacies of archiving Latinxs in the US Great Plains. Latinx communities comprise a significant portion of the area’s population, yet regional archival holdings often under-represent these groups’ experiences and historical contributions. This panel will describe three universities’ approaches toward addressing this disparity, beginning with bilingual oral history projects “Voces of a Pandemic”, which explores the impact of COVID-19 on Latinx communities near Omaha, and “Coming to the Plains”, which examines immigration experiences of Latinx people in central Nebraska, conducted by the University of Nebraska at Omaha and University of Nebraska at Kearney respectively. The panel also …

Gender Analysis Of King Philip's War, Derek Persson

Undergraduate Research Journal

Women and war have existed in history since the beginning of time. Yet in most modern historical accounts, women’s participation and significance in war conflicts is not present or is severely undermined. Often the conflict itself is presented to fit an agenda of the presenter or contributor. In modern American history, students are presented with a Pilgrim thanksgiving dinner with the Algonquin and then it fast forwards roughly 100 years to the American Revolution. The rest is commonly not acknowledged. Feminist author Roe Bubar sums it up well: “The problem is the narrative is told from a nation-building perspective in …

Opportunity Lost: Iran And America In The Early Cold War, Clyde Brant

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Late in 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt adopted a policy toward Iran that he had hopes would serve as a model for American international relations in other countries. Roosevelt’s policy centered on support for local sovereignty in the face of Soviet and British imperialistic actions in the country. It lasted until American policy makers in the Eisenhower Administration decided to support a coup against Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953. This thesis argues that the pre–Cold War policy of supporting Iranian sovereignty set forth by Roosevelt worked until American policymakers chose to abandon it. The Truman Administration used the policy successfully during …

The Bavarian Birthright: Dynasticism, Faith, And The Creation Of The Bavarian State In A Federated Empire, Nathan Ray Mauslein

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Bavarian Wittelsbachs waged a war against their own estates, the encroachment of Protestantism, and checks on their own ducal and electoral power, at both the imperial and territorial levels. Through dynastic maneuvering the Wittelsbachs unified the whole of Bavaria under their banner and created an early modern bureaucratic state in order to aid in their rule. The creation of this system involved the creation of their own Counter Reformation system, state institutions, and an early modern bureaucracy to submit the territory to their will. The story of Bavaria’s state development …

Memories Of War: An Oral History Of The United States Army Special Forces Actions In The Gulf War, Justin Mcintosh

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

This thesis uses memories of former members of 5th Special Forces Group as the lens to explore the impacts and context of US Army Special Forces operations and activities during the Persian Gulf War. The Persian Gulf War was the defeat of the Iraqi military in Kuwait at the hands of a technologically superior United States force. Historians have focused Persian Gulf War scholarship on three key aspects: the interpersonal relationship between the United States military commanders and political leaders, the rapid deployment of military forces to the Middle East, and the use of airpower to strike at enemy centers …

Never Silent: Development Of Gay Activism In The Cold War Midwest, Braydon Conell

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Though not typically seen as a burgeoning environment for gay life, the Midwest nevertheless has a rich history of queer culture. Focusing on gay activism during the Cold War era, this thesis discusses the rise and influence of homophile organizations in the Midwest. Homophile organizations and the movement's ideals of accommodation and integration played an integral role in the activism coming out of World War II. The homophile movement, though, did not wane with the development of the more radical gay liberation movement. Instead, the homophile movement in the Midwest evolved and played its own part alongside radical activists. Historically, …

A Bolivian Revolution: The Mnr's Populist Vision For A Modern Bolivia, Aaron R. Swanson

Graduate Review

The twentieth century is a century riddled with “isms,” such as communism, capitalism, and imperialism. Most of these are usually discussed within the European context. However, Europe was not the only location susceptible to these “isms.” In 1952, Bolivia experienced a revolution similar to the size and scale of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. At the heart of the revolution was the MNR, known in English as the National Revolutionary Movement, a populist party that gained traction in Bolivia during the Chaco War which spanned from 1932 to 1935. The MNR was a coalition of middle-class mestizos, Indians who had …

State Violence And The Cuban Diaspora Since 1959, Sondra K. Marshall

Graduate Review

ABSTRACT

The story of mass migration, violence, and human rights violations in Cuba since 1959 is not a simple one. It is an extremely complex web of local and international politics, economics, psychology, sociology, culture, and history. Studies of the Cuban diaspora have been dominated by failures and cyclical crises in the economy, Castro’s adherence to an Eastern European based communist ideologies and policies, and international politics and migration policies. However, Castro’s calculated use of instilling an endemic fear of the State’s use of violence and cruelty to enforce laws, ideologies, and policies is much less studied as a critical …

America’S Mothers: How The Mobilized Women Of Berkeley Harnessed The Power Of Women To Support The Great War And Challenge The Government, Christy Gordon Baty

Graduate Review

This paper examines how middle-class and upper-class women of Berkeley, California harnessed their already-established roles as community organizers and leaders to support the United States Government and their efforts in World War I. These women used the imposed limitations of their role as domestic protector in order to change the scope of their sphere from private to public, and assert their political voice by highlighting their reciprocal relationship with the federal government. In their founding document, the Mobilized Women of Berkeley state that “All of the 151 women’s organizations of Berkeley are willing to give their sons, husbands and brothers …

Lost Between Worlds: Gay Men In World War Ii, Braydon Conell

Graduate Review

While some queer World War II soldiers, like Christine Jorgensen, returned from war to become pioneers in the field of gender and sexuality, not all had the same support and experience. Anti-sodomy laws had a long history in the United States and its military, but no specific provision barred homosexuals from service until World War II. At the center of this change was the transition from a policy considering homosexual acts as a crime to a psychiatrist-controlled policy that homosexuality was an illness that made gay men unfit to fight. For those not excluded, the threat of an other-than-dishonorable discharge, …

A Race Of Headsmen: The Life And Mind Of A Dynasty Of French Executioners, 1688-1847, Trevor Scott Rhodes

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

This thesis examines the memoirs, letters, public records, and legal records of the Sanson dynasty of executioners to understand the patterns of thought and behavior of the early modern headsman. While recent historians have acknowledged the social and political pressures of the profession, few have attempted to catalog the words and actions of the executioners themselves. The Sanson family is unique in their longevity and historical role in the French Revolution. Furthermore, their memoirs provide in their own words a direct understanding of their state of mind. With recent scholarship dedicated to the analysis of the “Age of Spectacular Punishment,” …

Is This Your Boy? The Spirit Of The American Doughboy In World War I Memorialization, Michael Leonard Nelson

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Well before the conclusion of World War I, Americans were engaged in finding ways to honor and remember those who served in the conflict. Taking advantage of this heightened interest in memorialization, in 1920 Ernest Moore Viquesney produced a life-sized statue marketed as The Spirit of the American Doughboy. Due to its low cost and savvy marketing, The Spirit of the American Doughboy became one of the most dominant forms of World War I memorialization. However, today many replicas of The Spirit of the American Doughboy have been relegated to obscure locations or subsumed into larger veteran memorials. This thesis …

A Most Christian King: Church And State During The Reign Of Henry Iii Of England, Mason Gerald Smith

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The reign of Henry III (1216-1272) was one of many firsts. The first reign under the Magna Carta, a watershed reign for relations with the Papacy, and demonstrated the degree to which Church and State were integrally united during his reign, to the degree that it is anachronistic to speak of them as two separate institutions. The reign of Henry III was marked by religious sensibility from the beginning of his reign in the minority, shepherded by his regents: Papal Legates and his educator Bishop Peter Des Roches. Henry’s life reflected his position in relation to the English Kingdom and …

Glider Gladiators: American Transport Aviators And Glidermen In World War Ii, Gregory Franklin Withrow

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Examining the development and employment of gliderborne troops and paratroopers of World War II demonstrates marked differences between their inception and evolution among the Germans, British, and Americans. While Germany led in training and deploying such troops, their usage declined rapidly after the disastrous invasion of Crete. Early advancements in German-glider applications emanated primarily from post-World War I restrictions upon powered military aircraft development. This fact, juxtaposed with accelerated Allied soldier training and development of airborne troop doctrine while World War II progressed, proves a stark dichotomy of intra-war strategic evolution. Yet, among the Allies no total consensus in specifics …

Lorenzo Augustus Besançon: Man Of Manifest Destiny, William J. Woodard

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

There is little published scholarship on Lorenzo Augustus Besançon, a nineteenth-century newspaper publisher, politician, soldier, filibuster, adventurer, and (briefly) tax collector. He had a hand in founding newspapers in Mississippi and Louisiana and was elected to public office in both of those states. On several occasions, his public battles on behalf of his Democratic Party principles led to duels, one of which purportedly ended in the death of his opponent. He volunteered to lead a cavalry regiment in the Mexican-American War and figured publicly in Mexican filibustering enterprises. The limited historical record paints a picture of him as an energetic …

Northwest Nebraska And The Pine Ridge Reservation Before And After The Wounded Knee Massacre, Broc Michael Dean Anderson

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Northwest Nebraska, from the 1870s to the early twentieth century, had a complex economic and social atmosphere that intertwined with the Pine Ridge Reservation. As the United States continued promoting settlement westward, non-native settlers and the US military became the main proponent in displacing the Lakota people from their land in Nebraska. Following the gold rush to the Black Hills, the additional free land opportunities in northwest Nebraska forced Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies out of Nebraska and into the southwest corner of Dakota Territory. Relocated to Pine Ridge Agency, the Oglala Lakota continued to struggle as a people. …

Toward An Environmental History Of The First Great Awakening, David Blakely

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The events that came to be known as “The First Great Awakening” began in the wake of Enlightenment ideas that emphasized secular rationalism. Among Christian leaders in the British colonies in North America there was a general perception that passion for religion had grown stale. Itinerant Christian preachers began to travel from town to town and organize large outdoor meetings where they preached forcefully about each individual’s responsibility for their salvation from sin. Many of these revival meetings included spontaneous outbursts of religious fervor from members of the crowd that took the form of shouting, weeping, speaking in tongues, dancing, …