Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Taking Aim: The Evolution Of Women In Competitive Shooting Sports In The 20th Century United States, Alena Rose-Marie Buczynski

Masters Theses

Throughout history, women have been overlooked, discounted, and ignored for their skills and abilities as competitive and professional athletes. Competitive shooting sports were popular in the United States; however, men excluded women from participating in many of these activities until the early 19th century, when America saw the rise of famous markswomen such as Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, and Lillian Smith. These women challenged the masculinity of the sport of shooting and bested many of their male counterparts as they traveled and performed across the United States. In the 1970s, women found themselves entering the Olympic arena of competitive shooting …

The Bean Pie: Black Muslims And Identity In Early Twentieth Century Detroit, Alexandra Christine Bicknell

Masters Theses

The bean pie is the product of culinary traditions set forth by the Nation of Islam. Nation members used the navy bean to whip up a custardy dessert utilizing religiously approved ingredients. Milk, eggs, brown sugar, and whole wheat flour transformed a savory, well-cooked bean into a sweet treat. Pies made from beans were not invented by the Nation of Islam, but they became symbolic of the culture and institutions established by Black Muslims in America. The Nation of Islam shaped Michigan and the midwestern region’s social and cultural identity. The Nation promoted that Black people ought to have power …

Change And Continuity: Euro-American And Native American Settlement Patterns In The St. Joseph River Valley, Allison M. Kohley

Masters Theses

In recent years there has been a particular interest in the fur trade and colonialism through identification and investigation of Fort St. Joseph. This fort was an 18th century French trading post in the St. Joseph River valley located in southwestern Michigan and northwestern Indiana. This study expands our current understanding of the change and continuity of the Euro- American and Native American settlement patterns in the valley during the periods immediately prior to, during, and after the abandonment of Fort St. Joseph through the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical analyses.

A Position Of Strength: Arms Dealing As Diplomacy Under The Reagan Administration, William D. Watson

Masters Theses

My thesis is an examination of the Cold War during the 1980s, with a focus on arms dealing and diplomacy under President Ronald Reagan from 1981-1989. I chose to write about three specific case studies based on the unique intersections of American diplomatic goals in relation to geography, the sophistication of weapons technology involved, and geopolitical considerations. The purpose of this thesis is to explain why and how the Reagan administration was able to carry out three separate arms deals, and in turn, how those deals fit into the broader, global Cold War between the United States and the Soviet …

Black Power In Green And White: Integration And Black Protest In Michigan State University Football, 1947-1972, John Matthew Smith

Masters Theses

While southern college football teams remained all white until the late 1960s and early 1970s, Michigan State University head football coach Duffy Daugherty formed championship teams in 1965 and 1966 by recruiting the best southern black players. While coaches in the North recruited black athletes and played them regularly by the mid-1950s, no other coach took the risks Daugherty did to integrate his teams. Duffy Daugherty's path-breaking teams broke all the rules of integrated competition and forced southern schools to reconsider their stance on segregated college football.

The ground breaking integration of black athletes in the mid-1950s and 1960s under …

"A Conflict Of Truth With Error": Southern Preachers, Their Worldview, And Sectional Tensions, 1830-1865, Timothy A. Ehrhardt

Masters Theses

White evangelical preachers of the antebellum era presented the American South with a cosmology that was rooted in the Bible as God's revelation to all humans, with God as sovereign over a strict social hierarchy that placed the white male as household head, and women, children, and black slaves (in that order) as subordinates. This cosmology contributed to sectional tensions, as southern pastors were at the forefront of advocating a proslavery worldview, and supported secession from the Union and war as an act of purification from northern infidels who did not endorse the ministers' brand of biblical literalism.

Southern clergymen …

Facets Of Courage: Colonel Charles Victor Deland And The American Civil War, Anthony P. Glesner

Masters Theses

This work constitutes a case study of a historical paradigm, that during the course of the Civil War civilians came to view the concepts of valor and virtue very much differently than soldiers, and that this caused tension within communities, both during the war, and after, when civilians continued to judge returning soldiers by an outdated sense of values, while the soldiers themselves, disillusioned by war, only wanted to forget. As time dimmed the memories of war, many veterans began to once again see it in terms of valor and virtue, and thus they reshaped their visions of war and …

"Permit Me Then Good Friends To Sing": Reflections, Reactions, And Manipulations In Civil War Songs, Joanne Thomas

Masters Theses

Musicologists, folklorists and historians agree that the music of the Civil War was a significant means of communication for Americans in all regions and classes. The popularity of music soared during the war, with songs about the war holding center stage. This study moves beyond the acknowledgment that these songs were an important means of communication to seeing what messages were being communicated by both professional and amateur songwriters. These lyricists criticized and praised behaviors, often pointing out the social acceptance or exclusion that could result from individual behaviors, made assumptions about and passed moral judgements on female, male, and …

A Summary Of The Contributions Of Four Key African American Female Figures Of The Civil Rights Movement, Michelle Margaret Viera

Masters Theses

This thesis will present historical data to summarize the contributions of four key African-American female figures of the civil rights era. The theme is devoted to the historical contributions of these women. Their achievements will be shown to have answered to human needs during the struggle for African American civil and human rights. These achievements were preceded by their personal perceptions as to what constituted tenable rights and needs, introspection, and their willingness to assume a leadership stance and leadership roles.

This written historical assessment will illustrate the chain of events, social and geographical particulars which triggered participation in the …

Assassination In Modern America: Political Participation Through A Gun Barrel?, Richard Grossenbacher

Masters Theses

Assassination has been a constant companion of the world's societies from the beginning of recorded history. Only relatively recently have social scientists begun empirical study of these acts in an effort to reveal any commonalties and possible predictive traits. Investigation of the assassination phenomenon assumed a special urgency in America as violence seemed to escalate in the 1960s, which resulted in some notable research.

The present research collected data of presidential and non-presidential assassinations and attempts that occurred from 1969 through 1992 and compared the findings with the results of earlier studies.

The data indicate that presidential assaults increased in …

From Welfare To Liberation: A Socio-Historical Analysis Of The Animal Rights Movement, Linda J. Rynbrandt

Masters Theses

This thesis is a socio-historical analysis of the animal rights social movement in the United States of America at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries. The theoretical model is resource mobilization theory, especially McCarthy and Zald's (1973) entrepreneurial model. The method, which contrasts this social movement at two points in time, is informed by Skocpol's (1984) interpretative historical sociology. In particular, leadership, ideology, organizational structure, and strategy tactics in both eras are examined. Comparing the two manifestations of animal rights protest, the data show that: (a) Leadership and organizational structure, though similar in many respects, are more professionalized …

Of Berry Pickers, Shanty Boys, And The Jack Pine Bird: Patterns Of Settlement And Subsistence In Nineteenth Century Oscoda County, Rose Lockwood Moore

Masters Theses

The provisions of the Homestead Act of 1863 (U.S. Congress 1862a) required a settlement pattern of dispersed single families on small tracts of land, which, in turn, affected the subsistence strategies available to the homesteaders. The interaction of federal land legislation with the ecosystem of southern Oscoda County resulted in marked spatial and temporal differences between the tracts that were homesteaded as opposed to those acquired for their timber. A sample population of quarter sections was analyzed in terms of the physical and biotic environments, date of entry, and use. The analysis confirmed that the timber lands were located on …

Gay Masquerade: Male Homosexuals In American Cities, 1910 To 1940, Steven L. Lewis

Masters Theses

Prior to 1900, American scientists struggled to formulate a sexual norm. Their categorization of sexuality ironically led to the creation of a label (homosexual) by which individuals created and expressed a sexual identity at variance with the newly created norm.

By 1910, the climate of moral reform (Progressivism) led to the discovery (and documentation) of a homosexual subculture in larger American cities. With Chicago and New York City as examples, the author documents the growth of this sexual underground in the period between 1910 and 1940. Using primary sources such as diaries, letters, autobiographies and novels, the world of the …

Patent Medicine Town A Social History Of Patent Medicines In Marshall, Michigan, Teresa Lou Trupiano

Masters Theses

Marshall, Michigan, once known as "patent medicine town," had over fifty medicine companies. The medicine industry flourished in America until the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 regulated the trade. Marshall provides a microcosm of the industry.

The H. A. Peterman Co. (1870-1890) and Sharpsteen's Family Medicines (1873-1950) introduced Marshall to many techniques, from mail-order marketing to medicine shows. The Voltaic Belt Co. OSSIES) , Chrystal’s Electric Belts (1893-1905), L. F. Page Co. (1891— 1901), and H. A. Horton (1916-1928) sold remedies for "lost manhood." Success of the F. A. Stuart Co. (1893-1956) and Brooks Appliance Co. (1880-present) encouraged …

A History Of Bronson Park, Kalamazoo, Michigan From 1829 To 1940, Carol Knauss

Masters Theses

Bronson Park is a 3.6-acre tract of land in the center of downtown Kalamazoo. For over 130 years the city has used this land for a public park. The land originally was donated to the county for a school and a jail by the men who owned and platted the area. Interested citizens converted the two squares into a park which, in the following years, was improved with trees, walks, and a fountain. This park became an important meeting place for the villagers who held political rallies and celebrations there. From 1829 to 1940 both the appearance and the way …

Early History And Influence Of Harvard College’S Hollis Professorship Of Divinity (The First Endowed Professorial Chair In America), Russell Vernon Kohr

Masters Theses

The creation by Thomas Hollis of London of the Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard College in 1721, the first endowed professorial chair in America, had three effects. First, it elevated to the chair a series of distinguished minister professors from whose classroom came most of the clergy of eighteenth century Massachusetts, to say nothing of those of the remainder of New England. Secondly, the establishment of the chair broke the lockstep of the practice inherited by Harvard College from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, by which a tutor taught all members of a class all subjects. Henceforth the divinity professor …

A Methodology For Documenting The History Of Michigan Houses Built Between 1830 And 1930, Esther M. Walton

Masters Theses

This thesis delineates the methodology for documenting the history of Michigan houses built between 1830 and 1930* Three major areas of documentation are discussed. They are record search, architectural style and physical examination, as well as the location of relevant material. Each type and kind of public and private records, written, cartographic and visual are explained as to their importance and use for house research.

A brief overview of architectural style is presented along with illustration. Within the architectural style is a discussion on the physical examination of a house.

The conclusions are presented as a case study complete with …

Charles Langlade In The French And Indian War, Paul M. Trap

Masters Theses

At the time when North America was "being torn by conflict for control of the continent, Charles-Michel Mouet de Xanglade became one of the most important Indian leaders in the Old Northwest. During the French and Indian War he led parties of Indian warriors in most of the major campaigns of the war, from the first fighting at Pickawillany to the French capitulation at Montreal in I760. Xanglade's Indians were typical of most Indian war-parties, both impairing the French cause by their atrocities and inappropriate actions and providing badly needed support in crucial situations.

This paper describes Xanglade's actions during …

Regional Fiction As A Source Of Michigan History: A Collection Of Readings, Larry B. Massie

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

U. S. Gold Policy From April 1933 To De Facto Stabilization Of The Dollar Upon A Gold. Basis In January 1934, Robert A. Hageman

Masters Theses

Introduction

An inadequate banking system and an attachment to monetary panaceas are both characteristic of the American past. When the Revolutionary War began, the colonist were ill-prepared to meet the growing burden of financial stress in the newly formed Confederation. In order to bring some degree of organization to the unstable monetary system, the Continental Congress fixed the ratio between gold and silver at 15.3 to 1 and authorized the issuance of Continental notes redeemable in Spanish-milled dollars or their equivalent in gold or silver. But after 1780, "continentals" depreciated so rapidly they soon ceased to circulate, and coins replaced …