Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Newe Country: Environmental Degradation, Resource War, Irrigation And The Transformation Of Culture On Idaho's Snake River Plain, 1805--1927, Sterling Ross Johnson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Idaho's Shoshone and Bannock Indians have long relied upon the Snake River. The waterway provides salmon and waters the vast Camas Prairie. On the prairie grows the Camas plant, the roots of which Shoshones and Bannocks harvest as a staple of their diet. Grass also grows on the prairie and the surrounding plains, which fed huge herds of bison that Shoshones and Bannocks also relied upon for food and skins to wear and trade. As a result of integration into the globalizing economy initiated by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, indigenous peoples of the area and Euroamericans overhunted bison populations, …

The Impact Of World War Ii On Women's Fashion In The United States And Britain, Meghann Mason

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

World War II (hereafter referred to as WWII) is a fascinating era in fashion, society, and politics. The fashion of the era was truly representative of the events happening in the world in a most visible way. This era made indelible marks on future designers and the science of fashion as the world knows it. Fashion and costume design were influenced and changed due to the many limitations presented and imposed by WWII. WWII represents a great marker of change socially, technologically, economically, and politically. While it affected the entire world, the main focus of this thesis will explore the …

A Landscape Approach To Late Prehistoric Settlement And Subsistence Patterns In The Mojave Sink, Tiffany Ann Thomas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The environment of the Late Prehistoric period (1200 A.D. to Historic Contact) Mojave Sink was wetter than modern conditions. The settlement and subsistence patterns of the occupants of the region during this period were driven by the availability of water, subsistence resources, raw material sources, and tradition. These people utilized the regional landscape based upon the seasonal availability of these resources. Supplemental agricultural production has been proposed for the Mojave River Delta due to the more favorable environmental conditions of this period. If agriculture was being practiced it would have affected the regional land-use patterns. For this thesis I propose …

Walking Box Ranch Planning And Design Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending October 10, 2011, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV participated in two meetings with BLM regarding updating the current Task Order, obtaining a two-year no-cost extension for the two Assistance Agreements, and to develop the future WBR operating agreement between BLM and UNLV.
• Weather station progress included: 1) A study to review the recent developments in various building envelope components and their effects on the energy sustainability of a building has been completed and published, 2) Ground-source heat pump (GSHP) Vs Photovoltaic (PV) technology: A detailed comparison of ground source heat pumps and photo voltaics has been initiated, 3) A study to identify the most suitable and economically …

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 …

The Politics Of A Gesture: The Impact Of Nixon’S Visit To China On Nixon’S Presidency, Samuel Tofte

Psi Sigma Siren

The importance of a symbolic gesture in diplomacy is very difficult to gauge. Diplomats often embark on social functions, meetings and trips to international countries in order to make contact with foreign diplomats and build relationships with governments. This is an effective means of forging political relationships, but how important is it when it comes to international policy and treaty negotiation? In short, it is extremely important in the process of policy-making, even without the tangible evidence showing its significance. Establishing contact can be the most difficult and arduous step in the road to good diplomatic relations, a fact that …

Gambling With Lives: A History Of Occupational Health In Southern Nevada, 1905--2010, Michelle Ann Turk

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In April 2009, the Pulitzer committee awarded its public service prize to the Las Vegas Sun for its coverage of the high fatalities on Las Vegas Strip construction sites. The newspaper attributed failures in safety policy to "the exponential growth in the Las Vegas market." In fact, since Las Vegas' founding in 1905, rapid development in the region has always strained occupational health standards. From transporting hazardous railroad cargoes to building Hoover Dam, chemical processing at Basic Magnesium, nuclear testing, and dense megaresort construction on the Strip, workers, residents, and tourists alike have been exposed to the threat of living …

1983: The Most Dangerous Year, Andrew R. Garland

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A series of otherwise unrelated events culminated to make 1983 the most dangerous year the world has ever known, with the United States and the Soviet Union even closer to war than during the much more well-known events of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The crisis of 1983 arose from a sequence of accidents, misunderstandings, and mistakes. From highly publicized events such as President Ronald Reagan‘s application of morality to foreign policy to the Soviet Union‘s attempt to discover NATO‘s secret attack plans, an extraordinary confluence of events brought the two superpowers closer to nuclear exchange than is commonly believed. …

Jackpot! A Legal History Of Indian Gaming In California, Aaron Peardon

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Indian Gaming has transformed the economic, political, and sociological landscape of California. The growth of Indian casinos has had a profound impact on both Indian and non-Indian communities alike. California tribes took the lead in legalizing Indian Gaming throughout the nation. The efforts of California tribes in the legislative and political process have enabled many tribal groups to rise out of poverty and to gain prosperity that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. They have also brought increased revenue to local communities and have provided thousands of jobs to all Californians.

This thesis discusses the historical relationships between Native American …

The Whiter Lotus: Asian Religions And Reform Movements In America, 1836-1933, Edgar A. Weir Jr.

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines the influence of Asian religions and thought on various reform movements in America, including anti-slavery, labor rights, the alleviation of poverty, women's rights, and the rights of immigrants. The interactions between these two forces will be uncovered and analyzed from 1836, the year Ralph Waldo Emerson's ground-breaking work Nature was published, until 1933, the year that Dyer Daniel Lum, the last individual discussed in this work, passed away. Previous studies have demonstrated that those who incorporated Asian religions and thought into their own lives and worldviews also affixed great importance on affecting society in a positive manner. …

From Khaki To Brown: Community Formation, Homeownership, And Mobility In Santa Ana, California, 1950-2000, Stefani Jan Evans

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examines the first fifty years of a modest 1950 housing tract of one hundred thirty-nine houses and five commercial lots in Santa Ana, California. I analyzed deeds, maps, newspapers, powers of attorney, building permits, city directories, and promotional material and interviewed nearly one hundred former and current residents to determine who came to Santa Ana in the mid-twentieth century, why they came, and why they stayed or left. Contrary to what contemporary Los Angeles boosters might have thought, mid-century Santa Ana was not simply a suburb of Los Angeles. In 1950 Santa Ana, with 45,533 residents and forty …

Taming The Waters That Taketh From The Devil’S Playground: A History Of Flood Control In Clark County, Nevada, 1955-2010, Jarvis Marlow

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Las Vegas valley is the driest metropolis in the United States, with an annual rainfall of less than five inches. A large majority of the annual precipitation occurs between May and September in the form of high intensity thunderstorms. Since the founding of Las Vegas in 1905 until the formation of the Clark County Regional Flood Control District in 1986, the five jurisdictions that make up the Las Vegas valley: Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, and Clark County, struggled to manage stormwater. The principal defect was that they reflected the particular whims of each government entity, …

The Size Of The Risk: An Environmental History Of The Nuclear Great Basin, Leisl Ann Carr Childers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Throughout the twentieth century, Congress has managed the nation's public lands for the greater good of the country under a multiple-use construct. Land-use decisions based on serving the nation's public interest entailed federal land management agencies finding the utility of the land in order to put as much of it as possible into some kind of economic production and provide equitable access, as much as was feasible, to all the various public land users. But every federal program enacted on the nation's public lands has had an associated cost; not everyone or every environment has benefited from multiple-use public land …

Uncoiling The Modern Sino-American Relationship, Amanda Mcatee

Psi Sigma Siren

For this particular paper I seek to qualify the true nature of the Sino-American relationship as it has developed over the last quarter of the twentieth century. To more fully appreciate the complex relationship that evolved between such seemingly antithetical nations, I will critically review both James Mann‘s About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, From Nixon to Clinton and Margaret MacMillan‘s Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World. This paper will specifically focus on evaluating the similarities and inconsistencies between Mann‘s and MacMillan‘s theses, elucidate the structural differences between each author‘s arguments, and …

Community Control: Civil Rights Resistance In The Mile High City, Summer Burke

Psi Sigma Siren

Black power in the late 1960s was once blamed for the fall of the civil rights movement. The more militant and abrasive black power approach was mistaken for the alternative civil rights movement, contradictory to the progressive approach of nonviolent marches in the South. However, recent scholarship contextualizing black power and the Black Panthers in particular, restructured this paradigm. This move toward a more inclusive approach to studying black resistance across the country steered The Movement out of the Memphis to Montgomery narrative, and instead provides a more textured understanding of black radicalism as a vital aspect of civil rights …

Price Ceilings And Rationing: The Base Ingredients Of The Black Market Food Industry In Nevada During World War Ii, Richard B. Keeton

Psi Sigma Siren

After the Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Americans braced themselves for what would surely be a long, hard-fought war. In World War II, brave young United States soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice across the seas on both the European and Pacific fronts. However, the millions of citizens on domestic soil also made countless sacrifices in a national mobilization to support the war effort. People in Nevada and across the nation gave up everyday conveniences and seemingly ordinary items to show their support for the troops. Government agencies instituted tight rationing guidelines on a variety of consumer goods. Perhaps the …

The Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada, Angela Moor

Psi Sigma Siren

The Atomic Testing Museum attempts to interpret history that has barely ended. The controversy and emotion that surround nuclear weapons remain fresh in many Americans‘ minds. The museum must walk a careful line when interpreting such recent history. Few other American history museums offer interpretation of the Cold War, and certainly, the Atomic Testing Museum stands as the sole museum dedicated to atomic testing. As years go by, and the memory of the mushroom cloud floating on the Nevada desert fades, the museum may feel more comfortable in providing a balanced narrative on atomic testing. For now, as retired "Cold …

Migration, Community, And Stereotype: Shaping Racial Space In The Twentieth-Century Urban West, Stefani Evans

Psi Sigma Siren

African Americans who migrated to western cities in the twentieth century encountered a polyglot mix of Euro Americans, Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans. Diverse western populations dictated that western racial contests over space and power would evolve differently from those in the North or the South. This paper examines the discourse on white, Latino and African American racial landscapes in western cities through themes of migration, community formation, and white stereotypes and community responses to those stereotypes in seven key monographs and two articles published between 1993 and 2005.