Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Fall Of Public Opinion: The Tet Offensive, The Anti-War Movement, And The Media, 1963-1975, Taylor Ann Cusick

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

From 1963 to 1975, public opinion regarding the Vietnam War changed drastically. In the beginning, the public was largely on board with Americans going overseas to fight against the North Vietnamese military. Citizens felt the American military was doing what was necessary to secure democracy in a region where communism was spreading, and the public was not easily swayed by those who opposed the war. The media mirrored public opinion during the first years of the war. By 1968, support for the war declined dramatically, and the media’s portrayal of the conflict reversed. Newscasters began to argue that the risk …

The Railsplitter And The Pathfinder: The Relationship Between Abraham Lincoln And John C. Frémont, Kourtney Yantis

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This study serves as an analysis of the connections between Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and John Charles Frémont as a Civil War general. Lincoln’s position within history is solid, unlike that of John C. Frémont. The thesis will elevate Frémont to a higher status as a historical figure by arguing that the emancipation edict that he issued for Missouri in August of 1861 would influence Abraham Lincoln’s preliminary emancipation proclamation of September 1862, even though Lincoln repealed Frémont’s decree. In biographies of each man, their interactions are merely a small part of the stories of their …

A Conflict Of Disinterest: The Problem Of Party In The Early American Republic, Darren Morgan

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the lost classical republican virtue of disinterestedness—its early role in the nation’s founding, its eventual subordination to partisanship, and its enduring legacy in the realm of politics. Two seminal documents shaped Americans’ early ideas regarding disinterestedness, namely James Madison’s Federalist, No. 10 and George Washington’s “Farewell Address;” however, these cornerstones of impartial politics built upon a long history of classical republican thought from both ancient Rome and mother England. The eventual impracticality of such a virtue quickly gave way to a more enticing and interested form of politics in the early republic—one where lines were rapidly …

The March Of The Union Armies: James Henry Lane, The Union, And The Development Of Total War On The Kansas-Missouri Border, Alex Lahasky

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

James Henry Lane was a giant of Kansas politics during the mid-nineteenth century. His leadership during the territorial crisis of 1855—commonly known as the “Bleeding Kansas” era—contributed mightily to Kansas’s entry as a free state in 1861. During the early stages of the ensuing Civil War, Lane’s political and military presence on the plains was ubiquitous; he served simultaneously as a United States Senator and a brigadier general of the Union Army. Lane’s activities during the first year of the war provide the focal point of the present study.

With Kansas under threat from secessionist elements in neighboring Missouri, Lane …

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 …

Civil Wars In The Capital: Civil Affairs In The Defenses Of Washington, 1861-1863, Blake M. Lindsey

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the relationships between civilians and soldiers in the Defenses of Washington during the Civil War. Marked by a combination of conflict and adaptation, the visible tension between soldiers and civilians threatened Union loyalty around Washington. Differing identities and priorities caused these conflicts. Young soldiers steeped in a Northern education that cast the South as an enemy thought slavery and associations with Maryland marked Washington’s rural outskirts as an enemy territory. This dynamic, along with material needs, led soldiers to frequently take private property without compensation, known as foraging. Furthermore, soldiers adopted new identities and social groups that …

A Time Of Change: Public Education In Galena, Illinois During The Postwar Era, Brett H. Noble

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

The years after World War II brought profound changes to American society. The expansion of government power, the influence of experts, and the demand to conform joined with technological innovations to revamp institutions throughout the United States. Public education underwent sweeping changes during this time. The revision of tax codes, curriculum initiatives, and improved transportation brought about the end of the one-room schoolhouse.

In Galena, Illinois, a small city in the state’s northwestern corner, the school system emerged from the war years in need of reform. Overcrowded schools and a skeletal and outdated curriculum brought calls from residents for improvement. …

"Arouse, Ye Slaves!": The Bill Haywood Trial, The Clash Of Organized Labor And Capital In The West, And The Influence Of The Appeal To Reason, William Toombs

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

The trial for the murder of a controversial ex-governor of Idaho represented a watershed moment in American labor history, especially in the West. The accused, three men who had been involved with the leadership of a predominantly western labor union, had been questionably extradited from Colorado to Idaho, causing a firestorm within the pro-labor forces. This public uproar and denunciation eventually caught the attention of sitting President Theodore Roosevelt, who became an unexpected and unwanted mouthpiece for concentrated capital. Ultimately, as this case came to occupy almost every major newspaper in the country, it illustrated the fierce and deadly clashes …

"If De Babies Cried": Slave Motherhood In Antebellum Missouri, Lucy Phelps Hamilton

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Slavery in Missouri was typically small-scale in nature and featured smallholdings possessing few slaves. Situated on the periphery of the South and the western border of the antebellum United States, Missouri, even after achieving statehood, remained a frontier. This small-scale frontier environment provides an opportunity for the close examination of slave motherhood. Focusing on slave motherhood through the lens of small-scale slavery in Missouri, I am able to closely examine the day-to-day lives of these women and focus on their common experiences as mothers living in bondage. This in turn paints a broader picture of typical slave mother experiences in …

Types Of Mankind: Polygenism And Scientific Racism In The Nineteenth Century United States Scientific Community., Robert A. Smith

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

In the mid-nineteenth century, a group of American scientists known collectively as the “American School” of ethnology challenged the validity of the biblical story of creation. They proposed that, contrary to the teaching of Genesis, there had been a number of separate divine acts of creation, leading to the appearance of more than one human species within the genus homo. They ranked the species, also known as varieties or races, in terms of relative superiority, with the Caucasian in the highest position of all.

I argue in my thesis that the rise of the American School was a defining moment …

An Analysis Of Osa Johnson - Noted Female Explorer, Frederick Michael Mccreedy

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

"An Analysis of Osa Johnson Noted Female Explorer" examines the life of the wife of famed African explorer Martin Elmer Johnson. It is the story of a love affair between two people who also shared a mutual love of animals and nature. Osa was initially the concerned wife who looked out after her husband and attempted to safeguard their lives in the early years of this century in a continent fraught with dangerous carnivores and instant death at every imaginable corner. She progressed from this to a position of leadership, shared with her husband, as they truly became a team …

The Migration Of Negro Coal Miners From Alabama To Southeast Kansas In 1899, John M. Robb

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

The Negro emerging from slavery after the Civil War was faced with the problem of making a living as a freeman. The only salable asset he had was his labor. In certain areas of the South, the Negro had turned by 1870, to mining bituminous coal. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, conditions in the coal mines of greater Birmingham, Alabama, reached such a state that a number of Negroes felt it imperative to remove themselves.

In 1899, a number of these Negroes migrated to Crawford and Cherokee counties of Southeastern Kansas to mine coal. Their arrival was …

The First Twenty-Five Years Of Webb City, Missouri: The Town That Jack Built, Rosamond Burk Merker

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to give the story of the first twenty-five years of Webb City, Missouri, "The Town That Jack Built," and the background for the formation of this typical midwestern mining town. The material for this study has been collected from libraries, histories, newspapers, photograph collections, scrapbooks and other souvenirs treasured over the years, and personal interviews with formerly prominent mining men and descendants of the early settlers.

The historical sketch of Webb City has been made under three chapters: (1) the early history of Webb City; (2) the industrial and economic development of Webb City; …

A History Of The Joplin & Pittsburg Electric Railway Company, 1890-1929, Robert Eastman Hickman

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This study was made to preserve the story of the Joplin & Pittsburg Railway Company, a transportation pioneer in the Pittsburg, Kansas, district. The study begins with the founding of Pittsburg, cursorily discusses the coming of steam trunk lines, and treats of the electric lines which were merged in 1910 to form the Joplin & Pittsburg Railway Company. From this juncture the study deals with the progress of the line until its end in 1929. Chronological order has been followed in the study in an effort to accentuate the cause and effect aspects of the company's life. Labor troubles, extensions, …

A Historical Sketch Of The Border Troubles In Bourbon And Linn Counties, Kansas, 1854-1860, Wayne Delavan

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Border troubles got a late start in the southeastern section of Kansas Territory. The free-state cause had attained a slight supremacy in the territory by the time these troubles were well developed in Bourbon and Linn Counties. This loss of the territorial government perhaps made pro-slavery partisans more bitter and less reasonable than they should have been. Some of the worst elements of the earlier struggle in the north drifted into this section. Examples of these can be given in George W. Clark and John Brown. Others who lacked a proper respect for life and property plus a distinct desire …

Prohibition In Kansas From 1861-1881, Edna Pearl Elliott

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

During the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804, the liquor problem first entered Kansas, when two men were punished for drunkenness while on duty. From 1804 to 1848 little is to be found in records that gives any information on this question but from 1848 to 1861 it was a live issue. Laws were enacted prohibiting the sale of intoxicating beverages to the Indians, the Dram-shop Law of 1855 was passed, the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention was held, and Kansas was admitted as a state January 29, 1861, without a liquor control law in her Constitution. The demand for better liquor …

A History Of The Development Of Deep Mine Production In Crawford County And The Factors That Have Influenced It, Joseph Skubitz Jr.

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

On May 12, 1887, The Pittsburg Headlight, in eulogizing the future possibilities of Crawford County, printed the following:

"In the new field of manufacturing no state can claim the superior advantages that belong to Kansas. Geographically, she is in the center and in point of railroad access and outlet, she is peer of them all. Her natural resources of coal and mineral wealth are matters of renown and for that reason her destiny is that of the greatest manufacturing empire west of the Mississippi. The richest district of all this wealth is Crawford County and the brightest future of all …

A History Of Naturalization In Crawford County, Kansas, Ted Rollen Taylor

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

America, since its discovery, has been a haven for the oppressed of other lands. This continent has offered to millions of immigrants from the old world new economic and social opportunities, a wider freedom, and a greater chance for personal development. In return the newcomers have woven their ideas and ideals into the fabric of a great nation. The first immigrants gave much to the country. They were home seekers ready and willing to cooperate with the native born to make this an enlightened country. The settlers of Crawford County, Kansas have proved to be no exception. Many interesting problems …

The Historical Development Of Girard, Kansas, And Its Community, Willis Ernest Lamson

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Kansas is rich in historic facts. Her traditions may be traced to the Spanish conquest of the native Indians of Mexico. In the sixteenth century Coronado came northward seeking for the mythical kingdom of Quivera, and claimed it by the right of conquest and discovery as a part of the kingdom of Spain. France nearly two centuries later sent out explorers who explored the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and declared at the mouth of each stream that all the land drained by these rivers and their tributaries belonged to the Kingdom of France. During the early part of the nineteenth …

A History Of The Progressive Party In Kansas, George H. Callis

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This thesis has been written with the aim of making it a teaching instrument in the social sciences. An attempt has been made to cover the span of American History treating briefly the liberalizing forces. The author has used much of the text of the thesis in his classes in American History, Kansas History, World History, American Problems, Civics, Economics, and Sociology. The narrative of the development of the liberal forces in government adds much to the vividness of teaching because of its setting. It is recent enough in point of time to belong to the present era and helps …