Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Feminist Oral History Practice In An Era Of Digital Self-Representation, Margo Shea

Margo Shea

From Heo To Zir: A History Of Gender Expression In The English Language, Brodie Robinson

Senior Honors Theses

With the growing presence of the LGBTQ+ community on the global stage, the matter of gender has been rushed to the forefront of the public consciousness. News outlets have hotly debated the topic of gender expression, a topic which has motivated mass demonstrations and acts of violence, and this has promoted a linguistic conversation at the international level.

This thesis is intended to provide the historical context for the contemporary debate on gender expression in the English language, and explores both the grammatical background (the Indo-European origins of linguistic gender, the development of the modern pronoun system, etc.) and the …

Honor, Courage, Commitment: Navy Recruitment Posters In World War Ii, Shelby A. Georges

Honors College Theses

Navy recruitment posters from World War II are an important piece of American culture. The iconic signage can be seen in antique stores and textbooks alike. However, these posters provide more than just bold imagery and vintage decor. By analyzing recruitment posters as if they were advertisements and placing them in the context of the time period, many facets of American identity can be understood, especially regarding race, gender, and patriotism. These posters, while they almost never stated the specific outlined duties of Naval careers or requirements for enlisting, advertised to readers under the premise that they understood the guidelines …

German And American Transnational Spaces In Women's And Gender History, Shelley Rose

History Faculty Publications

Books Reviewed:

Michaela Bank. Women of Two Countries: German-American Women, Women’s Rights, and Nativism, 1848–1890. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012. vi.+ 192 pp. ISBN 978-0-85745-512-3 (cl).

Karen Hagemann and Sonya Michel, eds. Gender and the Long Postwar: The United States and the Two Germanys, 1945–1989. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. vii. +397 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-1413-3 (pb).

Lynne Tatlock. German Writing, American Reading: Women and the Import of Fiction, 1866, 1917. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2012. ix.+ 347 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-8142-1194-6 (cl).

Book Reviews: Recent Books On Pornography: From Discussions Of Harm To Normalization, Robert Brannon

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Nine books addressing the specific harms linked to adults’ viewing of heterosexual pornography are examined. All were published since 2010, and range from some that are opposed to all pornography, to others that approve of pornography. The books differ considerably in scope, quality, and scientific rigor. Several include discussions of the feminist anti-pornography movement, in the U.S. and worldwide, from 1975 to the present. These accounts range from criticism of the anti-pornography movement to praise and appreciation. This collection of books provides a useful view of the remarkable diversity of thought about all issues connected with pornography’s effects on adult …

Settlement In The Old Northwest Frontier And The Merging Of Culture, 1750 -1790, Sandra K. Ellefsen

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

SETTLEMENT IN THE OLD NORTHWEST FRONTIER

AND THE MERGING OF CULTURE, 1750 -1790

An Abstract of the Thesis by Sandra Ellefsen

During the late 1700s, the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountain Chain became the main corridor that precipitated settlement into Kentucky. Along this frontier line, settlers had to contend with various Native American tribes, and settlement on the frontier from the beginning of colonization irrevocably altered the Native American way of life. Warfare, encroachment, and disease caused the Native American population to decline drastically in the process of contact; often as a result, Native tribes chose to adopt many …

Mestiza, Métis, American: How Intermixture On United States Borders Shaped Local, Regional, And National Identities, Carla L. Mendiola

History Theses and Dissertations

This project compares mestizaje in Mexican American communities of the Texas-Mexico border and métissage in Franco American communities of the Maine-Canada border, from the pre-contact period to the 20th-century. Exploring the central themes of intermixing, borders, and identity, the paper shows the long-standing presence of mixed-ancestry groups in the U.S. and investigates how social and geopolitical borders have been used to racialize and exclude these groups from U.S. history, and, ultimately from acceptance as part of U.S. identity. The comparison of Texas’s Lower Rio Grande Valley and Maine’s St. John River Valley follows the development of these communities and recognizes …

Time Travel, Labour History, And The Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge For Mobile Augmented Reality History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This paper presents a case study drawn from design-based research (DBR) on a mobile, place-based augmented reality history game. Using DBR methods, the game was developed by the author as a history learning intervention for fifth to seventh graders. The game is built upon historical narratives of disenfranchised populations that are seldom taught, those typically relegated to the 'null curriculum'. These narratives include the stories of women immigrant labour leaders in the early twentieth century, more than a decade before suffrage. The project understands the purpose of history education as the preparation of informed citizens. In paying particular attention to …

She Would Not Be Silenced: Mae West's Struggle Against Censorship, Charlotte N. Toledo

The Downtown Review

Mae West, an actress during Hollywood's Golden Age, used her fame on stage, in films, and on the radio to offer social commentary on relationships between men and women in society. Her irreverent style of addressing issues of female sexuality and power certainly caught peoples attention and made them think about these issues in new ways. At the same time, her racy delivery made her a target of stage, film, and radio censorship. She refused to be silenced and continually pushed against restrictions to deliver he message of empowerment in her trademark provocative manner.

“God Was With Us:” Child Labor In Colonial Kenya, 1922 - 1950s, Samson K. Ndanyi

Journal of Retracing Africa

Contentious debates about the allowable minimum age of child laborers informed the discourse of child labor in colonial Kenya between 1922 and the 1950s. Beginning with the Harry Thuku Uprising of 1922 that instigated the discussion over labor policy concerning juvenile wage laborers and heightened the tension between the British colonial administration and African adult workers, the British government in Kenya struggled to forge coherent labor policies concerning the ages of African child workers. Frequent changes in labor laws made it easier for labor recruiters and employers to manipulate the system by recruiting younger children for work thus drawing them …

Women Of The Incan Empire: Before And After The Conquest Of Peru, Sarah A. Hunt

Student Research

This paper contrasts the life of Incan women before and after the Spanish conquest of Peru by Pizarro. Spanish colonization of Peru had a significant, negative impact on Incan women, across social, economic, and religious sectors. Before the conquest, women held fairly complimentary, rather than subordinate roles to men in society. Spanish rule introduced a strict patriarchy, which reduced Incan women to second-class citizens. The Spanish exploited women within the economy, and destroyed the once revered female religious institutions. Examining women in conquest history provides an intimate look at gender and power relations, socio-economics, and the shifting familial and cultural …

Shifting Understandings Of Lesbianism In Imperial And Weimar Germany, Meghan C. Paradis

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

This paper seeks to understand how, and why, understandings of lesbianism shifted in Germany over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through close readings of both popular cultural productions and medical and psychological texts produced within the context of Imperial and Weimar Germany, this paper explores the changing nature of understandings of homosexuality in women, arguing that over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the dominant conceptualization of lesbianism transformed from an understanding of lesbians that was rooted in biology and viewed lesbians as physically masculine “gender inverts”, to one that was …

More Than Plumbing: The History Of Sexual Education In Ontario, 1960-1979, Michelle K P Hutchinson Grondin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

During the 1960s and 1970s, Ontario educators were concerned that the “sexual revolution” would encourage youths to engage in sexually promiscuous behaviour, become unwed mothers, and contract STIs. As parents were perceived as unreliable sex educators, school administrators and educators felt compelled to teach traditional sexual values, and the importance of the nuclear family through sexual education. This dissertation analyzes the creation and instruction of sexual education in physical and health education courses throughout the 1960s and 1970s in Ontario. This study provides the first comprehensive discussion of sexual education in Ontario during the sixties and seventies through an examination …

Fighting For Inclusion: The Origin Of Gay Liberation At The University Of Michigan, Eric Denby

Masters Theses

The 1960s and 1970s were decades of turbulence, militancy, and unrest in America. The post-World War II boom in consumerism and consumption made way for a new post-materialist societal ethos, one that looked past the American dream of home ownership and material wealth. Many citizens were now concerned with social and economic equality, justice for all people of the world, and a restructuring of the capitalist system itself. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan was a hotbed of student activism. As an early headquarters for the Students for a Democratic Society, a …

Marriage And Gender: A History Through Letters, Victoria Kern

Senior Honors Projects

Research on the evolution of marriage can be found quite easily, but the opportunity to see into the lives of married couples from the past is rare. Through the analysis of letters between my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, I provide a glimpse of what being married has meant throughout the 20^th Century for heterosexual couples. Societal ideas about what makes a marriage ideal have changed over time, but they have always been closely linked with gender expectations (Berk, 2013), so a feminist approach to the analysis of the evolution of marriage is used with my family’s letters as a …

Still A Rivalry: Contrasting Renaissance Sodomy Legislation In Florence And Venice, Nicolaus J. Hajek

Black & Gold

The article focuses on comparing the functions of two institutions that castigated sodomy in Renaissance Italy: Florence’s the Office of the Night, and Venice’s Council of Ten. The author analyzes court cases from both Renaissance institutions as well as other first hand accounts of the culture of male sodomy in the region, explaining that Florence’s persecution of homosexual behavior was a secular tool to check the power of any political threat, while Venitian persecution originated from a theological mandate to save sinners from relinquishing their eternal salvation.

Reclaiming And Reconciling What Was Originally Ours--Christianity And Feminism: A Concise History, Soquel Filice

History

No abstract provided.

Masculine Space: The Final Frontier; A Historical Analysis Of The Spatial Politics Of Gender Through The New Woman’S Access To Brassieres, Bicycles, And Higher Education In The United States From 1890-1930, Shelby Kirst Goldman

Senior Independent Study Theses

1890-1930 was a time of major social and cultural shifts as the Victorian conventions clashed with progressive and changing ideas of gender, race, and class, resulting in the liberated American New Woman. This thesis examines the transition of the opportunities for increased physical movement for women allotted by the popularization of the brassiere, bicycle, and access to higher education. Examining the brassiere and bicycles’ impact on women’s liberation lends insight into how the physical placement and movement of female bodies confronted gender norms, while expansion of women’s education made women intellectual threats to the patriarchal structure. My analysis of advertisements …

La Representación De La Masculinidad Y La Violencia De Género En La Novela Española De La Posguerra, Alfredo M. Pastor

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While it may be argued that aggression against women is part of a culture of violence deeply rooted in Spanish society, the gender-related violence that exists in today’s Spain is more specifically a legacy of Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975). Franco’s Spain endorsed unequal gender relations, championed patriarchal dominance and power over women, and imposed models of hegemonic and authoritarian masculinities that internalized violence by rendering it a feature inseparable from manhood and virility.

This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of masculinity and gender violence in Franco’s Spain, by analyzing the novel as the primary cultural vehicle of social criticism and political …

Review Of Notable Men And Women Of Our Time, Brian Maxson

ETSU Faculty Works

Paolo Giovio wrote his text in the aftermath of the sack of Rome by imperial troops in 1527, although the work remained unfinished at the time of the author's death some twenty-five years.

Review Of Cultures Of Charity: Women, Politics, And The Reform Of Poor Relief In Renaissance Italy, Brian Maxson

ETSU Faculty Works

The author uses a thematic approach to argue that Bologna was a trensetter in approaches and institutions aimed at helping the poor between roughly 1450-1700.

Atlantic Threads: Singer In Spain And Mexico, 1860-1940, Paula A. De La Cruz-Fernández

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of Singer in the modernization of sewing practices in Spain and Mexico from 1860 to 1940. Singer marketing was founded on gendered views of women’s work and gendered perceptions of the home. These connected with sewing practices in Spain and Mexico, where home sewing remained economically and culturally important throughout the 1940s. "Atlantic Threads" is the first study of the US-owned multinational in the Hispanic World. I demonstrate that sewing practices, and especially practices related to home sewing that have been considered part of the private sphere and therefore not an important historical matter, contributed …

The Use Of Rhetoric In Anti-Suffrage And Anti-Feminist Publications, Artour Aslanian

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

After decades of struggling to gain the right to vote, women were finally granted that right with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920. While it would seem that most, if not all, women would be in favor of gaining the right to vote, the women’s suffrage movement did not represent the wishes of all women within the United States. Scholarship in this area largely focuses on the historical developments of the suffrage movements, with the presence of female opponents of suffrage and anti-suffragist organizations receiving less attention.1 These anti-suffragists were vocal in their opposition to the …

Review Of Marriage In Premodern Europe: Italy And Beyond, Brian Maxson

ETSU Faculty Works

Jacqueline Murray's Marriage in Premodern Europe collects a wide-ranging series of essays on marriage covering nearly four hundred years and almost the entire European Continent.

The Road To Gaining Acceptance And Status For Women In American Medicine, Terrie S. Ahn

Honors College Theses

For my honors thesis, I discuss the history of women in American medicine during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, I focus on how the social and cultural time periods affected women’s efforts in pursuing further medical education, how these women were perceived and treated by not only their male colleagues, but also the outside world, how it affected their future career choices in medicine, and finally, how their efforts ended up changing the medical career path for future female generations.

It begins with a discussion of the variety of obstacles, both private and public, that hindered …

Students Teaching Students: Lgbtq History, Brian Stack

Senior Honors Projects

When the Students Teaching Students program called for submissions for student created courses I jumped at the opportunity to learn and share with a group of peers dedicated to a subject. The close to year long process culminated in the first Students Teaching Students course at URI, focusing on the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people: HPR 107: Introduction to LGBTQ History.

Just getting ready to teach was a multifaceted process, since I tend to fluctuate between ravenously seizing every book I can get my hands on and devising practical applications for that intellectual knowledge. First …

Gender Divide: Re-Examining The Feminization Of Teaching In The Nineteenth Century With Emphasis On The Displaced Male Teacher, Matthew Fegan

Senior Independent Study Theses

This thesis explores the intersection of the formalization of schools and the feminization of teaching in the nineteenth century. Specifically, it shares the perspective of the displaced male teacher who often re-located into newly formed administrative positions in the field of education.

The Housewife, The Single Girl, And The Prostitute: Constructions Of Femininity In Postwar American Historiography, Marie Rowley

Psi Sigma Siren

America in the two decades after World War II experienced conditions that seemed to indicate an unprecedented focus on domesticity and traditional gender roles. Couples married at younger ages, fertility rates soared, and population shifted to suburban areas all over the country. Just beneath this surface, however, a more complex discourse about gender norms was also emerging. Gay and lesbian communities began to organize, teenagers emerged as a cultural force, and young single women began to view economic independence as a legitimate goal. These contradictory forces coexisted in a culture struggling to define gender and sexuality in the anxiety-ridden era …

A War Within World War Ii: Racialized Masculinity And Citizenship Of Japanese Americans And Korean Colonial Subjects, Jeffrey Yamashita

History Honors Projects

Even though the Pacific Ocean stands as an aqueous wall between Japan and the United States, World War II exposed the shared relationship between these two nations in their utilization of racial minority populations for the war effort. I interrogate the intersections of gender identity, race, and citizenship of Japanese Americans and Korean colonial subjects in the Japanese Empire during World War II. Specifically, I compare Japanese Americans—soldiers of the segregated Japanese American100^th/442^nd Regimental Combat Team, draft resisters from Heart Mountain, and prisoners of war—with Korean colonial subjects—soldiers who fought for the Imperial Japanese Army— and hope …

Review Of Innovation In History: The New Woman Resources Book, Madeleine K. Charney

Madeleine K. Charney

No abstract provided.