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United States History

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The Housewife, The Single Girl, And The Prostitute: Constructions Of Femininity In Postwar American Historiography, Marie Rowley Sep 2011

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

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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 …


Community Control: Civil Rights Resistance In The Mile High City, Summer Burke Apr 2011

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

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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 …


Commending Religion To All Around Us: Baptist Church Discipline, 1780-1850, Claire White Jan 2008

Commending Religion To All Around Us: Baptist Church Discipline, 1780-1850, Claire White

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In 1818, a letter signed “B.” was sent to The American Baptist Magazine and Missionary Intelligencer. The letter, titled “Things to be set in order in the churches,” stated that the Baptists’ “moral and social habits, including [their] general intercourse with the world, must be such, as to commend religion to all around us.” While all religions fashion themselves pure and saintly, B., and his Baptist contemporaries, truly believed that their discipline and social habits, not just their internal piety, made them the world’s saviors. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, American Baptist congregations were flourishing. In 1740, …


Dead Roses And Blooming Deserts: The Medical History Of A New Deal Icon, Michelle F. Turk Jan 2007

Dead Roses And Blooming Deserts: The Medical History Of A New Deal Icon, Michelle F. Turk

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Although a memorial plaque at the Hoover Dam sets the number of workers killed during its construction at ninety-six, the real figure was nearly double. In fact, the figure would have been much higher had it not been for the precedent-setting effort by the federal government, contactors, and workers to save as many lives as possible on the project. Aside from its long unrecognized value as a jobs program, much needed stimulus to the fledging Las Vegas economy, and status as one of the “man-made wonders of the world,” Hoover Dam represented a major step forward for the American occupational …


World War I And The Nevada Homefront Pre-War Rhetoric Vs. War-Time Reality, Karen Loeffler Jan 2006

World War I And The Nevada Homefront Pre-War Rhetoric Vs. War-Time Reality, Karen Loeffler

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From the early 1860s, first as a territory then as a state, Nevada has been identified as a part of the western frontier mythology. The harsh environment invited an even harsher incursion of outlaws, bandits, and outcasts from the East. Other arrivals included diverse immigrant groups, entrepreneurs, and religious sects ready to embrace the freedom promised by westward migration. Having achieved statehood in the midst of the Civil War, the Battle Born state has not only encouraged but also prospered from its errant image. Equally evident is the unconventional, rebellious, and anti-government reputation associated with Nevadans who, regardless of their …


Buildings At The Center: Reasons For Building Tabernacles, Aaron Mcarthur Jan 2006

Buildings At The Center: Reasons For Building Tabernacles, Aaron Mcarthur

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There were generally three different motivations for the construction of a tabernacle in a specific community. The first was that the leadership of the Church in Salt Lake directed communities to build one. Leaders did this in settlements that they believed were to become important central communities for gatherings and large meetings. The decision was also made in areas that the Church desired to strengthen their claim to, legally and emotionally. In 1863, Brigham Young decided that the struggling cotton mission in St. George needed a shot in the arm. To rally the community, he determined that a tabernacle would …


Germans In Sacramento, 1850-1859, Carole C. Terry Jan 2005

Germans In Sacramento, 1850-1859, Carole C. Terry

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During the 1850s in Sacramento, German-born immigrants banded together in an ethnically based neighborhood where they created a sub-culture of "German-ness," practicing their own particular rituals and customs. At the same time, these foreign-born joined the Anglo-American majority to addresses the chaos and disorder brought on by the dramatic increase in Sacramento's population due to the discovery of gold in 1849. Contemporary accounts such as newspapers, directories, histories and unpublished manuscripts confirm the existence of this strong community and its attempts to duplicate institutions they remembered in Germany and ethnic settlements in America. Despite their small numbers, they influenced the …


Dollars, Defense, And The Desert: Southern Nevada’S Military Economy And The Second World War, Robert V. Nickel Jan 2005

Dollars, Defense, And The Desert: Southern Nevada’S Military Economy And The Second World War, Robert V. Nickel

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Modern Las Vegas has come to inhabit a unique place in the American imagination. A neon mirage glittering amid the desolate Mojave Desert, “Sin City” is both celebrated and scorned as an oasis of gambling, nightlife, and entertainment. Consistently ranked among the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas, Las Vegas has experienced sensational economic, infrastructural, and demographic growth in recent years. The dizzying pace of this development makes it difficult to imagine that the city was once anything other than the bustling urban playground it is today. Like many great western cities, Las Vegas came of age during the World War Two …


Life After Civil Death: Felony And Mormon Disenfranchisement In The U.S. West (1880-1890), Winston A. Bowman Jan 2004

Life After Civil Death: Felony And Mormon Disenfranchisement In The U.S. West (1880-1890), Winston A. Bowman

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Pomeroy’s understanding of the nature of the franchise may seem foreign to many present-day Americans, but this vision is the one to which most nineteenth-century jurists, scholars, and politicians subscribed. It is worth noting that Pomeroy wrote these words in the aftermath of the post-Civil War rights revolution and half a century after the expansion of the franchise under the auspices of Jacksonian democracy. This attitude toward voting rights was not abandoned following the passage of the reconstruction amendments. Instead, the idea of a limited franchise was affirmed time and again in the post-bellum era. Pomeroy’s franchise (one in which …


Die Deutschen Von Marysville: The Germans Of Marysville, 1850-11860., Carole C. Terry Jan 2003

Die Deutschen Von Marysville: The Germans Of Marysville, 1850-11860., Carole C. Terry

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Histories of California addressing the years after the discovery of gold neglect the impact of European-born ethnic minorities on their new residences, particularly those living in the smaller cities that grew to meet the demands of the gold miners. The white newcomers to California during the gold rush years were not a homogeneous collection of Anglo-Saxon protestants. German immigrants, despite their small numbers, were a significant presence in the growing permanent cities of California such as Marysville. In that City, the third largest in California during the 1850s, the number of Germans who came and permanently stayed grew over the …