Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Selfhood And The Search For An Identity: Explaining The Emergence Of The Nineteenth-Century Holiness Movement And Early Church Of The Nazarene, Paul R. George Jr.

Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to explain the emergence of the nineteenth-century Holiness Movement and subsequent organization of a national holiness church asthe result of a reconstruction of the cultural-linguistic system of John Wesley. In the process of contact and exchange with American religious pluralism, Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection and his system of societies were reconstructed by charismatic leaders who selected discursive and nondiscursive elements which they found efficacious. Theological and social changes in the Methodist Episcopal Church compelled holiness advocates to emphasize theinstantaneous aspect of Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection (entire sanctification) and construct a ritual form which had the …

The New Deal In Art: The Fine Arts Project And The Evolution Of Abstract Expressionism, Sarah Coon Stoops

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The formation of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of Roosevelt's New Deal, in conjunction with the Depression and World War II, can be credited with changing the face of international art of the twentieth century. The majority of the artists who were later to be known as Abstract Expressionists participated in the Fine Arts Project (FAP) branch of the WPA in New York throughout the 1930s. This government support of the artists gave them a chance to commit to painting as a career, and their painting styles evolved drastically during this time. Through this support, the connections that …

“Imagined Communities” In Showcases: The Nationality Rooms Program At The University Of Pittsburgh (1926-1945), Lucia Curta

Dissertations

From the inception of the program in 1926, the Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh were viewed as apolitical in their iconography. Their purpose was primarily didactic. Designed as classrooms meant for lectures and seminars, they were however ad-hoc museums for the display of symbols of national identity. In many ways, they constitute an excellent illustration in terms of the decorative arts of Benedict Anderson's concept of "imagined communities."

The identity referent of the symbolism attached to the decorative arrangements of these rooms was not that of the ethnic communities in Pittsburgh, for whom the rooms were supposedly designed …

Recipes For Reform: Americanization And Foodways In Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920, Stephanie J. Jass

Dissertations

During the late nineteenth century as tens of thousands of immigrants flooded American cities, public debate among reformers--who tended to be middle-class, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants--began to center on the best ways to assimilate these foreigners into American society. Although some Americanization groups stressed language and citizenship training, two major reform movements focused on foodways as an important tool of assimilation.

This dissertation examines how both the home economics and settlement house movements attempted to Americanize ethnic food practices. It describes why reformers saw foodways as a viable and meaningful avenue for reform, as well as the varied responses that reformers …

From Useful Knowledge To Rational Amusement: Museums In Early America, Allison M. Morrill

Masters Theses

This study examines the rise of early American museums following their birth from intellectual societies in the American colonies. The two primary categories of collections, scientific and patriotic items, were examined for their significance and intended purpose. Likewise, both popular education and interesting entertainment were identified as factors for encouraging early museum proprietors to seek the appeal of the general public while simultaneously drawing visitors to these early establishments of learning and leisure.

In order to understand the motives behind intellectuals’ desires for popular education, scientific knowledge, and patriotic enthusiasm, the writings of many American intellectual elites were consulted. The …

The Robert W. Ryerss Museum And Library : A Case Study In Upper Class Philanthropy In Late Victorian Philadelphia, Laura L. Keefe

Honors Theses

"The Robert W. Ryerss Museum and Library: A Case Study in Upper Class Philanthropy in Late Victorian Philadelphia" looks at the philanthropy of the Robert W. Ryerss family in Gilded Age Philadelphia. It places the Ryerss family within the spectrum of philanthropic spirit and activity that swept upper class Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century and analyzes the unique act of creating a public library and museum out of a private home within the context of the larger trend of scientific giving and museum foundation that characterized this era. Historical scholarship is extremely limited about this particular class of donor …

A History Of The Bellarmine University Property From 1848-1954, Kevin Demaria

Undergraduate Projects

The paper was done for History 324 Practical Historical Research.

The Development Of An Artist's Paradise: Minnesota Landscapes: 1840-1940, William J. Wittenbreer

Culminating Projects in History

An Artist's Paradise: Minnesota Landscapes 1840-1940 was an exhibit that opened on January 25 and ran through June 22, 2003 at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul, Minnesota. The exhibition featured oil paintings and works on paper of the Minnesota landscape by Minnesota artists. This thesis is a recap of the process of putting together the exhibition, the educational activities held during the exhibition, as well as the intellectual basis for the exhibition from the perspective of the co-curator.

The first chapter is a narrative that describes the co-curator's role in the location, selection and negotiations to …

A Constitution Of Our Own : The Constitutional Convention Of 1872 And The Resurrection Of Confederate West Virginia The Constitutional Convention Of 1872 And The Resurrection Of Confederate West Virginia, Richard Ogden Hartman

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The Radical wing of the Republican Party, which created the state of West Virginia, imposed a punitive reconstruction program on its citizens. The disenfranchisement of most returning Confederate soldiers and the state's Confederate supporters was carried out illegally in many cases. The overzealous administering of restrictive measures longer than necessary or acceptable caused a split in the Republican Party leading to the rise of the Democratic Party in the state. The Liberal Republicans joined the Democrats in successfully removing many of the reconstruction measures affecting the disenfranchised. Once the Democratic Party regained the legislative majority, they swept away all the …

John F. Kennedy And West Virginia, 1960-1963, Anthony W. Ponton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, a wealthy New England Catholic, traveled to a rural, Protestant state to contend in an election that few thought he could win. While many scholars have examined the impact of Kennedy’s victory in the West Virginia primary, few have analyzed the importance that his visit to the state in 1960 and his ensuing administration had on West Virginia. Kennedy enacted a number of policies directed specifically toward relieving the poverty that had plagued West Virginia since statehood. The Kennedy administration funded highway construction, worker training programs, and area development at levels the state had never …

In Defense Of Colonel Richard P. Roberts, Commanding Officer Of The Pennsylvania 140th Regiment, Gregory Jason Bell

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Richard P. Roberts was the colonel of the Pennsylvania 140th regiment from its organization in September 1862 until his death at Gettysburg in July 1863. During this time period, Captain David Acheson of Company C fostered a “growing dislike” for the colonel that led him to portray the colonel negatively in his writings. Unfortunately for the colonel’s reputation, Acheson’s letters have been widely published, leading at least one historian to accept Acheson’s poor opinion of the colonel as fact. However, other primary sources exist which collectively demonstrate a positive regimental opinion of the colonel and further suggest that Acheson’s criticisms …

A Look At The Little Rock Nine, Stacey Noble

Presidential Scholars Theses (1990 – 2006)

The sun beat down on fields of puffy white clouds as glistening backs reaped the new harvest. At the end of the long, grueling day, the people known as slaves returned to their cabins to sleep until the early morning call once again beckoned them to the fields. As the white owners spent their evenings reading books, writing letters, updating the accounts, the people they owned may have sung or told stories, but they did not read. They did not write, and they did not update any accounts. They did not show any sign of education. To be educated and …

Croatian Immigrants In The Keweenaw, Jennifer Lynn-Franks Stajdl

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

In the years between 1890 and 1920, there was an influx of immigration to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Due to the copper mines, towns and villages, such as Red Jacket (now known as Calumet) flourished. Surrounding the mines were smaller villages, such as Ahmeek, located five miles northwest of Calumet. Among those that came for a new and “better” life were the Croatians. Most of the Croatians who made their way over were from the same area in Croatia, Ravna Gora. This immigration pattern is an example of chain-migration, people helping those from their country, from the area of the country …

In Honor Of God And Country: The Clergy Of Occupied Virginia During The Civil War, Michael Thomas Sclafani

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Confronting Democracy: Edward Coles And The Cultivation Of Authority In The Young Nation, Suzanne Cooper Guasco

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Born in 1786, Edward Coles came of age as Americans attempted to define this nation's character. Convinced of his generation's responsibility to ensure the survival of the republican experiment, Coles emerged from the College of William and Mary determined to assume a position of authority. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, he left Williamsburg persuaded that slavery was morally and ideologically wrong. Burdened by a conflict between a sense of duty to serve his nation and a commitment to eliminate slavery, Coles embarked on a public career that took him from the seat of national power in Washington City, to …

Guarding Capital: Soldier Strikebreakers On The Long Road To The Ludlow Massacre, Anthony Roland Destefanis

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation examines the cultural politics of military strikebreaking. By focusing on the contest between striking southern and eastern European and Mexican immigrant coal miners and their employers during the 1913--14 coal strike in southern Colorado, the dissertation demonstrates how the intersection of politics with issues of race, class, gender, and ethnicity shaped the miners' rebellion and the state and corporate responses to it. The Colorado National Guard was an integral part of how the state and capital reacted to the strike, and makes an ideal focus for this study because it was a prolific strikebreaker during the late nineteenth …

"I Looked To The East---": Material Culture, Conversion, And Acquired Meaning In Early African America, Jason Boroughs

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Emasculation: The Caning Of Charles Sumner And Elite Southern Manhood On The Brink, James Corbett David

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

The Origins Of The Presidential Election: The Creation Of The Electoral College Through The First Federal Elections, Giacomo Mazzei

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

The Battle For The University: The Vietnam-Era Student Movement At Universities In Central Illinois, David Bell

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Childhood, Colonialism And Nation-Building: The Role Of Childhood In The Construction Of Race, Class And Gender In Seventeenth, Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Virginia, Autumn Rain Duke Barrett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

"They've All Come To Look For America": Constructing Self And Nation In Women's Travel Narratives 1870-1890, Sarah Elizabeth Mclennan

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

"Of More Consequence Than The President": Frances Folsom Cleveland And The Role Of First Lady In The Late Nineteenth Century, Ellen E. Adams

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Building "The Machine": The Development Of Slavery And Slave Society In Early Colonial Virginia, John C. Coombs

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Historians have, of course, long been aware of the importance of Virginia's seventeenth-century conversion from white to black labor. But while scholars have devoted considerable effort to explaining why this pivotal transition occurred, a detailed analysis of how it happened does not exist, nor by extension have scholars ever fully considered the repercussions of what one might call the "process of conversion.";Although Virginia's black population remained small throughout much of the seventeenth century, it was heavily concentrated on the estates of a relatively small circle of wealthy planters. By the middle decades of the century some members of the gentry …

Fur Trade Daughters Of The Oregon Country: Students Of The Sisters Of Notre Dame De Namur, 1850, Shawna Lea Gandy

Dissertations and Theses

Ethnicity, religion, class, and gender are important elements in determining the cultural texture of society. This study examines these components at an important junction in the history of the Pacific Northwest through the lives of students enrolled in two girls’ schools established by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur (SNDN) in the Willamette Valley in the 1840s. These girls, predominantly métis daughters of fur-trade settlers and their Indian wives, along with their Irish and Anglo-American classmates, represent the socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the region as the mixing that gave rise to the unique intermediary culture referred to as …

Utah's Plight: A Passage Through The Great Depression, Joseph F. Darowski

Theses and Dissertations

The Great Depression marked a fateful passage in the annals of the American people. President Roosevelt's New Deal, the nation's signature response, proved to be a determined but erratic reaction. Against the backdrop of a nation deeply mired in an unrelenting international depression, dramatic events played themselves out in the lives of the men and women of Utah. Throughout, fidelity to principles of independence, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency were sorely challenged.

The people of Utah found succor in two almost diametrically opposed responses. The New Deal offered an amalgam of programs and panaceas through which the federal government attempted to deliver …

"An Object Best Worthy Of Succor": White Virginia Women And The African Colonization Movement, 1825-1840, Caroline Simmons Hasenyager

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

(At)America.Jp: Identity, Nationalism, And Power On The Internet, 1969-2000, Gretchen Ferris Schoel

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

" america.jp" explores identity, nationalism, and power on the Internet between 1969 and 2000 through a cultural analysis of Internet code and the creative processes behind it. The dissertation opens with an examination of a real-time Internet Blues jam that linked Japanese and American musicians between Tokyo and Mississippi in 1999. The technological, cultural, and linguistic uncertainties that characterized the Internet jam, combined with the inventive reactions of the musicians who participated, help to introduce the fundamental conceptual question of the dissertation: is code a cultural product and if so can the Internet be considered a distinctly "American" technology?;A comparative …

Montpelier: The History Of A House, 1723-1998, Matthew Gantert Hyland

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This architectural history of Montpelier focuses on lives of the people who have lived and worked there between 1723 and 1998. It is not limited to the Madisons and the duPonts. Montpelier's history provides further insight into a range of moments in America's cultural history: plantation slavery in piedmont Virginia, the crisis of authority in the early American republic and the age of Jackson, ante-bellum sectionalism, Reconstruction, lifestyles of industrial magnates in the Gilded Age, and the development of historic preservation in twentieth-century America.;This study traces Montpelier's evolution as a cultural landscape composed of layered historical activity---lives, values, and choices …

Johann August Weppen's Der Hessische Officer In Amerika And David Christoph Seybold's Reizenstein: The American Revolution And The German Bürgertum's Reassessment Of America, Virginia Sasser Delacey

Institute for the Humanities Theses

While American, British, and French reactions to the American Revolution are well-known, those of the German people are not, despite the presence of almost 30,000 German soldiers in America fighting for the British army and hundreds of German volunteers fighting for the American patriots. The participation of German soldiers on both sides of the conflict inspired numerous works of German poetry, prose, and drama, all largely forgotten in the wake of the French Revolution and the rise of German Classicism and Romanticism. This thesis examines two works that have received brief mention in the past two centuries: Der hessische Officier …