Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Conquerors Or Cowards: The Role Of The Kentucky Mounted Militia In The Indian Wars From 1768 To 1841., Joel Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis argues that Kentuckians developed the myth that the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers were the most effective troops to fight Native American warriors in the Northwest Indian War of 1790 to 1794 and the War of 1812. The idea that these troops were the best fighters originated in the decades following the War of 1812 as Kentuckians generated a communal history. Residents of the state listened to orators mythologize the successes of mounted Kentuckians in battle, while remembering the foot militia for their sacrifices rather than their shortcomings.

The Challenges Faced By The Freedmen’S Bureau Agents Of Deep East Texas, Jacy D. King

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The years following the Civil War proved to be tumultuous for the nation and caused great social and economic upheaval in the South. Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in 1865 to provide a smoother transition in former Confederate states and to guard the liberties of the former bondsmen. The agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Deep East Texas faced the same challenges and hardships as their counterparts in other areas of the state and throughout the South. Numerous historians have written on Reconstruction and the Freedmen’s Bureau in Texas, but in a broader sense.

This …

A "Real Social & Political Revolution": Nativism, Class Conflict, And Urban Reform In Portland, Maine (1840-1923), Thomas R. Macmillan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1923, Portland, Maine voters approved passed a ballot measure that jettisoned the nearly century-old Council-Mayor plan in favor of a Council-City Manager form of governance. This dramatic alteration was supported by the Portland Chamber of Commerce and the Ku Klux Klan; it allowed the centralization of political power in the hands of an appointed City Manager and a City Council dominated by business interests. Taking this campaign as its focus, the following study incorporates nativism, class conflict, and urban reform in Portland, Maine with a focus on the period of 1840-1923. It blends ethnic, political, and urban history to …

Design Guidelines: A Practical Guide To Preserving The Historic, Cultural, And Architectural Heritage Of Gladewater, Texas, Conor Herterich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In October of 1930, Columbus Marion Joiner’s oil rig, “Daisy Bradford No. 3,” blew a gusher of oil high into the East Texas sky. The subsequent storm of economic activity that resulted from the discovery of the East Texas oilfield irrevocably changed the built environment of many small towns in the region, including Gladewater, Texas. Oil money that flowed into the city funded a flurry of building projects in the 1930s and 1940s that left an indelible mark on the landscape of Gladewater’s downtown area. Unfortunately, a lack of oversight, planning, and guidance has since led to the deterioration of …

Counter Currents: Arthur Lower, Lincoln Colcord, And Ideological Isolationism In Interwar Canada And The United States, James Spruce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a comparative study of the ideology of isolationism in interwar Canada and the United States. It proceeds with that comparison using an individual subject from each country as a case study. For Canada, the subject is the historian and social scientist Arthur R.M. Lower; for the United States, it is the journalist and fiction author Lincoln Ross Colcord. Both men are worthy of study as individual isolationists of note, but they are also appropriate for the comparison because of the similarity of their isolationist positions and due to their personal backgrounds. Through the 1930s, Colcord and Lower …

Dr. Khalil Totah: Arab-American Quaker Educator And Palestinian Nationalist Crusader, 1914-1948, Amy Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Born in Ramallah, Palestine, in 1886 Dr. Khalil Totah belonged to a generation of Syrians who grew up with an appreciation for the “modern” spirit that was sweeping the world.They looked forward to a social order that fostered Arab independence, but were also concerned with universal human problems. Totah’s life coincided with a period of tremendous transformation and change in the Middle East. Some historians, most recently Erez Manela, have argued that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson inspired a rising global consciousness and that his rhetoric fostered the spread of anti-colonial movements across the Middle East. Totah and his fellow intellectuals …

Postwar Churches Of Christ Mission Work: The Philippines As A Case Study, Brady Kal Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There was a large increase in the number of Churches of Christ missionaries and missionary efforts following World War II (WWII). There were also significant changes and developments in American religious culture following WWII—Churches of Christ were not exempt from these changes. This study examines the question of how postwar developments in American religion influenced missionary efforts of American Churches of Christ by looking at examples of American missionaries in the Philippines.

The study relies heavily on primary sources, including letters and news reports from archival collections, Churches of Christ periodicals, and email correspondence with people familiar with the main …

The Open Door, Dollar Diplomacy, And The Self-Strengthening Movement: The Birth Of American Idealist Imperialism In China, 1890 - 1912, Frederic Poag

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

American Foreign Policy at the outset of the Twentieth century evolved from a realist to an idealist position as the United States transitioned to an imperial power. This ideal framework was formed in the crucible of China during the Spheres of Influence and the Open Door. The US had to play delicate game of helping China to maintain their territorial, and administrative integrity while at the same time protecting their newly acquired overseas interests against more established imperial actors. While there were many missteps, and failures during this transition perhaps the most the important result was the change toward the …

An Intersectional Feminist Perspective Of Emmett Till In Young Adult Literature, Claire Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emmett Till’s murder inspired many novelists, poets, and artists. Recently, Till has inspired several feminist young adult novelists who are introducing his case in an intersectional way to a new generation of readers. The works that I have studied are A Wreath for Emmett Till (2003) by Marilyn Nelson, The Hunger Games Trilogy (2008-2010) by Suzanne Collins, and Midnight without a Moon (2017) by Linda Jackson. By examining how the authors employ a feminist perspective, readers can understand how they are striving for a more inclusive, intersectional feminist movement. This is significant because the publishing industry, specifically for Young Adult …

Remembering The Church In The Wildwood: The Archival Processing And Digitization Of The Martinsville Baptist Church Collection, Allison N. Grimes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Martinsville Baptist Church was founded in 1912 in a rural farming community on State Highway 7 in eastern Nacogdoches County. The church was founded during a revival being held in the community of Martinsville and has been in continuous operation ever since. The church grew throughout its lifetime, reaching record attendance and membership numbers between 1950 and 1980. Since the early 2000s, church attendance and membership has been in decline. This thesis outlines the history of Martinsville Baptist Church and explains conservation measures taken during the archival processing and digitization of records in the Martinsville Baptist Church Collection.

Political Activism And Resistance In Irish America : The Clan Na Gael 1912-1916., Sara Bethany Bornemann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a historical examination of a group of male Irish Americans, the Clan na Gael, that sought Ireland’s independence from Britain during the years 1912-1916. This is a chronological study of the four years leading up to the Irish rebellion known as the Easter Rising, but it is examined from the American side of the Atlantic. The Clan na Gael was not successful politically, but had outsized influence financially on the efforts to gain Ireland’s independence. Analysis of primary source material makes the compelling argument that in focusing on elite political actors, maintaining a vociferous public relations …

African American Grandmothers As The Black Matriarch : You Don't Live For Yourself., Tanisha Nicole Stanford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined historical and contemporary roles of African American grandmothers within the familial system, and their socio-psychological experiences. The primary method of data collection was semi-structured, conversational style interviews with an oral history aspect. There were six grandmothers interviewed, two from the midwest region of the United States, and four from the southern region. The findings reveal stories that corroborate with the literature on the role of women in African American families and that of the Black matriarch, considering their strength are not inherent but necessary. They are not born matriarchs or strong black women, they become that person …

Self-Executed Dramaturgy : A Journey With Miss Ida B. Wells., Sidney Michelle Edwards

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents my experience with the production of Miss Ida B. Wells by Endesha Ida Mae Holland. I used self-executed dramaturgy to enrich my process as an actor and create multiple vocally and physically dynamic historical characters. Throughout this document, I explore how my personal acting process and development as an artist are heavily influenced by the practices of the Alexander Technique. I discuss the unique challenges that I faced with scoliosis and vocal trauma and how I used the training I received during my graduate career to address those challenges. My personal account details the specific methods by …

The Preservation Of The Colonial Spanish Horse And Robert E. Brislawn, Sr., Gretchen L. Patterson Ms.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Preservation of the Colonial Spanish Horse and

Robert E. Brislawn, Sr.

In 1493, the Spanish horse importation to the Caribbean islands provided an important stimulus to American exploration as an agent of transportation. In the late nineteenth century, the necessity of horses declined with the advent of railroads and motorized vehicles. Reduction of Native American populations through wars, disease, and forfeiture of territory also contributed to less reliance on horses. Born in 1890, Robert E. Brislawn, Sr., a dedicated horseman, decided to collect and preserve the best Spanish-type horses that he could locate as links to western heritage. From …

The Tragic City: Black Rebellion And The Struggle For Freedom In Miami, 1945-1990, Porsha Dossie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the creation of South Florida's tri-ethnic racial hierarchy during the postwar period, from 1945-1990. This racial hierarchy, coupled with discriminatory housing practices and police violence, created the necessary conditions for Dade County's first deadly uprising in 1968. Following the acquittal of several officers charged in the killing of an unarmed black businessman, a second uprising in 1980 culminated in three days and three nights of violent street warfare between law enforcement and black residents in Miami's northwest Liberty City neighborhood. The presence of state sanctioned violence at the hands of police in Liberty City set the stage …

Violence, Religion And Politics: The Late Republic And Augustan Age, Matthew Tuggle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Religion in the Late Republic was fused to politics. This study considers the relationship between violence, religion, and politics in the Late Republic and Augustan Age. It contends that Roman religion could encourage or discourage violence based upon the circumstances. The strain of Roman expansion on its political and religious institutions contributed to the civil discord that characterized the Late Republic, which created circumstances that were flexible enough for perspectives on each side to see the violence as justified. The ambition of a tribune, a sacrosanct office, could lead to circumvention of the traditional practices of the Senate, causing a …

Revisiting Roadside Attractions: A "Deep Dive" Into Florida's Weeki Wachee Springs, Rebecca Schwandt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This digital public history project explores one of the oldest and longest running of Florida's roadside attractions, Weeki Wachee Springs, during the years considered to be the park's heyday, the 1950s through the mid-1970s. With the 75th anniversary of the park approaching in 2022 and preliminary discussions of a new or expanded mermaid museum, there is a growing need to document the experiences of aging former employees and preserve park-related ephemera from that period. For this project six oral histories of former mermaids and former employees have been recorded, transcribed, and made publicly accessible through RICHES, the University of Central …

A Digital Media Exploration Of The Federal Writers' Project's Folk Song Collecting Expeditions In Depression Era Florida, Holly Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This digital thesis project examines the folk song collecting expeditions of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) in Florida between 1935 and 1942. The FWP carried out numerous folk music collecting expeditions in Florida through the Works Progress Administration. Folklorists such as Zora Neale Hurston, Alan Lomax, and Stetson Kennedy led the expeditions and traveled throughout Florida to record blues, "jook" songs, work songs, and traditional music from African American, Cuban, Czech, Greek, Minorcan, Seminole, and Slavic communities. While romantic notions of nationalism in the 1930s often promoted homogenization, the FWP emphasized inclusiveness and highlighted cultural diversity. The FWP's approach challenged …

Searching For Home At Château De La Guette And Beyond: Social And Spatial Dimensions Of Jewish German And Austrian Children's Journey To Flee Nazi Persecution Via Children's Homes In France, Sarah Schneider

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the experiences of a group of Jewish German and Austrian children who were sent on the Kindertransport to France in an effort to escape Nazi persecution. Using oral history interviews from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, written testimonies, personal papers, and archival collections from organizations such as the OEuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), this study analyzes the children's experiences at the Château de la Guette children's home in France and their subsequent time at the children's home Hôtel des Anglais in La Bourboule. This thesis examines the social and spatial dimensions of the children's …

The First Florida Cavalry (Us): Union Enlistment In The Civil War's Southern Periphery, Tyler Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1863, along the southern periphery of the American Civil War, a Union Brigadier General began recruiting Southern white men into a Union cavalry regiment known as the First Florida Cavalry (US). This study investigates the regiment and those who enlisted in it to show the fluidity of Southern loyalty during the Civil War and the conditions of the Deep South Homefront that existed on the periphery of Union occupation and continue to exist on the periphery of Civil War historiography. While scholars have recently addressed many aspects of Southern dissent in the Civil War, significantly less attention has been …

To The Memory Of Brave Men: The Imperial War Graves Commission And India's Missing Soldiers Of The First World War, Roger Sims

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the commemoration of Indian soldiers who died during the First World War by the Imperial War Graves Commission, Britain's official government body overseeing all imperial commemoration efforts. For the soldiers of the Indian Army their war experience was split between the Western Front in Europe and Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq. They were also far more ethnically, religiously, and lingually diverse than their British and Dominion counterparts. In order to examine how geography, religion, and the imperial relationship affected Britain's commemoration of India's war dead, this study uses the Commission's own records to recreate how the IWGC created …

Differing Perspectives: Positive Accounts Of The Down To The Countryside Movement, Michael Nettina

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the number of narratives regarding the negative outcomes and experiences of the Down to the Countryside Movement during the Cultural Revolution, there is a scarce amount of literature in the West regarding the fringe benefits of the movement. The historiography in the field is limited, with most Western writers only focusing on the unfortunate consequences of the movement, such as violence, rape, limited access to education, and the strain on families affected by the political movement. The purpose of this study is to give a voice to the Chinese sent-down youth whose positive thoughts on the Down to the …

An Archaeological Exploration Of Agriculture, Trade, And Indigenous Relationships At A Seventeenth-Century New England Site, Jasmine Coreen Saxon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A multi-method approach including ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry, historical research, excavations, and artifact analyses was used to gather data at a 17th century archaeological site in South Glastonbury, Connecticut. Interpretation of these data provided evidence that the Europeans who occupied this site were involved in a variety of activities such as agriculture, trade, and developing Indigenous relationships. These activities included cultivating an agricultural surplus instead of relying on subsistence farming, access to trading networks that extended throughout the Colonies and into Europe, and cohabitation with the Indigenous peoples in the area. This research led to an examination of various historical narratives …

A Church Adrift: Virginia's Church Of England, 1607-1677, Katherine Gray Blank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Church of England in the Virginia colony is an institution which has been much overlooked in historiography. Traditionally, historians have focused upon the weakness of the church, with its lack of a complete hierarchy and dearth of ministers. These weaknesses, combined with some of the more unsavory attitudes and actions of early colonists, have led many scholars to postulate that religion did not play much of a role in the Virginia colony. While the early colonists did struggle, and the church was weak, historians have overlooked the fact that most Virginians were seventeenth-century Englishmen, and inhabited a world that …

Slavery's Holy Profits: Religion And Capitalism In The Antebellum Lower Mississippi Valley, John Lindbeck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the antebellum lower Mississippi Valley, a place in which white Americans identified the commercial progress of the slave-based cotton kingdom with the manifestation of God’s will. It reconciles the two different “Souths” described by recent historians of slavery and capitalism and scholars of antebellum southern evangelicalism. The dissertation begins with the early years of white settlement in the lower Mississippi Valley, when the connection between commercial prosperity and God’s providence was not clear. By the 1830s and 1840s, however, these twin ideals merged as one. In those decades, churches and ministers provided stable centers of faith …

I'M Gonna Stay Right Here Until They Tear This Barrelhouse Down: Black Power And The Origins Of Blues Tourism In Greenville, Mississippi, Tyler Dewayne Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation connects and comments on the historiography of the black freedom struggle as well as studies of the blues and blues tourism. To blues studies, it recognizes the artists discovered by Worth Long as well as his field research and festival production in the 1970s. It moves away from the social constructions of authenticity and segregation of sound, and it emphasizes black agency. My dissertation also contributes to the historiography of the black freedom struggle by providing a much-needed examination of rural economic and community development in 1970s Mississippi. For studies of blues tourism, it announces a revisionist account …

Rebuilt And Remade: The Florida Citrus Industry, 1909-1939, James Padgett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior to orange juice concentrate, Florida citrus was already an industrialized agricultural sector. This thesis explores the early-20th-century Florida citrus industry and demonstrates that contemporary farming practices were influential in advancing how citrus was produced, processed, worked, marketed, and regulated in early-20th-century Florida. Restarted after devastating freezes in 1894-1895, resolute Florida growers rebuilt their groves into marvels of large-scale citrus fruit production. Continuing a legacy in experimental crossbreeding, improved varieties of citrus were developed to lengthen the season and markets. Advocated by nurserymen and university educators, biological innovation helped the citrus thrive in the 1910s and 1920s from adverse weather …

Sanford, Debary Hall And The New South Movement In Central Florida, Sarah Thorncroft

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The so-called New South movement coincided with national industrialization in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. In the New South, modernization focused on the development of small diversified farms, mills that processed cotton and tobacco, and small cities that connected the countryside to national markets and provided area residents with mass produced goods. Florida's experience and more specifically development around Lake Monroe in Central Florida complicates and expands our understanding of the New South. Located in what was considered a frontier area, Sanford on the south shore of the lake and DeBary Hall on the north shore illustrate the development …

A History Of Nondenominational Churches In Denver And Beyond, 1945–2000, R. Norton Herbst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From 1945-2000, nondenominational churches in America developed from a scattering of independent congregations to one of the largest groups of churches in the nation. Few scholars have studied these churches as a cohesive movement. And many think they burst onto the American scene around the 1990s, though statistics suggest otherwise. Two questions, therefore, need to be addressed: What is the historical genealogy of nondenominational churches in modern America? And, is there a recognizable nondenominational church identity?

This study explores these questions in three ways. First, I survey the origins and development of Protestant denominationalism from the Reformation through the early …

The Classical Versus The Grotesque Body In Edith Wharton's Fiction, Joshua T. Temples

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In her landmark works The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913), and The Age of Innocence (1920), Edith Wharton responds to earlier depictions of the classical, pure Victorian and Edwardian woman. Wharton's "inconvenient" women overturn popular stereotypes. Subsequently, they are barred from their social groups, but they are independent, unlike the complicit and obedient women of the classical body, most of whom ascribe to the trope of the "Angel in the House." The grotesque seeks to undercut the unrealistic expectations enforced by the classical through its embodiment of progression and humanity, and Wharton is drawn to …