Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“Hungering And Thirsting” For Education: Education, Presbyterians, And African Americans In The South, 1880-1920, Rachel Marie Young

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the relationship between the white-dominated Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) and African Americans from 1880-1920, exploring the motivations, philosophies, and strategies of the PCUSA and the ways that they used education to achieve their goals of helping forge educated and devoutly Christian African Americans. The church’s history highlights the ways in which Presbyterian paternalism developed in the years leading up to 1880, as well as contradictions in white church members’ understandings of race relations and their conflation of civic duty with religious responsibility. The church’s efforts in primary education provide a window into …

The Governor’S Guards: Militia, Politics, Social Networking, And Manhood In Columbia, South Carolina, 1843-1874, Justin Harwell

Theses and Dissertations

This paper reconstructs the history of the Governor’s Guards in Columbia, South Carolina from 1843 to 1874. In addition to examining the conditions that influenced the formation of the company, this paper analyzes the ages, wealth, class, and occupations of the men that served in the company before, during, and after the Civil War. Specifically for white men of Columbia’s fledgling middle and upper classes, the Governor’s Guards facilitated opportunities to network, climb the social ladder, seek political advancement, and influence the social, political, and economic landscape of Columbia.

This work also illuminates the company’s involvement in numerous local, state, …

Charlotte's Glory Road: The History Of Nascar In The Queen City, Hannah Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the relationship between the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and Charlotte, North Carolina, and how the geography of the Charlotte area was a catalyst to the growth of the motorsports industry in the Queen City. Specifically, this thesis investigates the roles of NASCAR teams, Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the NASCAR Hall of Fame in creating and continuing to grow the presence of NASCAR in Charlotte. The Hall of Fame in particular has strengthened the position of Charlotte in NASCAR history, after officials selected Charlotte over Daytona and Atlanta for the site of the …

Patients’ Rights, Patients’ Politics: Jewish Activists Of The U.S. Women’S Health Movement, 1969-1990, Jillian Michele Hinderliter

Theses and Dissertations

As the women’s health movement grew out of second wave feminism in the late 1960s, activists demanded women be taken seriously as health care consumers and critics of male-dominated medicine. Health feminists aimed to fundamentally redefine the relationship between patient and practitioner. Jewish women helped found and sustain the women’s health movement, yet their activist identities are often separated from Jewishness in histories of health reform. “Patients’ Rights, Patients’ Politics: Jewish Activists of the U.S. Women’s Health Movement, 1969-1990,” considers the impact of Jewish identity on Jewish activists’ conceptions of social justice while also tracing their significant contributions to women’s …

Building A New (Deal) Identity The Evolution Of Italian-American Political Culture And Ideology, 1910–1940, Ryan J. Antonucci

Theses and Dissertations

Italian Americans were a key constituency of the white-ethnic voting bloc that formed one of the main pillars of the New Deal coalition. However, few historians have looked at motives for the group’s allegiance beyond economic necessity and machine politics. This approach has falsely colored enthusiasm for the New Deal as a reflexive reaction to the Great Depression. “Building a New (Deal) Identity” argues that Italian Americans living in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, from Pittsburgh through Cleveland, voted heavily for the New Deal during the 1930s because of their unique political reshaping during the preceding two decades. In this …

A Culture Of Control: Progressive Era Eugenics In South Carolina As A Continuation Of Created White Supremacy, Hannah Nicole Patton

Theses and Dissertations

This work examines the evolution of eugenic ideology in South Carolina during the Progressive Era by following relevant discussions published in The State newspaper. Between 1891 and 1939, The State newspaper provided a platform for discussions about eugenic ideology to be disseminated to the general public. Through eugenics the white portion of the South Carolina population saw a way to retain white supremacy and create better progeny. An examination of The State reveals a network of discussions that reached across South Carolina, the United States, as well as Western Europe. The existence of newspaper articles illustrates cultural integration in the …

Foxy Ladies And Badass Super Agents: Legacies Of 1970s Blaxploitation Spy And Detective Heroines, Carlie Nicole Todd

Theses and Dissertations

The presentation of Black femininity in Blaxploitation spy and detective films like Cleopatra Jones (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), and Get Christie Love! (1974) – depicting powerful, independent, and multidimensional characters – was a sharp departure from the derogatory images of African American women in film prior. These films also included some of the first Black spy and detective film heroines – Foxy Brown, Cleo Jones, and Christie Love – that portrayed a “serious” female detective or government agent as the main protagonist and center of the film’s action. These Blaxploitation heroines were unique in how their characters departed from prior …

“The Once And Future Audubon:” The History Of The Audubon Ballroom And The Movement To Save It, William Maclane Hull

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the history of the Save the Audubon Movement – an activist movement in the 1980s and early 1990s protesting Columbia University’s plan to demolish the Audubon Ballroom and replace it with a modern biomedical research complex. The Audubon Ballroom is best known for being the site of Malcolm X’s assassination and was a major landmark to New York Hispanic and African Americans. It takes a cultural history lens, giving special attention on the emerging hip-hop culture that became the primary voice of protest in New York City in the 1970s through the 90s. This paper begins with …

Media Combat: The Great War And The Transformation Of American Culture, Andrew Steed Walgren

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the role of professional musicians, stage performers, civilian entertainment organizations, and the federal government in the formation of a nationalized, wartime cultural apparatus during the United States' involvement in the First World War (1917-1919). This process was contested, fragmented, and incomplete, but it laid the foundational groundwork for federal cultural initiatives and programs during the 1930s and 1940s. In many ways, the war forever altered the relationship between American citizens and the federal government. Specifically, this project examines two major cultural arenas – music and theater – by looking at the institutions and actors that transformed them. …

Joshua Gordon’S Witchcraft Book And The Transformation Of The Upcountry Of South Carolina, E. Zoie Horecny

Theses and Dissertations

The life of Joshua Gordon and his intellectual product, Witchcraft Book (1784) gives access to the backcountry of South Carolina. Witchcraft Book is exemplary of syncretism in the Atlantic world, influenced by multiple European traditions, understandings of science in the early modern world, indigenous knowledge, and life in North America. After serving in the American Revolution, Gordon transitioned from a small farmer to a slaveholder. He was a part of political and economic processes that unified the backcountry with low country elites in defense of slavery. As a prominent figure in his community and church, he solidified his legacy for …

Shaping A Queer South: The Evolution Of Activism From 1960-2000, A. Kamau Pope

Theses and Dissertations

Queer activism dismantles and challenges normativity in spaces that criminalize, oppress, and perpetuate violence towards queer folks. Using Cathy Cohen’s model of radical queer politics, this thesis examines the South as a place that has been shaped over time by queer activism. Beginning with 1960 and the founding of SNCC sets the tone of how the South is non-normative and queer in the context of the United States, yet still a perpetrator of white supremacy, sexism, and homophobia. With a sole focus on the region of the U.S. South, this paper diverges from the narrative of urban queer movements, and …

“It Seemed Like Reaching For The Moon:” Southside Virginia’S Civil Rights Struggle Against The Virginia Way, 1951-1964, Emily A. Martin Cochran

Theses and Dissertations

During the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and in the historiography, Virginia held a racially moderate reputation. Scholarship on civil rights in Virginia typically credits racial moderation with implementing integration in the state while avoiding major violence and protest. In Southside Virginia, the rural south-central area of the state dominated by tobacco and textile mills with a substantial black population, two towns became the sites of significant civil rights activity. Both Farmville and Danville had direct-action movements spearheaded by local African American students and activists, but these movements drew limited national attention despite extreme reaction and …

Enslaved Rebellion And Abolitionist Imperialism In Britain’S Atlantic World, 1807-1884, Lewis Eliot

Theses and Dissertations

In 1807, the British Empire ended its legal involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. The relationship between slavery and imperialism had defined British American imperialism for the preceding three centuries and the end of legal British transatlantic slave trading dramatically altered the Empire’s connection to human bondage. As a result, new debates about slavery dominated the first three decades of the nineteenth century. At the same time, enslaved Africans in Britain’s West Indian colonies perpetually resisted their enslavement and in so doing forcefully inserted themselves into metropolitan abolitionist discourse. Upon the ending of British slavery in 1834, imperial officials used …

“We Are Going To Be Reckoned With”: The South Carolina Udc And The South Carolina Confederate Relic Room And Museum, 1986-2000, Caitlin Cutrona

Theses and Dissertations

From 1986 to 2000, the South Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy actively negotiated influence for its organization at the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Museum (SCCRRM) as an important museum stakeholder. While 1986 marked a low point for UDC authority over the museum, from 1986 to 2000, the South Carolina UDC sought to salvage and protect is influence at the SCCRRM and ultimately reclaim its authority over the museum. The South Carolina Daughters did this through a variety of means and methods, including employing Dotsy Boineau, a UDC member and SCCRRM employee, as an instrument …

The Robber Barons Of Show Business: Traveling Amusements And The Development Of The American Entertainment Industry, 1870- 1920, Madeline Steiner

Theses and Dissertations

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, traveling amusements such as circuses, minstrel shows and Wild West shows were the most popular forms of entertainment in the United States. This study argues that advancements in transportation and technology inspired managers of traveling amusement companies to create new business models that transformed popular entertainment from informal, local productions into modern commercial spectacles. These amusement companies were capitalist enterprises, significant not just in the cultural arena but also in the growth of American business. These amusement companies traveled nationwide on the newly expanded railroad system, sporting elaborate sets and props and …

Religion, Senses, And Remembrance: Brooklyn’S Sumter Club In Postbellum Charleston, S.C., Michael Edward Scott Emett

Theses and Dissertations

Civil War historians are slowly coming to realize the need to explicitly analyze the senses of those who lived in, and survived, the Civil War era. Although vision has reigned as the “supreme” sense, the nonvisual senses, with the help of historians of the senses, are becoming just as important to Civil War research. However, scholars are still unraveling the lived experiences of Civil War Era Americans and the perceptions and meanings these Americans gave to those experiences, with Northerners receiving comparatively little attention. To understand the world of antebellum and Civil War Americans, we should take them at their …

Praying Soldiers: Experiencing Religion As A Revolutionary War Soldier Fighting For Independence, Roberto Oscar Flores De Apodaca

Theses and Dissertations

While enduring the hardships of battle, many Revolutionary War soldiers recorded more about their personal religious lives than perhaps any other single topic. They especially enjoyed cataloging events they ascribed to divine intervention, listing their daily religious routines, and commenting on first time encounters with religious others. New and extreme circumstances tested the religious preconceptions of those who enlisted in ways that they had rarely encountered in civilian life. Their religion took on new importance for them as soldiers relied on it both as an interpretive lens and as a source of stability amid a chaotic war. My dissertation examines …