Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Tracing The Dispossession Of The Enslaves Black Woman And A Potential For Resistance., Lila R. O'Conell

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

From “This Revolution Is Neither Communist Nor Capitalist!” To “Long Live The Socialist Revolution:” The Deterioration Of U.S.-Cuban Relations From 1958-1961, Julia Lyne

Honors Projects

This thesis studies the deterioration of U.S.-Cuban relations from 1958-1961. Mainly drawing from primary sources from the National Archives, it seeks to answer and understand how and why relations deteriorated so rapidly. It pushes against the common belief that U.S.-Cuban relations were doomed from the start, instead highlighting in Chapter One Fidel Castro’s rise to power (and Fulgencio Batista’s fall from power) and revealing that the U.S. government was not entirely against Castro’s seizure of power. Chapter Two explores Castro’s first year in power and the (futile) attempts made by both governments to keep relations alive. Finally, it closes with …

Coal, Land, And Ideology: Inventions Of Appalachia In The Mind Of The American Ruling Class, Zachary Harris

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Appalachia, itself a difficult to resolutely define region, has undergone the economic forces of colonialism and industrializing capitalism which allow for an excellent case study to apply Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. No American region’s national conception is likely to have been as varied and often misrepresented as that of Appalachia. From the Revolutionary American State’s invention of early white settlers as the virtuous yeoman of the Republic to the modern perception of Appalachia as backwards, conservative, and drug-addled, shifting national economic conditions resulted in a constant invention of Appalachia in congruence. Whenever the people residing in Appalachia, whether Black, …

Rabble-Rousers: A Brief Treatise On Populism And Its Ascent In The West, Andrew Baechtel

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This project aims to examine the causes for the recent ascent of populism in the West during the last dozen or so years with a lens focused on the United States and France. The primary area under observation is both the historical and contemporary role that populism and its adherents have played within our cultures. I aim to address the following: What is populism, how has it been broadly understood and how do its adherents regard it and what causes populist movements to develop. Academics in the field have produced a rich historiography that reveals a divided discourse. Previously analysts …

The Free Arena Of Literature: Science Fiction Films’ Critiques Of Capitalism In The United States, John (Jack) Michael Bilello

History

Capitalism is an inherently flawed system. The ideologies of Karl Marx have remained relevant for their critiques of the system, yet socially, his ideas are not accepted in the capitalist United States. Capitalism, as the dominant economic system of western civilization, has become synonymous with patriotism in the U.S. This has proved incredibly harmful to criticisms of capitalism, as they are met with questions of allegiance and patriotism rather than a careful reconsideration of ideals. Through science fiction films, these ideas that are usually difficult to express become much more palatable to a capitalist society. But to fully appreciate the …

Safekeeping: Slavery, Capitalism, And The Carceral State In Washington, D.C., 1830-1863, Brandon Wilson

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

By the 1830s, incarceration emerged as a two-pronged solution for racial control and economic expansion. Local and federal government built jails around the District of Columbia to detain "rowdy negro boys," men, and women, as a means to stymie their rapid movement and fuel a burgeoning domestic slave trade. People were jailed, fined, and often sold to the Deep South, providing a wellspring of capital for enslavers, justified through the lens of criminality. For the crime of petty theft, missing free papers, or in at least one case "using foul language," black people of the Washington region could find themselves …

Red Sea, White Tides, And Blue Horizons, John P. Devine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Eric Hobsbawm, in his effort to explain the fundamental divide which produced the Second World War, convincingly argues that “the crucial lines in this civil war were not drawn between capitalism as such and communist social revolution, but between ideological families: on the one hand the descendants of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the great revolutions including, obviously the Russian revolution’, on the other hand, its opponents.” This thesis argues that the American Civil War was a “great revolution” that represented a crucial transformative point in the formation of these two waring factions. The struggle was especially influential on the theory …

Dreams Of Industrial Utopias: Leading Manufacturers Of The Deep South And Their Mill Towns During The Civil War Era, Francis Michael Curran

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Broadly speaking, this dissertation explores the intersection of industrialization and social reform in the nineteenth-century American South. It focuses on leading manufacturers of the Deep South and their mill towns during the Civil War era. More precisely, it investigates the relationship between these industrialists, their mill towns, and social reform efforts of the period. In the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, William Gregg, Daniel Pratt, and Barrington King created and managed some of the largest and most financially successful manufacturing establishments in the entire South. These men, however, were more than simply industrialists. They were also idealistic and steadfast social reformers …

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 …

“I’Ve Known Rivers:” Representations Of The Mississippi River In African American Literature And Culture, Catherine Gooch

Theses and Dissertations--English

My dissertation, titled “I’ve Known Rivers”: Representations of the Mississippi River in African American Literature and Culture, uncovers the impact of the Mississippi River as a powerful, recurring geographical feature in twentieth-century African American literature that conveys the consequences of capitalist expansion on the individual and communal lives of Black Americans. Recent scholarship on the Mississippi River theorizes the relationship between capitalism, geography, and slavery. Walter Johnson’s River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom, Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton: A Global History, and Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the …

Frontier Capitalism And Unfree Labor In Middle Appalachia: The Development Of Western Pennsylvania And Maryland, 1760-1840, Nathaniel Conley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Slavery and unfree labor have been a subject of growing interest for historians, particularly when dealing with frontier areas and the rise of capitalism. Recent studies have shown that slavery and unfree labor existed well into the antebellum period in the North despite the lack of legal support for the institution. Few historians have identified the importance of slavery in the development of western areas, however, particularly in the Appalachian regions of western Pennsylvania and Maryland. As a result, concerted study of slavery in rural, western areas is lacking, particularly in the borderland region between slavery and freedom along the …

A Reformers' Union: Land Reform, Labor, And The Evolution Of Antislavery Politics, 1790–1860, Sean G. Griffin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“A Reformers’ Union: Land Reform, Labor, and the Evolution of Antislavery Politics, 1790–1860” offers a critical revision of the existing literature on both the early labor and antislavery movements by examining the ideologies and organizational approaches that labor reformers and abolitionists used to challenge both the expansion of slavery and the spread of market relationships. Extending the timeframe of the antislavery and labor movements backwards to the 1790s, this dissertation situates the origins of the pre-Civil War labor movement in republican ideology and currents of transatlantic radical thought, and traces the rise of agrarian and communitarian labor reform against the …

From Access To Excess: Agribusiness, Federal Water Programs, And The Historical Roots Of The California Water Crisis, Tracy Marie Neblina

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to show the link between water use, land consolidation, agribusinesses, and the water crisis that California began to experience in 2011. In order to better understand the relationship between the growth of agribusiness in the state and the evolution of water policy, this paper explores the historical context of land policy, the growth of farming in the San Joaquin Valley, and the development of federally funded water projects in the Central Valley. Years of expanding farmland and use of surface and underground water with limited regulation played an important role in exacerbating California’s water …

Nothin' But A Good Time: Hair Metal, Conservatism, And The End Of The Cold War In The 1980s, Chelsea Anne Watts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers a cultural history of the 1980s through an examination of one of the decade’s most memorable cultural forms – hair metal. The notion that hair metal musicians, and subsequently their fans, wanted “nothin’ but a good time,” shaped popular perceptions of the genre as shallow, hedonistic, and apolitical. Set against the backdrop of Reagan’s election and the rise of conservatism throughout the decade, hair metal’s transgressive nature embodied in the performers’ apparent obsession with partying and their absolute refusal to adopt the traditional values and trappings of “yuppies” or middle-class Americans, certainly appeared to be a strong …

An Alliance Of Ladies: Power, Public Affairs, And Class Construction In Early National New York City, Alisa J. Wade

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation studies elite women’s political consciousness in New York City between 1783 and 1815, contextualizing women’s position within the city’s social strata and the rise of market capitalism in the post-Revolutionary era. In a period of deferential politics, women within the leadership class played a unique role in remodeling the structure of republican government and determining who belonged within it. Building on the foundation of learned femininity, they constructed the etiquette that undergirded men’s political careers and oversaw the marriage market. They mediated divisions between new merchant capital and more established landed wealth, reinforcing dynastic stability. Moreover, they were …

Run Of The Mine: Miners, Farmers, And The Non-Union Spirit Of The Gilded Age, 1886-1896, Dana M. Caldemeyer

Theses and Dissertations--History

“Run of the Mine” examines why workers refused to join unions in the late nineteenth century. Through a focus on the men and women involved in the southern Midwest coal industry who quit or did not join unions, this dissertation analyzes the economic, geographic, and racial factors that contributed to workers’ attitudes toward national unions like the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). It argues that the fluidity between rural industries that allowed residents to work in multiple occupations throughout the year dramatically shaped worker expectations for their unions. This occupational fluidity that allowed miners to farm and farmers to …

Economies Of Touring In American Theatre Culture, 1835-1861, Nicole Berkin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Employing methods from print and material culture studies, this dissertation explores the economic, social, and cultural dynamics of theatrical touring during a period, 1835-1861, when the ultimate symbols of anxiety over rising industrialization, migration, and urbanization--con artists and prostitutes or "confidence men and painted women"- were associated with both theatre and transportation. I argue that touring was central to the spread of theatre culture and is therefore critical to understanding U.S. popular culture. This project examines how geographic movements, as well as the circulation of extra-theatrical materials like newspapers and photographs, were instrumental not only for performers who attempted to …

"What, To A Prisoner, Is The Fourth Of July?": Mumia Abu-Jamal And Contemporary Narratives Of Slavery, Luis Omar Ceniceros

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Writing from a specifically Black postmodern perspective, former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal composes his multimedia slave narrative as a postmodern Neo-slave narrative. From the Atlantic slave-trade to the United States prison-industrial complex, from Quobna Ottobah Cugoano to Mumia Abu-Jamal, the slave narrative exists as a critique against oppressive State powers and a collective affirmation of interiority and embodied significance. For Abu-Jamal, his incarceration is indicative of an ever-pervasive capitalist power-structure that in the past has, in the present is, and in the future will control designated groups of made marginalized masses in order that preeminent capitalist beneficiaries preserve elite …

Producing A Past: Cyrus Mccormick's Reaper From Heritage To History, Daniel Peter Ott

Dissertations

"Producing a Past" explores how the false "fact" of Cyrus McCormick's 1831 invention of the reaper came to be incorporated into the American historical cannon. From 1884 to 1932, the McCormick Harvester family and their various affiliated businesses created a useable past about their departed patriarch, Cyrus McCormick, and his role in producing civilization through advertising and the emerging historical profession. The McCormick narrative of the past which was peddled in advertising and supported in scholarship justified the family's elite position in American society and its monopolistic control of the harvester industry in the face of political and popular antagonism. …

Fear And Loathing In Los Angeles: Industrial Decentralization And The Rise And Fall Of L.A.'S Periphery, Alexander Bargmann

CMC Senior Theses

During the 1920s, Los Angeles Boosters, fearing the congestion of East coast cities,developed ideas about urban growth that emphasized industrial decentralization and urban dispersal. Before, during, and after WWII, these fears intertwined with the rise of defense related industries, particularly aviation and steel. As the city continued to grow, becoming a regional metropolis, these defense related industries, long present in Los Angeles, were brought into peripheral hubs by local boosters looking to develop places like Palmdale and Fontana. These cities grew and became, as important manufacturing and defense centers, part of the larger regional economy. These forces and boosters were …

Economic Interdependence Along A Colonial Frontier: Capitalism And The New River Valley, 1745-1789, B. Scott Crawford

History Theses & Dissertations

Historians have generally placed the beginning of capitalism in the United States in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. This assumes that the industrialization of the New England states fostered in a modern economic environment for the country as a whole. However, evidence of modern economic principles existed on the Virginia frontier as early as the mid-eighteenth century. As frontier settlers aspired to emulate eastern society, they not only sought to recreate a lifestyle similar to the one they left behind, but also set up similar governing practices, which in turn created social stratification similar to that which existed in the …