Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Georgic Rhetoric, Virtue And The Commercialization Of Agriculture In Pennsylvania From 1785 To 1870, Naomi Ulmer

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This research examines how farmers in Pennsylvania between 1785 and 1870 were persuaded by georgic agrarianism to take social, economic and even moral risks to abandon a semi-subsistence mode of production in favor of commercial production. The georgic rhetoric is derived from Virgil’s poem “The Georgics.” It discusses agriculture and man’s labor in nature. Virgil discusses the relationship between man, nature and his ability, or inability, to control nature to ensure his own survival. Beginning in the late 18^th century, supporters of improved agriculture, mostly wealthy and upper-class gentlemen, tried to persuade common yeomen farmers to produce for the …

In Search Of Veritas: Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories And The Emergence Of An American Culture Of Suspicion, 1963-1993., Thurman Lee Storing

Theses and Dissertations from 2019

“In Search of Veritas: Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories and the Emergence of an American Culture of Suspicion, 1963-1993” argues that the evolving theories and concepts contained in the literature and media surrounding the Kennedy assassination demonstrate the deteriorating trust in American government institutions that resulted from the political and social climate of the 1960s through the 1980s. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, marked a pivotal and horrific point in American history. The shocking murder and unanswered questions that surrounded the young president’s death traumatized the nation, leaving a psychological wound that …

"Between Two Fires": Gender And American Socialism In The Progressive Era, Elisia Harder

Senior Theses

The Progressive Era (1890-1920) in the United States was a time of immense change in both the political and private spheres. Movements which sought to fundamentally upend the political status quo gained in popularity, including that of socialism. Socialism promised equality for workers regardless of gender, something that appealed to many American women at the time. A myriad of upper/middle-class and working-class women were thus initially drawn to the socialist movement. These women, however, would not find the salvation they were promised. Instead, they would confront the very same misogyny they experienced in mainstream political parties, as their struggle was …

Stop Talking About Sorrow: Nixon’S Communications Strategy After Lam Son 719, Dominic K. So

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

March 1971 was tough for President Richard Nixon. The American people were tired of the Vietnam War, with many still recovering from the violent anti-war protests of 1970. Congress had just passed an amendment prohibiting U.S. ground troops from operating outside of the borders of South Vietnam. Both the public and secret negotiations with Hanoi were stalled. Confidential channels with Beijing and Moscow about diplomatic initiatives had gone cold. Moreover, Lam Son 719, the joint U.S. and South Vietnamese incursion into Laos that began in February, was turning out to be a failure. The operation, Nixon’s military gamble to prove …

Contextualizing Filipina/O Experiences Through The Life And Lens Of Virgil Duyungan, Benjamin Huff

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper serves a dual purpose: to examine the world of Filipina/o immigrants and Filipina/o Americans during the 1930s in the Puget Sound region, as well as look at the life and death of Filipina/o labor leader Virgil S. Duyungan. Incorporating these two different aspects into one paper reveals how Duyungan’s experiences contextualize and highlight key issues of the greater Filipina/o community in the region at the time, such as racial identity and tensions, labor rights, corruption and exploitation, and socio-economic conditions. By utilizing a body of primary and secondary sources, such as books, journal articles, government documents, images and …

The Legacy Of Lynching: On Representation, Remembrance, And Reconciliation, Jackie Chesser

Liberal Arts Capstones

The Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial of Peace and Justice is a memorial rooted in recognizing and naming the victims of lynching and racial terror. This memorial is a safe space for people to connect with history and learn about the injustices faced by their ancestors, and, conversely, the injustices wrought upon others by their ancestors. This memorial doesn’t stop at recognizing the victims, it also explains the effects of racial terror beyond lynching, including the Jim Crow Era and mass incarceration.

The National Memorial of Peace and Justice is also focused on extending its impact though its Memorial Monument …

Heirloom And Hybrid Corn In The American Corn Belt: An Ethnography Of Seed Saving Practices, Rachelle Halaska

Theses and Dissertations

This ethnographic study examines the practices and context of contemporary heirloom corn seed saving practices and projects in the American Corn Belt. It examines heirloom corn conservation and hand pollination practices at Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa in 2015. From there the study extends to interviews with heirloom farmers, breeders and gardeners in Wisconsin and Illinois. The findings indicate that the lines between the mainstream and the margins of corn production are highly blurred, and that there is a considerable amount of cross-pollination of ideas and practices between alternative corn farming and dominant industrial hybrid production in the American …

The Crucible Of History:How Apology And Reconciliation Created Modern Conceptions Of The Salem Witch Trials, Heaven Umbrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, historians, authors, and amateur enthusiasts alike have been mesmerized by the Salem witch trials. Most of the literature focuses on the trials themselves and takes one of three approaches: anthropological; sociological; or conspiratorial. Recently Gretchen Adams, professor of history at Texas Tech University, approached the trials differently, focusing on memory. She narrowed on how the “specters of Salem” loomed over American cultural and public memory. Apart from Adams, little scholarly inquiry has focused on the aftermath of the trials, especially how it affected the people directly involved. This thesis will expand the historiography of the Salem witch hunt …

Curing Consumption: Blood Drinkers Of The Nineteenth Century, Rachel Erin Catlett Widmer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the nineteenth century burgeoning cities in the United States saw the spread of disease. Most common among all parts of society was tuberculosis or as it was commonly known at the time, consumption. The most terrifying aspect of consumption was that it could attack anyone at any time and no cure existed. The poetic image of a red stained handkerchief was a death sentence. The common cure was to seek fresh air in a warmer climate. However, for some Americans an experimental cure seemed hopeful and easily accessible, drinking blood. According to many newspaper accounts consumptive victims were not …

The River Gave And The River Hath Taken Away: How The Arkansas River Shaped The Course Of Arkansas History, Edward N. Andrus

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Arkansas River molded the history of Arkansas. It also shaped human to human interactions and human relationships with the physical environment. Since humans first encountered the river their lives have been influenced by it. The river played a significant role in creating the environmental conditions that contributed to a specific existence within the river valley. It affected what types of flora and fauna existed, the quality of the soil, and the climate. The river was a vital component in the evolution of the cultures and societies that developed in the river valley. Conversely, humans affected the river. The ways …

A Power Man’S Theology: Marvel’S Luke Cage And Black Liberation Theology, Diarron B. Morrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Netflix released Marvel’s Luke Cage in 2016 to critical acclaim. Born from a 1970s comic book, the series features Luke Cage, an African-American superhero. Cage is a big, bald, bulletproof black man. Instead of tights and a cape, Cage wears a hoodie calling the audience to remember Trayvon Martin and other victims of white racism. Theologian James Cone created Black Liberation Theology in the 1970s. As a result of Cone’s work, Black Liberation Theology addresses the issue of white racism from a theological standpoint. In this thesis I present a close reading of Marvel’s Luke Cage using Black Liberation Theology …

Looking For Group: Sociality, Embodiment, And Institutions In World Of Warcraft, Christopher J. Cooley

Theses and Dissertations

This ethnography examines the varying degrees of conflict between multiple stakeholders involved in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW). The game’s designers, like many software developers in the contemporary world, tend to be guided by an ideology influenced by classical liberalism, but also inspired by a utopian view of technology in general. That ideological position has directly affected many aspects of the game, from the largely unregulated in-game economy, to the strong emphasis on individual mastery of the game’s systems to progress through the complete content of the game world. World of Warcraft advertises itself not …

An Entangled History: Native American And Euro-American National And Cultural Identities (1768-1833), Paul Edward Jentz

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines political and cultural interactions between Native Americans and Euro-Americans during the transition from imperial colonialism to settler colonialism. It employs the concept of entanglement to convey the inextricable linkages that arose between the two groups over time, linkages also marked by the dissimilar effects of contact between them. As such, this study adopts a world history lens, arguing that no culture has historically existed in isolation, so no culture can be effectively studied in isolation. Five case studies explore accelerated tensions between Indians and Whites that resulted through the shifts in negotiations of power between them as …

Special Relationships: Anglo-American Latin America Policy And The Redefining Of National Security, 1969-1982, Benjamin Jared Pack

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From 1969–82, the United States and Great Britain redefined national security in a distinctive way, separating the notion of national security from its traditional foundations in realist thought. The way the two powers come to define national security was the result of more than a century of historical interaction with Latin America and their own historical experience with ideology, imperialism, and colonialism. As such, the way the United States and Great Britain perceived their respective special relationships influenced the way they chose to intervene in matters of national security, particularly in Latin America’s Southern Cone countries of Chile and Argentina. …

Analysis Of Nation-Building During Insurgency In U.S. Defense Policy Strategy, Joseph Valles

MSU Graduate Theses

U.S. defense policy has often relied on a strategy of nation-building to reform the local government and address the root causes of the instability in a given nation or region. This strategy has, in recent years, been criticized for being ineffective and a wasteful drain on American resources. This paper will determine if such criticism is valid by analyzing the performance of four security environments where such a strategy was used: Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The paper will determine if such a strategy was effective in these conflicts by analyzing the progress of reforms and, when possible, the …

In Defense Of Security, Liberty And Property: The English Origins Of An Individual Right To Bear Arms, Allan I. Morris

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Does the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provide for an individual or collective right to bear arms? My thesis addresses this question by examining the development of seventeenth and eighteenth-century English common law and political and legal philosophy to support an individual right to bear arms and demonstrates how the founding fathers were greatly influenced by this English precedent.

As the records of the Boston Massacre trials demonstrate, the English common law and natural rights theory firmly established a fundamental right of self-preservation, which under the exigencies of the situation might be exercised through the use of firearms. During …

Seventeenth-Century Spanish Colonial Identity In New Mexico: A Study Of Identity Practices Through Material Culture, Caroline M. Gabe

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation explores how seventeenth-century Spanish colonial households expressed their group identity at a regional level in New Mexico. Through the material remains of daily practice and repetitive actions, identity markers tied to adornment, technological traditions, and culinary practices are compared between 14 assemblages to test four identity models. Seventeenth-century colonists were eating a combination of Old World domesticates and wild game on colonoware and majolica serving vessels, cooking using Indigenous pottery, grinding with Puebloan style tools, and conducting household scale production and prospecting. While assemblages are consistent in basic composition, variations are present tied to socioeconomic status. This blending …

Trial & Error: Royal Authority & Families In The Colonization Of The British Floridas, 1763-1784, Deborah L. Bauer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation will examine the relationship between families, the British Crown, and colonization patterns in mid-eighteenth-century Florida. Agents of royal authority, such as colonial governors, and White, European, Protestant families, would serve as the bulwark upon which the Crown would design and implement its ideal colonization scheme. Carefully created by royal officials, adherence to the plan would result in the successful establishment and growth of loyal and productive colonies. Noncompliance ultimately foreshadowed failure. The state used the social unit of families in East and West Florida as a "tool of empire” to ensure the political, economic, and military success of …

Andrew T. Hatcher: Press, Public Information & Perception For A Nation In Transition Historical Content Analysis On The First African American To Serve As A White House Associate Press Secretary, Nayita Wilson

LSU Master's Theses

Andrew T. Hatcher rose to one of the highest positions in U.S. government when he became the first African American to serve as associate White House press secretary in 1960 under the administration of President John F. Kennedy and during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. This is a historical content analysis that analyzes Hatcher’s role through primary sources, presidential archives, and select national, local, and minority newspapers.

The overarching purpose of this study was to ascertain Hatcher’s role as associate White House press secretary during civil rights. This study provides further insight into: 1) to what extent did …

The Ties That Bind: The Meaning Of Attachment In State Constitutional Revision, 1820-1845, Allison J. Morvant

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the changing conception of attachment in state constitutional conventions from 1820 – 1845. During the colonial and early national periods, attachment was defined primarily through property ownership. Accordingly, early state constitutions limited the rights of citizenship, namely suffrage, to free white men who possessed a freehold. Over time, in response to pressure from upwardly mobile white males, state constitutional conventions began to create a new political order based on an expanded definition of attachment: non-propertied white males could exhibit attachment and be granted citizenship through affection, civic virtue, and public duty.

Why Did The Eisenhower Administration Decide To Deploy Jupiter Missiles In Turkey: A Case Study In Nuclearization Of Nato Strategy, Murat Iplikci

Theses and Dissertations

Looking out at the international political landscape of the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the Eisenhower administration was determined to challenge the evident appeal of Communism, particularly in Western Europe. NATO, which was a fragile organization due to the devastation of World War II (WWII), and its members were prone to any communist attack, either by military forces or through political parties. They had to be defended. The Eisenhower administration saw nuclear weapons as the only means to defend the alliance against the massive threat of the Soviet Union. Therefore, President Eisenhower committed nuclear weapons to NATO as a …

“Nothing Material Occurred”: The Maritime Captures That Caused Then Outlasted The United States’ Quasi War With France, Emma Zeig

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the French maritime seizures during the eighteenth-century US Quasi War with France (also called the half war, or the United States’ undeclared war with France), encompassing events on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, in France, the United States, and the Caribbean, particularly Haiti. The analysis focuses on the captured ships, telling the stories of seamen who feared for their lives and merchants who lost their ships. This point of view allows the thesis to explore an area of the Quasi War that are less documented in other histories: how civilian participants experienced violence and the indifference …

Eleanor Lansing Dulles And The Fate Of Berlin: 1953-1989, Chad Everett Shelley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

At the end of the Second World War, Berliners lived in a war-ravaged city and faced occupation under Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The occupation of Berlin and Germany became a competition between capitalism and communism. East Germany became a communist nation while West Germany recovered under the supervision of capitalist nations. In the 1950s West Berlin found a new ally in the director of the Berlin Desk at United States Department of State, Eleanor Lansing Dulles.

Eleanor Dulles came from a privileged family who participated in American diplomacy at the end of the nineteenth …

Complicating The Narrative: Using Jim's Story To Interpret Enslavement, Leasing, And Resistance At Duke Homestead, Jennifer Melton

Theses and Dissertations

In the antebellum South, an enslaved person was more likely to be leased out than to be sold during his or her lifetime. Despite its ubiquity, leasing of enslaved people is rarely interpreted at historic sites and is not widely understood by the general public. In this project, I examine leasing and resistance to slavery in North Carolina through the lens of Jim, an enslaved man leased by Washington Duke at the property that is now Duke Homestead State Historic Site. While Duke is famous in North Carolina as founder of the American Tobacco Company, he was a yeoman tobacco …

Learning The Land: Indians, Settlers, And Slaves In The Southern Borderlands, 1500-1850, William Cane West

Theses and Dissertations

Between 1500 and 1850, Native Americans, Europeans, and enslaved African Americans competed for territory within the landscape of the lower Arkansas Valley. The complex transitional environment between delta bottomlands, interior highlands, and Great Plains fostered the co-existence of competing Native and Euro-American claims to regional sovereignty and settlement well into the nineteenth century. The geopolitical divides often hinged on debates over environmental resources and scientific practices. Indigenous polities from the Mississippians to the Quapaws and Osages adapted to environmental changes to establish and maintain their borders in the face of European colonial presence. In the nineteenth century, Cherokees and white …

Leaders In The Making: Higher Education, Student Activism, And The Black Freedom Struggle In South Carolina, 1925-1975, Ramon M. Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Leaders in the Making examines the shifting political and social consciousness of African American college students in South Carolina and their reaction to and impact on the Black freedom struggle in the state between 1925 and 1975. Placing young people at the center of the story, this dissertation explains the process by which race leaders were cultivated, an effort that largely occurred in segregated public and private high schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Black South Carolinians ingeniously transformed these symbols of racial inferiority into incubators of the post-World War Two generation of youth activists that dismantled Jim …

Men Set On Fire. Algernon Sidney & John Adams: Remodeling Anglo-American Republicanism, Deborah B. Charnoff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation systematically examines the republican political ideas of the relatively unknown seventeenth-century English aristocratic Algernon Sidney, a passionate author and political activist who was executed for his ideas, and the famous but generally misunderstood eighteenth-century American revolutionary, Founder, and second President of the United States, John Adams. Republicanism is an entangled field of intellectual history in which historians, political scientists, legal scholars, and others have grappled for years, often without regard to the work of those in disciplines other than their own; yet we have consistently failed to take into account critical elements that inform the tradition, indeed, one …

Runaway: A History Of Postwar New York In Four Factories, Andy Battle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At midcentury, New York City was among the preeminent manufacturing centers in the United States. Within a generation, this manufacturing economy suffered an extraordinary collapse. Beginning in the 1950s, workers and their unions began to use the term “runaway” to describe factories that pulled up stakes in New York and set them back down in other climes. This dissertation explores the deindustrialization of New York City through case studies of “runaway” plants, or factories that left New York for the American South or abroad between the years 1945 and 1975.

In general, the manufacturers that remained in New York at …

Imagining Africa: An Analysis Of Tropes And Motifs In Turn Of The Century Black Music, Shane Ortale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

References to Africa exist in different forms in diasporic music from every country in the New World. In the case of the United States, an abundance of song lyrics of black writers and musicians from the turn of the twentieth century contain imaginings of the African continent. This thesis analyzes the many ways that these depictions were produced within the minstrel and vaudeville genres. While these artists faced many obstacles that limited the scope of their lyrical content, they used diverse strategies to undermine the racist world in which they lived. By juxtaposing and conflating tropes about black folks in …

In Her Own Hands: How Girls And Women Used The Piano To Chart Their Futures, Expand Women's Roles, And Shape Music In America, 1880–1920, Sarah F. Litvin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

American girls and women used the parlor piano to reshape their lives between 1880 and 1920, the years when the instrument reached the height of its commercial and cultural popularity. Newspapers, memoirs, biographies, women’s magazines, personal papers, and trade publications show that female pianists engaged in public-facing piano play and work in pursuit of artistic expression, economic gain, self-actualization, social mobility, and social change. These motivations drove many to use their piano skills to play beyond the parlor, by studying in conservatory, working as classical and popular music performers and composers, founding and teaching at schools, working as department store …