Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Women And Children First: American Magazine Image Depictions Of Japan And The Japanese, 1951-1960, Alexander Adorjan Somogyi

Honors Papers

By the close of the American Occupation of Japan in 1952, Japan was a sovereign nation, a lingering World War II menace, and much needed Cold War ally of the United States. American magazine print media imagery and advertising therefore had to erase its earlier wartime propaganda depictions of the Japanese while rebranding Japan as a harmless friend to the U.S. In the hundred years after Commodore Matthew Perry’s opening of Japan in 1853, American magazines have utilized several visual trends, stereotypes, and tropes in order to cast the Japanese as peaceful, simple, and eager followers of U.S. culture and …

Making Space: Sacred, Public And Private Property In American National Parks, Adina Langer

Honors Papers

The origins of America's national park movement lay in the intellectual and political milieu of the 19th century, when American artists, writers and politicians, conscious of a relatively short national history, longed for tangible symbols of a unique national identity. Historian Louis Warren argues, for example, that:

"Whereas the English, French, and Italian peoples could point to ancient ruins, cathedrals that were hundreds of years old, and traditions of arts and letters that went back almost to the dawn of Christianity, American culture was, by comparison, very new. Many found the material to fill this gap in America's monumental landscapes, …

Scarlett's Sisters: The Privileged Negotiations Of Plantation Women, Nancy Weissman-Galler

Honors Papers

This study examines the diaries, letters, and memoirs of twenty-six white plantation women in the American South during the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction periods. I have utilized these materials to reconstruct the lifecycle of plantation women and to establish their perspectives on their lives. In particular, I have focused on their participation in the culturally encouraged progression from bellehood, a period of relative power and independence, to mistresshood. For these women the transition entailed a loss of freedom and the addition of numerous domestic and social duties. Despite these added responsibilities, these women embraced the role of plantation mistress. …

Mailer's American Dream, Charles D. Ettelson

Honors Papers

The American dream has been in existence almost as long as America (as a political entity) has. From the Puritan's desire for the "City on the Hill" to Hunter S. Thompson's recent book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Americans have been convinced that the individual can transcend earthly evil and decadence, and attain a state of perfection. The American dream is the visionary ideal that is represented in social form by utopian thinking. A personalized ideal would appear easier to attain than a social one because of its apparent …

Sherwood Anderson And The Art Of American Autobiography, Linda S. Bergmann

Honors Papers

This paper will consider autobiography from these various perspectives in search of a means of evaluation of autobiography in terms of the restrictions and potentials of the genre. The intention, the truth, the theme, or the formal value--alone-- are insufficient for a valid conception of the genre. Their interaction is what makes some autobiographies more than historical curiosities--what make them successful and enduring works of art. This study of American autobiography will focus on Sherwood Anderson's autobiography and autobiographical novel, A Storyteller's Story and Tar. Anderson deals with the familiar themes of American literature and American autobiography : the individual …

The Bicycle In America To 1900, William Herbert Mariboe

Honors Papers

The trend in American History in recent years has been to put a much-needed emphasis on the social history of the American people. Studies have been made of their habits, customs, reform movements, economic problems--in short, anything that informs us of the way our ancestors lived and behaved has become history. With this new interest in social habits, history has ceased to be the chronicle of a series of revolutions, treaties. elections, and wars. It has become a living, breathing story of the rise and development of America and the people who inhabited it. This change is not meant to …