Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“As An American, May I Have The Privilege Of Pulling The Switch?” : The Fate Of Julius And Ethel Rosenberg During The Second Red Scare In Cold War America, Morgan Peters

Honors Theses

The Cold War escalated at the end of World War II when the tension between the United States and Soviet Union significantly increased. The stakes of the Cold War were considerably high, especially during the atomic age. Hence the creation of the Venona Project, which began in 1943 and was originally a small project intended to break down Soviet diplomatic communications, but later expanded to be a full-blown counterintelligence operation. The project’s American cryptologists took nearly two years to decode the first Soviet coded telegraph cable. The project exposed multiple Soviet Spies in the United States, some of the most …

The Codependent Development Of Patriotism And Xenophobia In The United States, Particularly In Regard To Arabs And Muslims In America Following September 11, 2001, Zachary Baum

Honors Theses

The United States has always claimed to be endowed with unique values, such as tolerance and justice, and so throughout its history has sought to convey these values with expressions of patriotism. However, is this patriotism simply symbolic, and further, does it even lead itself to xenophobia and racism. This thesis seeks to answer this question by examining the genesis and development of patriotism throughout the country’s history, as well as the way in which its racism and xenophobia have changed. Beginning with a general examination of the usefulness and positivity of patriotism from a scholarly standpoint, the basic points …

Nevertheless, She Persisted: Title Ix And The Fight For Gender Equity In Athletics In The Twentieth Century, Gillian O'Dowd

Honors Theses

During the first half of the twentieth century, the field of athletics in the United States was dominated by a culture of masculinity. Due to this inherent link with masculinity, American women were kept from participating in sports to protect their feminine nature. As the years passed of continuous oppression, only a small handful of women were able to fight back and make a name for themselves as prominent and successful athletes. To combat the larger issue of gender discrimination in America, a women’s movement was launched in the 1960s and 1970s. This movement would in turn spur the creation …

The Federal Art Project: Intentions, Goals, And Legacy, Meghan Bentley

Honors Theses

Created under the umbrella program called the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression, the Federal Art Project (FAP) was a unique program that attempted to put struggling artists back to work and aimed to preserve artistic skill in American society. This thesis examines the efficacy and legacy of the Federal Art Project by examining the legitimacy of the criticisms levied against the FAP, the effect the FAP was able to have on the American public and arts community, and closes by examining the findings of these claims within the context of a collection of local FAP paintings. While …

Bread And Repression, Too: The Battle For Labor’S Memory And The Lawrence Textile Strike Of 1912, Andrew Hubbard

Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on the historiography of the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912 as representative of a larger trend of repression of American labor narratives. It draws from oral history accounts, news coverage and analysis from 1912, resources at the Lawrence History Center collected throughout the city’s process of memorialization, secondary historical accounts of the event, and formative works of labor history.

The first chapter introduces the American labor narrative, the history of repression by authority, the efforts of labor historians to memorialize suppressed history, and the role that monuments, historians, and popular fictional accounts play in the formation …

Forgotten Women: The Involuntary Sterilization Of American Indian Women During The Twentieth Century, Morgan Peters

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the marginalization of American Indian women, specifically in mainstream media and social movements. From 1970 to 1980 it is estimated that at least 25% of indigenous women between the ages of 15 to 44 were sterilized, with some speculating the number to be as high as 50%. American Indian women were not the only targets of sterilization abuse; African American women and Latina women also had similar experiences. The public was more aware of these women’s experiences than those of American Indian women because the mainstream media was more likely to cover the involuntary procedures of women …

The Importance Of State Intervention In Improving Gender Inequality In China, Jenny Cheng

Honors Theses

Over the last century, China has undergone a tremendous amount of change. For women, these changes have brought unprecedented rights and opportunities. The state plays a critical role in the status of women in China and this is shown in the accomplishments that the Chinese government has achieved regarding women's rights. To understand gender disparity in China, it is important to understand traditional customs and rituals, traditional ideologies, and the traditional roles that the state used to play in the subordination women in ancient Chinese society. However, enormous changes have occurred in the last century. The fall of the last …

“Botany Bay”: The State Of Society At Union College During The Early Nineteenth Century, Andrew Cassarino

Honors Theses

The history of Union College spans nearly the entire history of the United States. Founded in 1795, the school emerged as one of the nation’s premier educational institutions in the early nineteenth century. The changes occurring on the national stage often entered public life on Union’s campus, and President Eliphalet Nott and students actively participated in the civil discourse of the period. The most prevalent issues on campus included the authority of government, temperance, and the question of enslavement. Historians often like to find commonality among individuals with regards to their views on the most pressing topics of the time, …

The Northern Civil Rights Movement: How The Brothers Fought Housing, Employment, And Education Discrimination And Police Brutality In Albany, Ny, Paige Mcinnis

Honors Theses

The North has a conflicted racial history, as it disapproved of slavery and Jim Crow, but kept blacks segregated institutionally and socially. Blacks have been marginalized and excluded from housing, employment, and educational opportunities throughout history, and demanded equality during the Civil Rights Movement. Fighting systematic racism in the North posed greater challenges for blacks, as northerners denied the existence of discrimination, and segregation was not legally enforced. Revolutionary groups strategized ways to overcome oppression, but were targeted by the police, government, and local politicians to prevent them from succeeding. The Brothers, a black male organization in Albany, NY, used …

The Duality Of Freedom: The Colony Of Rhode Island’S Slave Trade Complex, Thomas Shields

Honors Theses

In the eighteenth century British colonies there existed a duality of freedom, in which salutary neglect facilitated economic opportunism in the form of the slave trade. This paper examines how the colony of Rhode Island was a microcosm of this freedom duality in the merchant capitalist world. The colony became the epicenter of the slave trade in British North America, while also the home to a fervent abolition movement headed by the Quakers. This thesis contends that broad economic and individual freedoms in the colony created the environment where the slave trade prospered, the exact opposite of freedom.

After the …